Xils DeeS de-esser, said to be the most transparent ever

[mhschmieder]

http://www.xils-lab.com/pages/XILS%20DeeS.html

I haven't had a chance to try it yet but have been following the GS discussion, with the developer stating it goes way beyond the abandoned Eiosis Deesser.

That is good to hear, because I have bought two other de-essers and have others, and while each has its strengths, I had yet to find one to make up for Eiosis not being 64-bits and being apparently abandoned -- especially in terms of transparent use of de-essing on hi-hats and cymbals.

[mhschmieder]

Yikes, now that I'm home, I was able to check out the audio demos at the product site:

http://www.xils-lab.com/pages/XILS%20DeeS.html

I'm not in the least bit impressed, but will download the demo anyway and try it for myself.

The first non-dry demo seems to achieve little, and the others are very non-transparent.

[mikehalloran]

Hmmmm... I agree.

I see no reason to use these in place of the Izotope tools I'm using currently. Nectar, Elements and Alloy can be tweaked to do the job well and be quite transparent. Plus I already own them (and others I never use).

Perhaps I'll buy dinner with the money saved...

[Phil O]

Dinner indeed. I'm not impressed either.

Phil

[4leafplanet]

Bump.
Anyone else demo it?
i also use Nectar but not really happy with it. Nomad Factory same.

thanks,
4Lp

[mikehalloran]

i also use Nectar but not really happy with it.

As is or do you go under the hood and tweak the settings? Nectar 1 (aka Elements) or 2?

[4leafplanet]

yes, i do fine tuning but even that just doesn't sound good. Not terrible but not organic either. I end up automating w/eq as well. Nectar has been a well used purchase... and i didn't even bite for the #2 update or whatever its called. Then again perhaps they improved the de-esser section

[mhschmieder]

Yes indeed, the de-esser was one of the biggest improvements in Version 2. It's actually usable now. I couldn't even use it on rough mock-up first passes before. I would still rather use Sonnox on a final job though (Eiosis is still stuck in 32-bit land).

[mhschmieder]

It's unlikely I'll have time to try my demo of the Xils-Lab de-esser before the discount period ends, as I am under extreme duress on all fronts schedule-wise at the moment.

It's been hard to prioritize it, anyway, when the audio demos were so awful, and as I have so far hated every effect they've come out with -- they all remind me of the VERY earliest plug-ins efforts more than a decade ago. I like their VI's quite a bit though.

[4leafplanet]

I bought their Chor'X and like everything about it... and for 25 years owned the gold standards: Boss CE-1 & Scholz Rockman Stereo Chorus. Not the same obviously but Chor'X is cool.
Also use their (Leslie plug) LX 122 Premium in demo mode; it is the best Leslie i have. (Trumps Guitar Rig, Amplitube, and SpeakerPhone 2.) Their Xils3 LE is an amazing sounding VI synth!

[Shooshie]

Are there really any de-essers that make you go "wow," or is the de-esser destructive by design, and just a lesser-of-evils kind of thing? The last time I used a de-esser and thought it was great was when analog was king, and studios were judged by the size and spiff of their mixing boards. I'm pretty sure I was listening with different ears, then, and was more amazed that there was such a thing as a de-esser than by the actual quality of the result.

But I've got an open mind if there really is an amazing de-esser. Until then I just use the Waves plugins that I have. (also Nomad Factory, MOTU, and a few others, but Waves is what I use)

Shooshie

[Phil O]

I think of a de-esser (in the new digital age) as a time saving device and nothing more. You can throw it on a vocal track and it quickly finds those pesky esses and de's them to death. But, when I have the time (and the client has the money) and I really want to do the job right, careful tracking and surgical editing yields superior results IMHO. Only on a rare occasion have I used a de-esser, and usually only on tight budget jobs. YMMV.

Phil

[mikehalloran]

Nectar 2 is very good. I can make it quite transparent. I use it on finger squeaks it they are obnoxious.

I can't say that I use it on my own tracks. If the microphones are good enough and compression is not overused, I normally find de-essing not needed. Tracks I get from others can be horrible in that regards.

I don't believe in squashing it completely, rather going for a more natural sound.

[4leafplanet]

It boils down to how much time one wants to put into it. Mic, distance, person, word, spl, context... blimey. Because i have to close-mic due to my recording/living situation i learned this was the source of a lot of the problem. I can't live without de-essing nowadays.

In the beginning on my own i was going one-size-fits-all,(Nectar, DP, Nomad etc.) when to make de-essing sound natural takes time & effort, like anything else. A friend turned me onto how it could help my stuff. And not just with voice but all manner of string instruments and percussion. It was the next level and sometimes I'm just not in the mood for yet more education.

I will demo DeeS (fri or Sat.) because it uses voice specific multi-band compression supposedly in a "new way". Most say dynamic EQ is best for deessing... but i really dig Xils Lab's experimental approach to their synths and GUIs. Them along with U-he, Klanghelm and Meldaproductions is where I've been putting my gear money the last year or so after much tone questing. (i am totally ITB). Using MDynamicEQ works wonders for de-essing; that was the "wow" moment. But sometimes I'm too lazy and dont want to bother with it sorry to say... i end up doing it, but to alternate or replace that with another approach is definitely what I'm looking for. Plus i feel that having compression for de-essing as well could take my tracks into new sonic terrain... always a sucker for that. Will report back here what i find.

I'd never learned about spectrum analysis and actually shied away from it... listened to people talk about LISTENING rather than LOOKING when mixing. well, looking helped man. i could now see the varieties, and evolution of sibilance...with Meldaproductions plugs recommended by the good folks here.

[Shooshie]

[...] Using MDynamicEQ works wonders for de-essing; that was the "wow" moment. But sometimes I'm too lazy and dont want to bother with it sorry to say... i end up doing it, but to alternate or replace that with another approach is definitely what I'm looking for. Plus i feel that having compression for de-essing as well could take my tracks into new sonic terrain... always a sucker for that. Will report back here what i find.

I'd never learned about spectrum analysis and actually shied away from it... listened to people talk about LISTENING rather than LOOKING when mixing. well, looking helped man. i could now see the varieties, and evolution of sibilance...with Meldaproductions plugs recommended by the good folks here.

You've piqued my interest. I didn't know about Meldaproductions plugs, so maybe I'll give them a look and listen. I'm about to mix an album of close-micced vocals, and this might be my "aha!" moment for de-essers.

As for spectrum meters, don't let any old-timer guilt you about "use your ears, not your eyes," because what they're really saying is "don't make me learn something new." Of course we use our ears. That's what we do! But when you add the visual information, it just clarifies what you're hearing. When you learn things like "aha, these overtones are reinforcing all the octaves, which is why I'm hearing this particular sound," that can only be beneficial to gaining control over what you're doing. Otherwise, you're just messing with knobs on Dad's stereo. Having that concrete information to reinforce what you hear and give it a name, so to speak, is what speeds the process of understanding what your ears are telling you. Information is golden.

I use Blue Cat Audio's meters, which many people here think are wonderful, myself included.

Shooshie