The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ed Edwards" 
> > Hey whats de-essing?
> 
> It's an audio technique for removing fricatives from sound; the sharp part
> of the "s" and "c" sounds in particular.  It's been around awhile... it was
> done in the analog domain until DSPs caught up enough to be able to handle
> it better digitally.  And better they do -- so you've recorded a track where
> the singer was a bit to close to the mic and there's lots of SSSSylvessster
> tthe Ccat ssssoundssss in the mixxxx.  A de-esser, when properly adjusted,
> can do amazing things to clean this kinda stuff up.  HTH
> 
> Ed Edwards

On the flipside...there is a tradeoff (if it isn't adjusted optimally) in that you
loose some highs. Being no sound engineer genius, I tend to go lightly on the de-essing.
If I knew more I probably could get away with more of it, but just to point out, 
the BEST is always to try and get the mic'ing right, so there is no need of 
filtering afterwards. Generally, you want to avoid signal processing, unless you
are going for effect or to fix small problems.

I keep getting amazed at some of the recording nresgroups, where you have guys willing
to go through a whole 5 minute song, minutely adjusting and editing waveforms to get rid
of guitar string squeeks, "esses" in vocals, pick noise...etc. Instead of doing it again :-)

Jim