Mouth insert/false teeth for affecting sibilance?

[ABQChris]

Now, here's a weird question. You cats have been so kind about answering my recording questions in the past that I figured this would be the place to pose this one. I've been searching online, via every manner of wording that I can think of, and I've found nothing regarding whether or not this product even exists.

The S and CH sounds in my speaking voice drive me nuts when I'm mixing. I just have that sharp pronunciation of sibilants that I hate to hear in my own voice, and even all of the de-essers with which I've experimented can't soften them without diminishing the quality of everything else in the signal. I have to crank it that high -- especially concerning CH sounds, G sounds as in "damage," etc. My teeth are too straight, or I learned how to talk as a kid by listening to my four billion female relatives or something.

I reckon that I have three options:

1. Learn how to talk differently while narrating/announcing/podcasting, which involves sticking out the lower jaw quite a bit and being conscious of using less breath while enunciating consonants. I've tried for months. It's so difficult that I forgot to be conversational and talk openly and normally. After 42 years of being alive, it has proven to be damn near impossible to think ahead and anticipate consonants in time to change my jaw and tongue positions every few seconds.

2. Knock out a few teeth. This would be a last resort, of course, so these aren't listed in order of preference.

3. Buy an insert of some kind that changes the enunciation of one's sharp consonants.

When the third idea occurred to me, I thought, "Aha! Surely, they must make something like that!" But I can find nothing. Does anyone have any knowledge of such an item?

Thanks so much for your time, fellas. I hope your 2014's going great so far.

[Trebor]

... "Aha! Surely, they must make something like that!" But I can find nothing. Does anyone have any knowledge of such an item?

"S" & "CH" are sibilance , the solution for excessive sibilance is a de-esser .

There are free de-esser plugins availble for Audacity , for Windows computers SpitFish is the usual suggestion.

See ... http://youtu.be/6EGqbtXfAJA?t=24s [ a YouTube demo of SpitFish de-esser plugin in Audacity]

[ABQChris]

"S" & "CH" are sibilance , the solution for excessive sibilance is a de-esser .

There are free de-esser plugins availble for Audacity , for Windows computers SpitFish is the usual suggestion.

See ... http://youtu.be/6EGqbtXfAJA?t=24s [ a YouTube demo of SpitFish de-esser plugin in Audacity]

Very true. As I said, all of the de-essers with which I've experimented, SpitFish included, can't soften my sibilants without diminishing the quality of everything else in the signal. I have to crank it that high. I'm hoping to find a physical alternative, should one exist. Thanks for taking the time to reply; I appreciate it.

[Trebor]

... can't soften my sibilants without diminishing the quality of everything else in the signal. I have to crank it that high.

The de-esser's operation is that it only kicks in when sibilance gets above a threshold. If it's affecting everything in the track the threshold is set too low.

Equalization can also help reduce excessive sibilance : sometimes there is a resonant-peak due to the type of microphone or peculiarity of the person's mouth (e.g. dentures), those narrow band of frequencies in that peak can be cut-back across the entire duration of the recording using the equalizer ...

Spectrogram shows resonant peak 7-8KHz throughout the track which could be cut back with equalization shown.gif (312.24 KiB) Viewed 4928 times

notch-type equalization in Audacity.gif (24.11 KiB) Viewed 4928 times

[ABQChris]

... can't soften my sibilants without diminishing the quality of everything else in the signal. I have to crank it that high.

The de-esser's operation is that it only kicks in when sibilance gets above a threshold. If it's affecting everything in the track the threshold is set too low.

Equalization can also help reduce excessive sibilance : sometimes there is a resonant peak due to the person's mouth-teeth or the type of microphone, those narrow band frequencies can be cut-back across the entire duration of the recording using the equalizer ...

That's good stuff to know. Thanks so much for your help, Trebor.

[lrempertkraeuter]

Thanks, all! I admit, I am doing it the "cheap" route with the pc's internal mic and no headphones. It's only a 6 min monologue, so I can get through it in one take and don't have to worry about splicing tracks together or other technicalities. It's just dialogue for my final presentation and it is coming out quite well with audacity. I figured out the noise reduction and am happy with that and everything else about final product except those damn consonants!! So, just downloaded spitfish and will give it a go. Thanks for giving a newbie a hand.

Laura