De-Ess Plug-In For Audacity

[Rontro809]

Number One is Audiobook Mastering and no EQ. One has "SS" sounds that will drill wood and fog glass.
Two is the same clip with DeEsser carefully applied and tuned. Someone posted the DeEsser defaults could use work. They're right.
Three is the same clip with 6300Hz-24dB applied.
Two has a pleasant balance between the SS sounds and the rest of the voice tones.
Three has the same problem DeCrisper1 has. It muffles everything down but leaves the haystack and slightly piercing SS sounds.
Koz

I like the second recording better as well. I have both Macro's installed now and will play with the DeEsser.ny plugin using the defaults. Thank you for all your help on this. We will desssssstroy this evil SSSSSS and TTTTT!

-Ron

[kozikowski]

I like the second recording better as well.

I can show you how I did that when I get back to the grown-up computer.

There is a trick to it.

I, too, found the default DeEsser settings didn't do squat, so on a whim, I Audiobook Mastered the test clip to guarantee technical standards and volume no matter how I started. Then I adjusted DeEsser Threshold more and more sensitive until it started to "grab" the essing. Then, from the clip's spectrum analysis, I broadened the processed tones or frequencies more to match the ones I knew were causing problems.

Poof. A much tamer, pleasant presentation, and it should be repeatable.

As we go.

Koz

[kozikowski]

OK. To repeat.

Attached is the Steckler clip mastered according to this...

https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audiobook_Mastering

...but otherwise clean. It passes ACX Check just fine but has very serious Essing.

Steckler-Mastered.wav

(1.58 MiB) Downloaded 27 times

Apply DeEsser, Attached.

DeEsser.ny

(55.65 KiB) Downloaded 107 times

Effect > DeEsser...


At these settings...

Steckler-DeEsser.png (48.61 KiB) Viewed 905 times

Seems to work well.

If you watch the timeline blue waves as the tool works, you can see tiny blobs of wave here and there vanish. Those are the harsh SS sounds in the clip. If you don't see it, you can Edit > UNDO and then Edit ReDo to see it again and again.

I did a frequency run before and after.

That haystack bump between 5000 and 10000 is Essing.

StecklerHaystack.png (81.71 KiB) Viewed 905 times

After DeEssing, it's gone.

StecklerNoHaystack.png (25.32 KiB) Viewed 905 times

You might think you could just use an Equalization curve to do that, but that doesn't work. I tried it. That just makes everything dull, muffled and muddy. DeEsser senses when the SS sounds are in excess and otherwise leaves everything alone. So it can turn acoustic ice picks into normal conversation.

Koz

[kozikowski]

This probably isn't perfection. Having the tool start looking for trouble at 2500Hz is probably wrong. The Essing tonal boost doesn't start until around 5000Hz, but again, this seems to work. I may have hit something desirable by accident. 3000Hz is baby screaming on a jet/fingernails on blackboard sound.

Wouldn't hurt to have a few less of those.

Koz

[Rontro809]

I will try those setting now that I have the DeESSer plugin install on my MAC. Thank you for that!

-Ron

[Rontro809]

Well, I finished looking at the settings and I think I like them. I will have to see how it works on a full podcast before I add it to my post audio macro, but so far I like the subtle effect. It is not as harsh as my Low Pass Filter. Below you will find three tests. The first is the raw recording. The only thing I did was to silence the breaks. I would normally do this with a noise gate of about -32 dBish.

The second file is with Just the De-Ess plug-in (Settings: Threshold -25.0 dB Frequencies 2500 to 9559 - Everything else was left default)

The Third file is with my current Post of ( EQ - Normalize - Compress - Normalize) I ran my macro right after the DE-Ess, so it includes that as well. If you want the setting for those plug-ins I can share them with you.

Love to hear your feedback and thank you for taking the time to help a podcaster out.

Best Regards

-Ron

[Trebor]

''ThiS iS Ron'S amaZing Stories'',Before-After Steve's De-Esser at settings shown.wav

(706.96 KiB) Downloaded 31 times

The De-Esser setting used.png (12.32 KiB) Viewed 860 times

Steve's De-Esser plugin for Audacity is here ... viewtopic.php?p=344804#p344804

It still needs compression.
If you can find a multi-band compressor plugin for MAC*, that can de-ess & compress in one pass.

[ * I only speak Windows ]

[kozikowski]

EQ - Normalize - Compress - Normalize

Do you get anything desirable with the compression step? Really desirable? Compression can cause problems. For one thing, it means you are required to put noise reduction at the beginning of the process instead of at the end. Compression > Noise Reduction can cause noise pumping because Noise Reduction and Compression level shifting are fighting each other.

You mentioned Noise Gate. That's another caution tool. It's rough to get Noise Gate to sound natural and prevent leading and trailing noise tails. Also, it can sound a little weird when periodically, your monolog fades into blackness of space silence.

It sounds particularly weird if you have lots of noise because interword silences and intersentence silences won't match.

[dead silence] shHELLOshANDshWELCOMEshTOshOURshSHOWsh [dead silence].

A reasonable microphone in a quiet, echo-free room goes a very long way to reducing your post production processing list.

I produced a voice test with a small, stand-alone sound recorder in a quiet room. I can pass ACX Audiobook Standards with just the three mastering tools.

https://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Audiobook_Mastering

Koz

[thalueng]

Hello!

I have been using Audacity for many years! Many! It is my comfort zone! And, I have tried them all!

I use the Low-Pass Filter plug-in to De-Ess. Lately, I have read a lot of hype and good reviews of Waves new Simbulance plug-in (Nov 2018). However, from what I have been able to find out it does not run on Audacity. I could buy it and run it through GarageBand, but I would rather not use multiple editors for post-processing my audio.

First Question: Is it a fact that Wave Plug-Ins do not work on Audacity or is there a workaround?

I have also looked for a de-ess plugin for Audacity, but what I have found is either no longer supported or just plain doesn't work.

Second Question: Is there a free alternative for de-essing in Audacity?

Looking forward to any help!

-Ron

BTW: Running version 2.3.0 of Audacity on MacOS 10.14.3 with no issues.

I know this is an old post, but my answer might help people navigating here in search for DeEsser plugin support. My answers to Rontro809's questions:
1. Wave Plugins must be Waves Version 9.3, as this is the last version which supports 32bit Windows apps. Audacity on Windows is 32bit only, even if run on a 64bit OS. Waves Plugins 9.3 can still be installed, google "How to Run Waves Plugins on Windows 32bit" how to do it. The Sibilance plugin was introduced with Waves Version 10, so you are out of luck, but you can try the older Waves DeEsser plugin which is available in V9.3.
2. I use "Paul L's De-Esser plugin" and the "Airwindows DeEss and DeBess VST plugins", all of which are free and run under Audacity for Windows. The user interfaces are not very intuitive, I suggest you study the instruction videos carefully. Make sure you install the 32bit versions of the VST plugins.