Your Favorite De-essers?

[bas20hz]

I've used a couple of de-essers. Never liked them. I prefer the mic placement method and a pop filter myself. I've heard good things about the de-stressor but haven't met anyone with a large enough budget for them yet.

[Pete Lago]

"You cant polish a turd" as the saying goes..
So, for me,.. my focus remains on the analog side and that is to get the best sound to my D/A Converter and record it at 24 bit depth and 96kHz otherwise you’ll never capture the depth your looking for out the gate.
now regarding De-Essing for depth

Any compressor with a side chain input can be turned into a de-esser by inserting an EQ and boosting the offending frequencies. Even more flexibility comes from using a multi-band compressor. The de-essing action no longer has to lower the overall signal level. It can just lower the level in the specific range of frequencies specified.

This way Your recording has its Depth, and you haven’t dulled the crap out of it with
Pseudo Analog Algorithm Based Software plug-ins which are no substitute for
Proper Gain structure provided by real analog Mic Preamps, and correct microphone application.

My choices for Gear to use for this purpose..

An ART MPA GOLD TUBE Mic Pre
(Replace the tubes out the box with TUNG-SOL 12 AX-7's)

Yamaha Q2031 A EQ

DBX 166XL COMPRESSOR/LIMITER

Easy to find used on Ebay and High Quality without shelling out too much bread. A hell of a deal For that much controll over your sound.

[Mikey5]

I don't use a de-esser on my vocals or my daughters because we have worked to eliminate the problem. I typically have to use one when I record others that are good singers but have never recorded. I tried to use the de-esser in SONARs Vintage Channel but it really was bad.

I use SpitFish now if I have to do something...

Mikey

[crbj]

I use the waves de-esser. Stock settings,, start around -22 threshold... make sure your s's dont sound like a different letter ... like an "f" for instance....

This works great and IS my go to solution.

[mintcheerios]

I just use the one on Voxengo's Voxformer.

[gradgt]

Mythbusters proved that you can indeed polish a turd!!

However for vocals I never had a problem with sibilance, I just use a pop filter. I have the waves one but haven't had to use it yet fortunately.... but most of their plugins are pretty great.

[Pete Lago]

"Mythbusters proved that you can indeed polish a turd!!......."

Yeah, I knew I was going to hear somthing about that Addage after watching that Very episode just yesterday during their marathon.

But if you watched the show they made that very point for me in a way that words can not so elequently demonstrate and that is that they had to Bake the POO, Crush the Poo into a Fine power then Add water to it again Then HANDLE it and KNEED POO IN THEIR HANDS FOR HOURS Before Producing a Shine, Leaving their hands Reaking of dung for Days.

So, Yeah. your right, you Can infact Polish POO, But aside From Just Proving you can, Who Wants to..

I couldnt have come up with a better example, Thank you!

[dropBear]

dunno if somebody already mentioned it, but the old low tech "pencil strapped to the mic" works like a charm for me

roland

[paul mctiernan]

ableton live 7 with waves de-esser iam happy with both but i,m no expert yet

[criss1202]

Actually I like the built in de esser in sonars vinatge channel compressor. Its sorta my go to plug in as of date. Haven't used the waves but i do have it in my system. Although there's no beating having to retake the whole thing if there's to much of popping the the "ess" sound.

By the way, howdy! I'm new here and i'm pleased to meet you all.