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

[4leafplanet]

I tried the demo, and its not bad by any means but will stick with the method i got down till something better pops up. The added filtering is nice but nothing special. In the end it didn't save me time or sound better better.

The cool thing about it is the compression is not related to the input signal, but rather an algo they developed...

[Phil O]

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

A while back I downloaded the free Melda bundle, then upgraded it to whatever it's called. I don't remember the cost but it was minimal - well worth the money. I use some of the Blue Cat stuff as well, but like the Melda stuff better for some things. I really like the custom shape feature of their compressor. Once you get the hang of it you can really do some surgical stuff. And their analyzer is more extensive than Blue Cat's.

Thanks for the nice treatment of "use your ears/eyes." I wholeheartedly agree with you on this. Sometimes I like to just close my eyes and listen, but there are times when I want to know exactly what's going on and fancy metering is just the ticket.

Phil

[mhschmieder]

As I despise all Boss/Roland chorus products (and have owned several of them in the past), it's no surprise I disliked Chor'X. I only like transparent chorusing. If I want colour, I'll go for VERY mild flanging, or phasing.

As for de-essing, I rarely use it on vocals vs. other techniques, but find it extremely useful on hi-hats, and side-chained with bass on snare tracks. Now that I use ribbon mics for a lot of stuff though, I have less use for de-essing in general.

[mhschmieder]

Now that I'm done with my gigs for the weekend, I put Xils DeeS to the test just now, and it's one of the worst plug-ins I've ever used.

Even at very mild settings, it puts a dark veil over everything, reducing articulation and somehow adding artifacts that muddy things up (even with the EQ flat). The coloration is very significant, compared to every other de-esser I compared it to tonight.

I guess I'm by now spoiled by the amazing Oxford Supressor. I was still using Eiosis for drum de-easing before going 64-bits, but Oxford long ago became my go-to for vocals because it is incredibly transparent and can handle plosives, whistles, and other common problems, and takes well to stacking (multiple instances to deal with individual problems on one pass).

I did not try this plug-in on hi-hat or anything else like that, as I expect Eiosis will be ready for 64-bits by the time I am ever dealt a legacy session god dal with or one where I did not record the drums myself. Anything that I am in charge of throws ribbon mics on the top kit and has zero issues that need addressing in the mix in terms of surgical editing (other than HPF/LPF).