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You are here: Home → Technique → How to remove the strident "ssss" sound (sibilant) in a vocal (with DeEsser technic)

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How to remove the strident "ssss" sound (sibilant) in a vocal (with DeEsser technic)

Here is a tutorial to remove the strident sounds like the "ssss" in a vocal without losing other frenquencies. The DeEsser technic compress the sibilant frequencies to make them sound as the same level than the rest of the voice sounds.

Exemple

Dry signal
Wet signal (after DeEsser applied)

The DeHesser Technic

Wet voice

Face down - Wet voice
We can hear the "ssss" quite loudly. The waveform picture show that the "sss" sounds have the same volume that another normal, rich sound. This is actually more than it should be.

Note that this strident sound can reduce the whole mix power if there is another sound like "hit hats" in it.

Sibilant boosted signal

Face down - Boosted Sibilant
The idea is to create a "sibilant only" signal which will active the compressor only when there is a sibilant peak.
I've applied a notch filter around 8Khz (just boosted this frequency and reduced the others)

Sibilant removed signal

Face down - Final signal
Here is the final voice signal : all the sibilant peaks are attenuated but none of the frenquencies has been cut.

Other technics comparison

You can just filter the sibilance frequencies with an equalizer but the whole voice will lose these frenquencies. The voice could sound muddy / not natural with this technic. You can apply a simple compression after the filter to make it sound a little better.