
This sibilant sound is a lot more common in the mid-range and above, from about 4kHz to 10kHz, depending on the singer of course. In other words, they are a lot easier to notice. The issue is that when these sounds are reproduced in an audio system, they can seem particularly bright or sharp. You probably heard some people talking or singing where you could hear that hissing sound every time they pronounced an “s”.

This means that it can happen quite often simply depending on the way we speak, or to go back to the topic of this post, the way we sing. This is a fairly straight forward answer, since Sibilance is part of the human speech. These sounds should come through a recording as natural as possible, not exaggerated or distorted as in “shh” or even “ch”. It mainly occurs when pronouncing consonants, syllables, or words with the letter “s”, and sometimes “t” or “z”. Sibilance is an unpleasant sound that can completely spoil an otherwise perfect recording. These “ess” and “shh” sounds are also what we refer to as sibilance. It essentially works as a compressor that only reduces the loudness of a specific frequency range at a given time, reducing or even completely removing those sibilant sounds. What is a de-esserĪ De esser is used to attenuate the “S” and “Shh” sounds by lowering the loudness of those frequencies when that type of sound occurs. Looking for guitar VST/AU plugins? Here are the 21 best ones. In this post I will explain what a De-esser does, how Sibilance occurs and some ways you can remove it. It’s one of those things that I just can’t stop paying attention to, and I guess that this must also be the case for many of you.īeing able to remove Sibilance from a recording is a very important mixing skill you should develop. Compressor induced sibillance will be almost impossible to get rid of, so fuss with compression later on when you mix instead.If you ever heard a singer that tends to be very sibilant, then you know how distracting it can be to listen to. So, to make a short post long, try tilting the mic off-axis and try not compressing to disc. This technique also works with my Manley Gold, which is a very bright mic. I then raised the mic a hair so that she was singing towards the bottom of the basket, and not directly onto the capsule. I titled the mic off axis so it was at about 55 to 60 degrees, rather than 90 degrees to her. The brightness really captured the airiness of her voice, but the sibillance was a bit much for me, especially since I was compressing her a great deal.


I love the way my Pape C12 sounds on her, even though I'm sure Klaus can't believe it. Today, I was tracking a really fantastic female singer. I find that an 1176 with full speed attack can reduce that if you need to compress heavily. ELOP compressors I find are generally guilty of that.

Are you compressing? Sometimes heavy compression with slow attack times will contribute greatly to sibillance.
