Now say it: taming the esses
Why does compressing or brightening a vocal make its esses louder, and how does a de-esser tame them? Say what it is, where it listens, how you set each control, and what too much does.
Start each part with its opening words. Give a value or a direction for each setting: the word "de-esser" on its own says too little.
Tick each point your words make.
- Also worth saying
On the paper and in Live: the same controls
The names you may meet
| On the paper | In Live's Compressor | On a de-esser |
|---|---|---|
| De-esser; a compressor that ducks one frequency range | Compressor, SC Filter on | De-esser |
| Another way: a dynamic EQ on the high mids (here the top end, about 5 to 10 kHz) | (it turns down only that band, not the whole voice) | |
| Where it listens: the frequency | SC Filter: Type band-pass, Freq | Frequency |
| Listen | the headphones button | Listen |
| Threshold | Thresh | Threshold |
| Ratio, Attack, Release | Ratio, Attack, Release | Ratio, Attack, Release; some have Range instead: the most it turns down (not a ratio) |
| Gain reduction | GR | GR |
| Sibilance | (harsh esses: the problem, not a control) | |
| A lisp; the mix loses brightness | (too much de-essing: each 's' sounds like 'th') | |
Live has no de-esser of its own: its Compressor with the SC Filter on is one. The filter decides what the compressor hears; it still turns the whole voice down.
In this picture the band-pass sits at 7.16 kHz and the headphones are lit, so I hear the band alone. Thresh is down at −39 dB: the yellow line (GR) dips at each 's', by up to 7.9 dB. With the band found, switch the headphones off and listen to the whole voice.
Ratio, Attack and Release (the plain dots) have the same names in Live. Knee reads 6 dB, a soft knee: it starts turning down gently as the band nears Thresh, where my panel's knee is hard (0 dB). My panel reads the band's peaks: Peak in Live; RMS, lit here, reads its average level and works for esses too. Not asked for here: Knee, Res (how narrow the band is), Makeup, Look., Env., Expand and Dry/Wet.
The picture of the Compressor is a screenshot of Ableton Live, used for teaching. Ableton and Live are trademarks of Ableton AG. Music Tech Studio is independent and has not been authorised, sponsored or otherwise approved by Ableton AG.
The compressor panel is our own drawing, in the exam's names. Its meters, its pictures and the sound all come from the same numbers: a model of a compressor whose sidechain hears one band, made for teaching. The vocal is a recording. Made for a laptop or the whiteboard.