De-Essing Vocals in REAPER

hi I'm Kenny Choi uh welcome to another one of my tutorials in this video I'm going to show you the DS vocals in reaper now the idea of de-essing vocals is to control the high frequency content like s sounds CH sounds even th sounds they sound harsh if they're pronounced a bit too hard with the modern technique of very bright vocals this brings those sounds out even more so by reducing it and keeping the vocal more even we can then brighten it at the end and create a much more consistent tone so there's two different ways of doing this the first way is doing it automatically using a compressor and a sidechain EQ to trigger that compressor to only react to high frequency content or s sounds the second way is to do it manually which is much more time-consuming which is why I want to show you both ways if you have to do a quick mix and the s is a pop it out you don't have time to DS manually so those situations you're going to want to use the first method also if you're doing a song with many background vocal tracks say 30 or 40 it's way too time-consuming to D s each one manually so in those situations I tend to manually D s the lead vocal and automatically D s the rest of the vocals it's a much better use of your time so I'm going to show you both methods I've a vocal track in front of me here let's hear it sounds like I've heard about the things that you don't before but I thought I can change all your way I guess you down I knew what you had installed I'm done running around as you can tell there's a lot of s sounds th sounds and even CH sounds that are popping out they're way too bright compared to the rest of the vocal so let's start off with the automatic way we'll go to our track and then EQ that's going to trigger a compressor I'm going to use the reaper EQ because I know you have it if you're using Reaper it's also very useful for this function so I'm going to try to highlight or emphasize just the s sounds so we'll start off with a high-pass and roll off all the weight put a track and soil I heard about the things that you don't before but I thought I could change all your ways right about there feels good everything under 1.5 kilo Hertz is being cut we don't need it and for the top-end we're gonna boost with a parametric EQ or band EQ just those high frequency that sounds I'd heard about the things that you don't before but I thought I could change all you a is I guess you down I knew what you had in store I'm done bro net around and you're me is that's pretty good right there about 5 kilohertz that's where the s sounds are most obvious so by triggering them with this EQ into a compressor it's just going to compress the esses some let's add a compressor afterwards I'm gonna use the Reaper compressor cuz once again I know you have it it actually works very well for de-essing although this technique will work with any EQ or compressor so let's choose this now to get this compressor to be triggered by the EQ we're going to have to use a plug-in pin connector over here starting with our EQ if we choose this we can see a plug-in pin connector which shows the channel 1 & 2 on a vocal is going out to 1 & 2 but we need more channels to create a side chain so if we go down here to the plus button we can add two more and by doing that we actually create two more channels on this track as well see over here if we open the routing before it was two channels but by doing this it now becomes four channels so I'm going to use two channels for our side chain and two channels for the actual vocal the thing we actually hear so for the EQ the sound that comes in is going to go to the EQ which is channel one and two but when you take this out over here and send it to three and four so now we're not going to hear the EQ if I hit play I heard about the things that you don't before but I thought I could change a yo a a because we're hearing 1 & 2 we can put it back do you the difference about the things so basically splitting the channel but putting the EQ only on 3 & 4 so now I can go to a compressor let's check the pins on that one in two's over here and then three or four are going to auxilary input left and right so we go down over here to a detective input this is what the sides which triggers the compressor will switch it to auxiliary left and right so now the EQ with the vocal is triggering a compressor we're not going to hear the EQ we're just going to hear the result although if you want to hear the EQ we could choose right here to preview the filter and then we can hear it I heard about the things that you don't before but if we turn this off we're not going to hear it I heard about the things that you don't before but it's still triggering a compressor and therefore de-essing the vocal I'm going to set it at four to one and make the attack and release pretty quick just go up a little bit because the s sounds are very short you want make sure we catch them they bring the threshold down to just grab the esses I heard about the things that you don't before but I thought I could change are you a notice right over here dony compresses on the s sounds I heard about the things that you don't before but I thought I could change all you a is I guess you down I knew what you had in store I'm done brought it around and you're me a what's here before I heard about the things that you don't before but I thought I could change are you a very Essie I heard about the things that you don't before but I thought I could change all you a is you can bring it down too far it's gonna sound like your singer has a lisp so be careful of that so T that the track I've heard about the things that you don't before but I thought I can change all your way I guess you down I knew what you had in store I'm done running around and that sounds a lot better it only takes a few minutes to set up but what I really recommend instead of setting this up each time is to save it as an effects chain so we could right click over here go to effects chains and save all effects as chain let's name it de-essing vocals now you can clear this and get it all back including the pins in fact let's put this back to two channels and watch what happens right click over here go to effects chain and choose de-essing vocals when we just saved that's going to add both effects along with changing the channels to the four channels that we need and change the pins so that req is going out three and four and coming in three and four over here to trigger the compressor I heard about the things that you don't before and all you have to do afterwards it's just tweak it for that particular vocal but just the EQ to pick the frequency for the vocal you're working on and then reach weak the compressor I heard about the things that you don't before but I thought I could change a yo a a so that's the automatic way what's clintus let's do it the manual way and to do this we're going to adjust a volume envelope let's go to envelopes here and we don't want to choose the main volume envelope I want to save that for writing the vocal in the mix so instead we're going to choose this one right here volume pre effects and there's a few more reasons for choosing this envelope let's choose it we could see it down here the first reason what they wanted to bring down this phrase right here we can create four points and then just pull it down and watch what happens to this we can actually see the change in real time so you can see how low we've made that s sound that's one benefit of using the pre effects volume envelope another benefit is that this is happening before our effects if your track has a normal compressor on it you know what that compressor to be triggered by the S sound that's not going to be there so by reducing it before it hits that compressor it's not going to be triggered unnecessarily so it really recommend using the pre effects volume envelope so son do this let's find a first s sound I heard about the things that you don't evolve out of things there's a th right here things and if you notice so you're dark that is we zoom in that's because the waveform is very dense that's what happens with high frequency information we go over here the things the things it's a th sound has the same thing going on so those are the sounds we want to reduce there's a few different ways I've done this in the past one way is to create four points like this just bring it down you or have created a custom action to do the same thing we can select it go to my actions and right over here I created a custom action let's see what it does it's going to insert 400 points like we just did at the time selection then it's going to move it down a little bit which is really a DB so we have four of those so it's going to go down four dB and then finally it's going to remove the time selection so if we trigger that right here it looks like that and it brings down the s out of it of the things it but to be honest it's a lot quicker to just draw them so let's just zoom in on this one hold on control on a PC or command on the Mac it changes to a drawing tool we could just draw in the volume change of the things just go through each one of them now the things that you don't move oh there's a big one right here is that you don't visit you don't evolve but I thought is it you don't move on but I thought this F sound a bit too loud as well bring that down a little bit I move on but I thought that this th sound right here bring it a little lower right there but I thought but uh over here too but I thought I can check but I thought I can change and a CH for change to bring that down a bit and we can see the changes in real time right here so if it looks like this we know it's a problem bring it down it's a lot better I could smooth it out Anjali or I can change a yo that's a bit too low I can change all your way that's right here I can't see down this one - right here I guess you down in this one I guess you down definitely this one yes you down yes you down on I guess you down I knew and down sit down I knew what you hadn't stopped and this one as well who would you add install a new would you that's a bit too low we could just adjust it or customize it for each s-sound I knew what you add and stop adding stop so it's a lot more accurate then doing it automatically with plugins but as you can see it's very time consuming let's hear this back see if you made it better I heard about the things that you don't before but I thought I can change all your way I guess you down I knew what you hadn't stopped much better if you want to hear the before go to the envelope over here and turn it off I heard about the things that you don't before but I thought I can change all your way and turn it back on to hear the de-essing and notice up here we can see the change off and on I heard about the things that you don't before but I thought I can change all your way that sounds a lot better to me now if it's too dark afterwards just add an EQ on top of it at the end but our tone will be much more even by first bringing down the esses and then accusing overall so that's pretty much it that's deicing vocals in reaper I hope you learn something hope you can use it and I'll see you next time Thanks you ah you

Channel: REAPER Mania

Views: 72,372

Rating: 4.9533706 out of 5

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Id: WGPJ1Uiyqz0

Length: 15min 54sec (954 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 01 2016