Article Preview - Eiosis E2 De-esser : April 2008
Article Preview - Eiosis E2 De-esser Sibilant Processing Plug-in [Mac/PC] Published in SOS April 2008 Reviews : Software Intrusive sibilants can ruin an otherwise good-sounding vocal track, and conventional de-essers are often of limited use. Can Eiosis's radical new design do any better? Over the last decade or so, the cutting edge in audio processing has belonged increasingly to the world of plug-ins. Advances in computer power have empowered developers to explore weird and wonderful new effects, and devise new and more effective problem-solving tools. It seems that everyone and their dog now makes a convolution reverb, or a sophisticated noise-reduction suite, or an intonation plug-in that can make Geri Halliwell sound like Aretha Franklin. Yet in all the white heat of this technological progress, the humble de-esser has been largely overlooked. The industry standard, or at least the near-universal choice of mix engineers in our Inside Track series, is still Waves' Renaissance De-esser, a plug-in which dates from the very start of the century. It's done good service over the years, but if you want a modern, bright vocal sound without spitty reverbs and delays, I find it rarely gets you all the way there. Until now, the only way to really nail the problem has been to draw in automation curves by hand, a process which brings new meaning to the word 'tedious'. I say "until now" because Eiosis's E2 De-esser brings some new thinking to the stale world of sibilant reduction. Existing software and hardware de-essers, including Renaissance De-esser, tend to work in much the same way: the side-chain of a compressor is heavily filtered so that the compressor responds only to bursts of energy in the sibilant region of the frequency spectrum (typically around 5kHz for a male vocal, rather higher for most female vocals). The compressor then ducks either the entire signal at those points or, in more advanced designs, reduces the level only of the sibilant frequencies. Used correctly, this kind of de-esser can make some reduction in the harshness or obviousness of 'S', 'T' and 'F' sounds, but you quickly reach a stage where they begin to sound lispy and unnatural; and using a high-frequency 'air' or shelving EQ to brighten the vocal then risks emphasising the very problem you were trying to get rid of. ...
Published in SOS April 2008 | Sunday 11th May 2008 May 2008
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