About To Give Up Music Because Of De Essing.

[Exalted Wombat]

When you have multiple layers of vocal lines, do you line up all the S's on each line and try to get them to work as one, or do you cut all the S's in all the layers and only leave ONE lead track that has the S sound on it?

This suggests that by 'de-essing' you don't only mean controlling sibilant attacks, but also lining up the ends of notes that END with an s. (Same issue can arise with final consonants, although many pop/rock singers don't bother much with them anyway

Yes, 'just one of you sing the final s' is a routine technique in everything from multitrack pop vocals to large classical choruses.

As for initial sibilants, unless your name is Daffy or Sylvester a lot of it should respond to performance and mic placement, not to editing.

If you're serious about giving up, see my tag line. 'Bye!

[WilliamAshley]

I didn't see it in this thread so I thought I would share my "hobbyist approach" to Deessing. Plugins. There are a lot of dessing plugins, not even just EQs but channel strips, vocal chain plugins, etc..

I have a few vocal plugins I enjoy, particularly Butch Vigs Vocals - its sort of the poor mans solution to doing audio processing. SSL vocal strip also has a dessing section. There are tons of dedicated plugins to deesing and vocals.

Hardware usually comes at a much higher price.
I won't go beyond that but I would atleast suggest you try some plugins if you are engineering in the box not just on hardware. You may find a plugin that works for you if you can't sort out the eq. Also bear in mind editing specific points individually may be needed rather than just slapping a plugin on a track setting the levels / threshold etc.. and calling it a day. CLA vocals and others may all help it may not just be one plugin fixes all but you could try different plugins for different voices / room etc.. to find what works best for you.