de-essing
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Posted on May 16, 2008 06:00 am
fortymile
Member Since: Jan 18, 2003
hey so...
this spitfish plugin looks like it should be good, but like i mentioned in another thread, the thing undoes all my other insert effects. it seems to flatten out reverb, chorus, all of it. i can't imagine how or why, but i started another thread on this because if anyone wants to give me suggestions, i need a de-essing solution for tomorrow.
i tamped down problematic frequencies with a parametric EQ to a great degree--i HACKED valleys out of the signal, and somehow it still sounds natural, which i do not understand at all, but that's another story--but the sibilance on 's' sounds and 't' sounds is still just too obvious.
if anyone has a good freeware de-esser to recommend, one that can really pinpoint the problem and erase it without affecting other parts of the signal, i need to know about it ASAP.
a related question: why the hissing in the first place? it changes depending on what's on and what's off, but it seems to be there even when *everything* is off, too. surely my sennheiser mic isn't that shitty.
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McMerkinHobbyist musician,pro recorderMember
Since: May 15, 2007
May 16, 2008 01:00 pm Unfortunately I don't have an answer for you, but the freeware VST plug in I use works really well...but it changes everything to MONO!
If you only use it on a vocal track then it's not an issue, but to restore old tapes that are already mixed to take the siblance out of something, it's a disaster (unless the old tape was already mono)...
May 16, 2008 05:54 pm Maybe this destruction of effects I'm talking about has something to do with spitfish being mono? if so, it'd kill all stereo effects in the signal chain if it comes at the end, right?
cooloFrisco's Most UnderratedMember
Since: Jan 28, 2003
May 16, 2008 06:11 pm have you tried putting it earlier in the chain? I usually go compress, eq, deess or compress deesss eq and then any other effects...
May 16, 2008 06:27 pm i will try that... i was experimenting with other effects, didn't get around to that
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
May 16, 2008 08:39 pm I almost forgot you can't use any busses so my suggestion is out. But it would have been to put the spitfish on a seperate busse just for the vocal and then send that finished signal out a seperate busse for the other effects.
Have you looked at KVR yet?
www.kvraudio.com
May 16, 2008 11:51 pm i'll try KVR, yeah. spitfish, no matter where it's placed in the chain, seems to undo every single effect. it's not just degradation, it's like turning them all off. i do not understand how this could be, but oh well.
May 17, 2008 05:23 am since i'm not currently recording new original songs, here's that karaoke attempt. it's johnny cash's/reznor's 'hurt,' but it's a mix of styles.
ksolo.myspace.com/OneReco...olo.myspace.com
the sibilance is apparent. i could also use some vocal critiques/tips too. i'm trying to get it to where my voice doesn't suck.
vocals are too quiet, despite my best attempts to guess the right level (you cannot remix these). there are a few other annoying things that i myself did--singing stuff that went wrong--but i'd like to see if anyone can hear them.
maybe it just sucks, i dunno.
May 18, 2008 04:50 am i don't know if people can hear this without installing a plugin, but i wanna try to bump it just in case. i'm having serious doubts about the way i sing. but i also know that i can change some of that.
i go slightly sharp and flat in a few places, but that's because i smoked before i did this, and also the monitoring situation. some parts of the vocals are lifeless, as well, but that's a psychology thing. i'd have to point to the midrange in voice. it seriously annoys me. and yet midrange vocals have a solid place in rock music. i'm not sure what's going on. it could be my mic (a sennhesier) or the kinds of effects i use. but when i go loud, i have to move the mic further away so that i don't overdrive the channel, and that's where the problems start. when i do that, it seems as if my mic doesn't pick up overtones of any kind. the voice becomes extremely narrow and grating. you can hear it in the choruses, especially on the word 'dirt.'
why does this happen? maybe i need to buy a condenser mic, as cliffriff keeps telling me?
aside from that, there are other problems that have to do with performance, or simply innate style. i'll have to find ways to change some of that.
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
May 18, 2008 08:31 am One thing I've read when researching Mics:
< begin paraphrasing >
Most $200 mics will do well when you're in it's comfort zone: X distance, straight on, but 200$ mics start to fail when you back away, or get off center.
1000$ mics have the same great balance when you're: too close, too far, off center, etc. They are more forgiving of your singing parameters.
< end paraphrasing >
but, more better mics will also point out a singer's weaknesses too. LDC can really seem to accentuate the boo-boos of a singers skill. =P
What I heard in your voice, i think can be attributed to lack of detailed practice. Just singing your material doesn't really count as much. Singing out loud, at volume, other training material really helps. I've seen it in my own training (better control and strength) and my sister's, who told me about actual training. You begin hitting notes on key right away, and being able to keep it there, with strength and confidence.
I think someone singing a lot, using just their normal material, will get better, but I think the training will get you there much faster, like 1 week of training will show you much improvement.
I would train in the car, as I have 45m commute most days. Nobody needs to hear you, and you can really belt it out (which you need to do when training).
Now, I think your voice is much better than you give it credit. The mid-range honk is great for this style of material. I can't think of who it reminds me of, as I don't listen to it a lot, but it's got it's own character that is favorable. Don't resist singing in your own natural style. I think confidence and practice will give you a real decent style to work with.
(someone told keith urban early on in his career, when he couldn't make anything work: keep going with your style, it WILL catch on, and your style is worth keeping)
I think, if you're having struggles trying to make your own style work well, you'll have much more troubles trying to sing in someone else's style. Go with your own, it's definitely worth sticking with.
But, like anything else, to really advance, it requires commitment and hard work. dedicated practice will pay off.
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
May 18, 2008 08:37 am Oh yeah, de-esser, I've used reaper's ReaXComp which is a multi-band compressor.
It's really easy to use, as everything is pretty much graphical on the screen. With this you can really tweak down a range of freq, and apply some pretty aggressive compression to just that range.
This may be just the ticket for your unruly ess'es.
I haven't tried it for this yet, but have used it on (pre)mastering phase, and it's worked really well. It may be just the ticket, as i've read that de-essers are just multi-band compressors anyway.
www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
May 18, 2008 08:54 am thanks for feedback. i'll tell you what's mostly annoying me. i think freq problems can be corrected with different equipment and by changing the way i use the mic. the main thing that bugs me is the habitual way i shape words.
anyone can learn to sing in key with practice and ear training. the sharps and flats i committed here are due mostly to smoking before singing; another take would have brought different results. but some of my words sound lazy and too normal somehow. i took some time shaping some other words, and i liked the way some of those felt, but damn. i don't want to consciously monitor every word i sing. yet that would seem to be what's called for.
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
May 18, 2008 09:05 am Quote:
i don't want to consciously monitor every word i sing.
I think that gets much easier with practice. Plus, the results will drive you to accept it, and enjoy it.
Like learning on a new job. If you learn it yourself, you'll develop your own ways of doing it. If someone trains you on the 'right' way of doing it, you learn from the beginning, practice, and accept that way of performing. It eventually becomes common-place, and easy to perform that way all the time.
May 18, 2008 06:19 pm wow pjk, i couldn't agree more with what you're saying...i've just got real comfortable singing about 2 years ago....i did ear training back in college, which lead me to harmonizing to the hum of the ice maker at work...but a few good pointers and now i'm singing in front of people more than twice a week....it's very liberating to be able to express yourself musically without needing any instruments...my and friends have turned it into a game where we're singing darn near anytime we talk to each other....
breath control, and projecting are very important....
i had no idea you can karaoke on the net now...i sang 5 or six songs at the bar last night (i now take requests)....i learned i can rock the heck out of The Guess Who....
as for de-essing, your vocals on the myspace thing sounded fine on my end (laptop)....i'm not really hearing too much sibilance....
keep on singing as often as you can and you'll get better and more comfortable...which will come through in your tracks.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
May 18, 2008 09:01 pm forty, I listened a few times and didn't really hear the sibilance much if any at all.
As for the singing, I'll simply agree in part with the smoking thing and partly with pjk. A few more round of practice and a bit of wait after a smoke and it would all be good. I can hear that the notes are not hard for you to get to at all so that is a moot point. I would maybe put a little more pressure on pushing the vocal a bit more out of yourself though. I think that would really help the way you are hearing the formation of the word themselves. I know for me when I simply go at it that is the same result I get. I sound as if I am being lazy about the singing.
My biggest problem was simply hating my own voice. So to combat that I would simply create an instant alter ego and become someone else vocally. Now that has its good sides and bad as well. Repeatability is often not there. But when recording and not doing it live ever it doesn't really matter.
So my suggestion would be to find a place in your head that you can push it harder and put more power behind the vocal, and that in turn may change the way you are forming the words that you are singing.
I know it sounds a bit absurd, but believe me. It has worked for not only myself but a good deal of others that are now pretty well of and well known.
May 19, 2008 05:57 am thanks...but i usually find that 'thing' you're talking about pretty easily. that's one reason i'm frustrated. these variables have caused me to try to be controlled. it's like a trade off. it is challenging to control for all these variables which would not be a problem in a real recording situation. finding proper levels here is tough and is guesswork...watching your own volume becomes guesswork. you end up really 'watching it' just so you don't have to do the whole thing over again. this is part of why that's happening. good thing there's only two songs worth doing in there. what i'm saying i think is that my frequencies and word shaping are the things that i'm positive need work. i can belt stuff out if things are set up right. and neighbors right next door really don't help either, one bit. after the third try you start getting really uncomfortable.
pjkPrince CZAR-mingMember
Since: Apr 08, 2004
May 19, 2008 10:58 am Quote:
my frequencies and word shaping are the things that i'm positive need work
from the little bit i've heard, I would say not that much. freq you can't really change, as it's a combination of physical characteristics: vocal chords, throat shape, tissue density, scar tissue, etc. EDIT: i guess freq you CAN change, as control gets better. END EDIT
Word shaping is learned, I think, through environment. You learn to speak words on a cultural / environment basis. I can see that re-shaping some sounds would be beneficial, but is it really as necessary as you think? This is where a trainer / teacher really comes in to play. The training tape I had, the teacher was very focused on sounds of vowels. And projection, as wyd said.
As reference, there's quite a few singers that are very popular, but their freq & shaping isn't that great. Other factors, like passion, expression, control, etc., far outweigh the 'technical' aspects of their performance.
May 19, 2008 06:01 pm i told a friend how i had tried to shape certain words on purpose and liked the results, and that the ones i didn't give any attention are the ones that bother me. i said 'i don't want to have to focus on every word; people don't do that, do they?' and he said that i have to remember that by the time a band records a song, they've usually performed it dozens and dozens of times. i thought that was a great point. i think you automatically find the ways to shape words without even really trying, as long as you have gotten practice in. here, i just started recording. did a few takes, made a few decisions, etc.
i do think vowels are pretty important. the thing i did here on the word 'dirt' was done differently in other takes. in those, the 'i' or 'eh' sound in that word simply transitioned smmoothly to an 'a' sound, slowly, which leads much more smoothly into 'i will let you down.' it's an easier shift. that didn't happen in this version, because i forgot.
frequencies could be fixed up with a better mic and, maybe, by singing less from the throat and more from the diaphragm.
McMerkinHobbyist musician,pro recorderMember
Since: May 15, 2007
May 19, 2008 06:27 pm Yes, a great singer like Sinatra shaped nearly every word.
I love to sing, but God knows my range is severely limited, and I have no real breath or diaphragm control, as I do it infrequently.
I can tell you this much: when I try to do a vocal all the way through 'prefectly', that is, concentrate on how I'm singing nearly every word, it usually comes across too staged. No passion, no bite.
I have some performances where I wail but technically speaking there are things in them that make me cringe.
I know that sometimes I am "on" and can sing like an angel (especially if it's in my key), other days I am no good at all.
So I would suggest you forget about trying to be perfect, but DO be aware of maintaining the same position at the mic as much as possible...also as you said there are things you do with your singing that you like very much...that's your personal style and if you concentrate on doing those things the best you can (which is usually easy because it's more of a natural process) then the rest will fall into line.
And try not to be too critical of your voice...I am often amazed at compliments I get for things I've done that sound like fingernails on a chalkboard to me.
May 19, 2008 11:09 pm yeah, of course, but i find there's seldom any way to tell when compliments are serious or not. so i don't really go by them: i usually ask for criticism instead, in order to see if the wrong things i'm hearing are also being detected by others.
how do you guys use the mic when big volume changes have to occur? you might be singing in a whisper during a verse then might need to go very loud and yell during a chorus. do you move away from the mic, ride the levels, use an inline limiter of some kind, correct stuff afterwards, or split up the takes into a soft one and then a loud one?
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
May 20, 2008 12:48 am Not half bad forty. I agree the others main thing I hear is needing more feeling/confidence in the vocal . I find you need to exaggerate everything to get the feeling to come across and I do struggle at it. The few off's in it don't really draw my attention. All in all a good effort though IMO.
On the mic thing I sing closer when I'm singing soft and back off when I get louder. Now that I have a couple of condenser mic's I can say the tone stays more consistant than the dynamic I used to use but even the dynamic's like the SM57 I used did alright IMO.
Dan
May 20, 2008 06:39 am aha! so it is nearly half bad!
olddogMember
Since: Jul 02, 2003
May 20, 2008 01:01 pm Actually I thought it was pretty good :P Not one of my favorites of Johnny Cash though. Put a bit more oomph in the vox and it would be excellent. :)
