Has anyone used the SPL De Esser ?

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Has anyone used the SPL De Esser ?

Post by playagibson » Wed Feb 06, 2013 6:48 pm

Hey there,

I'm debating on whether to purchase the Renaissance or the SPL de esser.
The SPL looks nice and it has M/S mode.
Is it better ?
They are around the same price.

Rich.

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Re: Has anyone used the SPL De Esser ?

Post by mojobone » Fri Feb 08, 2013 10:25 pm

I haven't used either, but word is, they both sound great, and the SPL is a lil' more flexible.
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Re: Has anyone used the SPL De Esser ?

Post by jdhogg » Sat Feb 09, 2013 7:18 am

FabFilter Pro-DS ;)

I think its best to go one of two ways on this
1. Use the free ones like spitfish
2. Get FabFilter Pro-DS. I think the demo is for 30 days so you should be able to fix your track at least.

imho Always avoid waves unless there is no option due to WUP.

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Re: Has anyone used the SPL De Esser ?

Post by playagibson » Sat Feb 09, 2013 9:23 am

Thanks , I'll look into that.
I have Melodyne which is time consuming,
but works.
Logic 9 has its own de esser which has
some limitations.
Often I find after final tweaks to the vocals
I need to make more adjustments to the ssss
sounds.
I want a de esser that can fix the ssss
without affecting the entire vocal tone.

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Re: Has anyone used the SPL De Esser ?

Post by andygabrys » Sat Feb 09, 2013 2:50 pm

I have Melodyne which is time consuming,
but works.
its my choice actually now. Melodyne has a good video on adjusting the sibilant freq's on their site.
Logic 9 has its own de esser which has
some limitations.
its nearly as good as several others - the Ren de-esser, the UAD pre de-esser (own those), and the SPL de-esser (demo'd. caveat being it de-esses at two bands, but the freq isn't adjustable).
Often I find after final tweaks to the vocals
I need to make more adjustments to the ssss
sounds.
yep, compression especially 1176 style brings out the edge. you might consider Waves vocal rider as well for an alternative to compression / distortion and still level the vocal. better than by hand.
I want a de esser that can fix the ssss
without affecting the entire vocal tone.
I vote for manual de-essing in melodyne (yes lots of work separating the esses and FFFFFF's from the rest of the sung syllables and bringing down the gain), or by automating sibilant syllables down on the vocal track volume in Logic.

I found that all those de-essers above (I own several) don't actually effect enough without sounding lisp-y. If you have very slight sibilance, they are cool. but for the heavy lifting, I don't think anything beats manually getting in there and doing it. which of course is a royal pain, and it can only really be done after final vocal processing, otherwise when you add top end, the esses come out more.

cutting high freq on vocal reverbs and delays can make the esses less noticeable.

Fab @ puremix has a vocal processing video where he evaluates different de-essers. My opinion? Most of the de-essing is so slight, I really don't think its doing much.

If I had to use a plugin, I would look at the http://www.eiosis.com/index.html eiosis de-esser, which allows you to lower the volume of the sibilant parts of the vocal without darkening the tone (the tone darkening I think leads to the "lisp" sound on heavy use). The website isn't working right now, don't know what's up. But its the guy who does the programming for Steven Slate as well.

or maybe the Oxford Supressor.

good luck Rich!

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Re: Has anyone used the SPL De Esser ?

Post by Len911 » Sat Feb 09, 2013 9:26 pm

I have the sonnox oxford, I wasn't too thrilled with it as far as handling sss's.

Personally I think a spectral editor might be the best de-esser. There is one in wavelab, the synthesizer Alchemy has one, you would need to import the wav or aiff file of the track, the samplitude daw has one.

Here is a video I found with spectral editing as a de-esser. It's from sequoia, which also happens to be the same one in samplitude, I wouldn't recommend buying expensive programs just for de-essing,lol, but it's an example of using a spectral editor for de-essing.
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Re: Has anyone used the SPL De Esser ?

Post by playagibson » Sat Feb 09, 2013 11:35 pm

Thanks Andy & Len

Great info for me to research.
I guess I'll stick to Melodyne for now.
I just finished a song today and I had to upload Melodyne again to fix some sss'ss after further tweaking.
I bounce tracks regularly to prevent CPU overload.
Volume automating does work well but Melodyne is more precise.
I was hoping SPL would be the quick magic bullet.
I'll definitely look into the Spectral editor and the Eiosis de esser.
I'm a big fan of Natives VC2A for vocals but it does add sibilance when pushed hard.

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Re: Has anyone used the SPL De Esser ?

Post by Len911 » Sun Feb 10, 2013 2:34 am

Yw Rich. Fwiw, I wouldn't spend the money on a de-esser, and apply that money towards a less sibilant mic, especially if you're spending a lot of time on de-essing. A spectral editor might not be worth spending for either unless you had other uses for it, I just thought maybe you might already have one if you had something like wavelab, or a synthesizer that might incorporate it and able to use it on a vocal track.
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Re: Has anyone used the SPL De Esser ?

Post by jdhogg » Sun Feb 10, 2013 6:54 am

Don't forget you can create your own custom de-esser in your daw with a multiband comp sidechained with an eq'ed signal (eq out everything except the sss), assuming a 4 band comp you could even split the sibilant area into two bands for even finer control.

I use the dynamic spectral mapping plug from plugin alliance for de-essing but I rarely have to use it this way as along with Len its best to reduce the sibilance at source.

My understanding is that most pros edit notes manually and only use de-essers if the results are excellent which they often are not as they are quite singer dependent.

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Re: Has anyone used the SPL De Esser ?

Post by playagibson » Sun Feb 10, 2013 8:56 am

I'm using a bluebird mic. I do like the sound of it.
I am my own worst enemy because I like to add
air, heavy compression and saturation to my vox
tracks. I find it cuts better in my style of music.
I have researched mic techniques and apparently
I'm doing it wrong... Lol but the examples given tend to
show engineers using high end gear which I don't have.
I'll definitely look into multicompression as
another option.

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