Side chain, Deesser

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lakland
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Side chain, Deesser

Post by lakland »

Does DP have a plugin that does
a. side chaining
b. Deesser

If not, what do you guys use?

Thanks
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barreltone
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Re: Side chain, Deesser

Post by barreltone »

The DP Dynamics plug can do side chaining.

There isn't a true de-esser that comes with DP, although there is/was a de-ess preset in the MW multi-band compressor.

There's a de-esser module in Izotope Alloy, and that's what I use currently, but I've found it to be just OK, not in love with it.

I'm sure others will have lots of suggestions!
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lakland
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Re: Side chain, Deesser

Post by lakland »

Thanks Barrel! I came to the same conclusion. I wanted to make sure I wasn't missing anything.
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Re: Side chain, Deesser

Post by labman »

Use RenDesser or URS CSP here
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Phil O
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Re: Side chain, Deesser

Post by Phil O »

You can use DP's Dynamics Plug and MW EQ to make a DIY De-esser.

First duplicate the vocal track to be de-essed.
Place a Dynamics Plug on the original vocal track with side chain input set to your side-chain bus.
Set the duplicated track's output to the side-chain bus, and insert the MW EQ with all but the desired ess range cut.
Adjust your EQ and compressor to taste.

Works in a pinch, but the Dynamics plug may be too slow for some source material. You can cheat a look-ahead by advancing the duplicate track by a few milliseconds.

Phil

BTW, check out Stillwell's Rocket compressor. It has side-chain capability and it costs about 50 bucks. This is a fast compressor.
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Re: Side chain, Deesser

Post by Don T »

Hello,
Dynamics plug not fast enough? Attack time can be set to .1 ms. That's only 10 samples at 96khz.
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Re: Side chain, Deesser

Post by barreltone »

I'm still on DP6 here, and the fastest is 10 milliseconds in the Dynamics plug on that version. Did that change in DP7? We are both talking about the MOTU stock Dynamics plug, yes?

EDIT: Oops, yep you're right, Don. It's the MW compressor that has a slow-ish 10 ms as the fastest attack time. Just got to my audio machine to check.
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burn em
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Re: Side chain, Deesser

Post by burn em »

Phil O wrote: Works in a pinch, but the Dynamics plug may be too slow for some source material. You can cheat a look-ahead by advancing the duplicate track by a few milliseconds.

Phil
Also try advancing the duplicate track something like 11 ms then adding the AU sample delay to the track. this will give you more control and via a plugin! Works well for keying the MW gate too!
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lakland
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Re: Side chain, Deesser

Post by lakland »

Excellent stuff guys!

Phil...thanks for your suggestion of the Rocket. It looks (and priced) great. Do you like it enough to use it often or is it just for certain styles/occasions?
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Re: Side chain, Deesser

Post by cbergm7210 »

lakland wrote:Excellent stuff guys!

Phil...thanks for your suggestion of the Rocket. It looks (and priced) great. Do you like it enough to use it often or is it just for certain styles/occasions?
http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... it=+rocket" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: Side chain, Deesser

Post by kassonica »

burn em wrote:
Phil O wrote: Works in a pinch, but the Dynamics plug may be too slow for some source material. You can cheat a look-ahead by advancing the duplicate track by a few milliseconds.

Phil
Also try advancing the duplicate track something like 11 ms then adding the AU sample delay to the track. this will give you more control and via a plugin! Works well for keying the MW gate too!
Can you give me a more detailed outline of this process as it sounds a really good way to do gating and de-essing.

Thanks
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lakland
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Re: Side chain, Deesser

Post by lakland »

cbergm7210 wrote:
lakland wrote:Excellent stuff guys!

Phil...thanks for your suggestion of the Rocket. It looks (and priced) great. Do you like it enough to use it often or is it just for certain styles/occasions?
http://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtop ... it=+rocket" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Thanks cber...that's exactly the feedback I was looking for.
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Phil O
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Re: Side chain, Deesser

Post by Phil O »

Don T wrote:Hello,
Dynamics plug not fast enough? Attack time can be set to .1 ms. That's only 10 samples at 96khz.
Sorry, Don. My mistake. For some reason I thought it was longer than that. I'm on vacation and using my wife's laptop at the moment, so I don't have access to DP.

Phil
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Phil O
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Re: Side chain, Deesser

Post by Phil O »

lakland wrote:Excellent stuff guys!

Phil...thanks for your suggestion of the Rocket. It looks (and priced) great. Do you like it enough to use it often or is it just for certain styles/occasions?
I do use it often. It's really good at taming fast rise time signals like snare drum. Of course, fast settings are not always best for snare (just thought I'd say that before I got blasted). The Rocket's got slow settings too, and built in parallel compression, but I use it mostly for it's speed and side-chain capabilities. Haven't played much with the built in parallel compression yet.

Phil
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Re: Side chain, Deesser

Post by Prime Mover »

Phil O, I'm not quite understanding how that would really be effective. Wouldn't it just high-notch cut every time your signal got loud? Because that would cut out a lot of material that isn't S's. Wouldn't you want to, FIRST put a MW EQ before your Dynamics plug, and isolate the ess frequency range, then use that side-chain to notch-cut your signal track? Maybe I missed a step in your innitial outline. I've never tried it any of these ways because I've always just done it manually.

For the OP, I recommend just doing it manually, many people are able to get the best results with manual de-essing, and for the time it takes to setup a side-chain de-esser correctly and troubleshoot it, you could have done it manually anyway. It's more busy work, but it's far safer and more tweakable.

Simply throw a MW EQ on your track, create a -6db (or so) cut around 8kHz (you'll have to play with this as each voice is different and I don't have the numbers right in front of me for my last session). Loop-play an ess in your track, and adjust the gain, frequency, and Q to taste. Make sure not to give your singer a lisp. Once you've got it set, simply create a manual automation of the gain from 0dB to whatever cut level you found. Make a quick manual "notch" in your automation during the period of the ess. Copy that, and just paste it were ever you see/hear another ess. Quickly check each one to make sure you're not lisping. After a while, you'll find you can recognize ess's on sight, which makes it faster. Once you've got this processes down, you can de-ess an entire track in less than 10 minutes. You'll have saved yourself some cash, and made sure that the de-esser isn't doing anything other than what you want it to.
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