How To Set A DeEsser For A Great Sounding Voice-Over

what is the best way to set a dser when you're talking about voiceover audio how much dsing should you use uh when should you use a DSR when should you avoid using a dser those are the things we're going to talk about in this video my name is Lenny B voice over audio [Music] engineer this is a submission that I got from a client it's actually um she's been a client Lisa has been a client for um quite a while but she just moved and she has uh different location so she's actually recording in a different space so we're going to give her a voice over kind of an update just to make sure that uh all the frequencies are balanced correctly uh but the first thing I want to do is play you the raw audio from Lisa and she explains about the microphone she's using and stuff but I want you just to hear uh the room that she's in and and then I'm going to play you the updated Uh custom processing preset so you can see the difference and then we're going to focus kind of zoom in on dsing and how I set the dser for her and a kind of a I don't know if I want to call it a hack but it's kind of like a uh it's the system I use it's the process that I use to set a dester that helps me find the precise frequencies um high frequencies or siblin frequencies to attenuate to really give me what I feel is a a great optimized sound for voiceover so let's take a look at and take a listen to the raw file hi there there my name is Lisa masick and I'm based out of Winnipeg Manitoba Canada the microphone that I'm using is a Lon 320 La 320 I use the Scarlet solo interface and I have been using Lenny's preset your preset for a couple of years now and I've loved it however we have moved to a new home I'm now in a walk-in closet uh as you can hear it's actually balanced pretty well the raw audio um you know I listen for reflection sounds or uh overabundant frequencies in particular frequency spaces and that's what I want to change but in general this is a really a pretty good uh raw audio recording so um this will be easy for me to update and to send her an update on her custom processing preset but uh what I want to do now is play uh the difference um this is with the custom setting that I've created for her and we can just kind of look through it real quick we've done just a little bit of uh balance ING with the EQ but not a lot of work uh being done here and we have also run it through the shps omom channel uh these are the plugins that um she had originally on her custom preset and um I'm using two dsers and we're going to talk a little bit more about that but I want you to hear the before and after uh this updated custom processing preset that I've created first we'll listen uh again to that same section raw and then we'll compare it I'll engage uh the complete custom preset so you can hear the difference hi there my name is Lisa masck and I'm based out of Winnipeg Manitoba Canada the microphone that I'm using is a l 320 La 320 I use the Scarlet solo interface and I have been using Lenny's preset your preset for a couple of years now and I've loved it however we have moved to a new home I'm now in a walk-in closet so it sounds uh more present more clear it's got a little bit um more of a forward type of sound I think it kind of brings that voice kind of like right in your face which is really cool so the new recording space that she's using that she's recording I think is fine it sounds like it's a larger room than maybe a smaller closet generally you can get less Reflections if you're in a bigger space it kind of helps out but um she must be surrounded by lots of clothes and things that are absor also absorbing the reflections because I don't hear many okay here's what I want to do um I want to talk about the frequencies and really like learning how to use it in EQ and understand understanding frequencies is such a a foundational um just a really good General understanding it's going to really help you it's the foundation of really understanding so many different processors like a dser um what I want to do first is we're going to look at Isotopes uh this is called um Insight Pro and it's a spectrum analyzer that isotope has uh we're going to turn this on and we're going to I'm going to play the raw audio again this is before the processing I want you to take a look at the visual representation of the frequencies in Lisa's raw audio hi there my name is Lisa masick and I'm based out of Winnipeg Manitoba Canada what I want you to see here is um this bottom grayer um graph and the lines here and and this is real time so when I play this is moving really quickly and it's giving us a representation of all the frequencies but this white uh line here is actually it's called a hold Peak line and it's actually showing us the highest points so far until we reset of the frequencies that have been reached so uh let's uh first I want to talk about the lower portions and if you if you don't know this is actually a good little exercise I want you I want to get you um familiar with the frequencies and what they sound like so we're starting down at 30 htz 100 Hertz 200 300 500 700 1,000 Hertz or 1K 2K is the this area here 3 5K 7K up to 10K now what I want you to understand is the low base of her voice is between 100 and around 300 and then we get into the low mid sections mid uh frequencies then there's the upper mid frequencies the siblin and the siblin Sounds in her voice the S's and ch's and uh sh sounds like sh and S you know those those siblin sounds are sometimes between you know four 4,000 and maybe up to 10,000 sometimes so in this area is where a lot of the siblin happens and then beyond that is kind of like an air really high air quality sound but unless you're familiar with an EQ I think it's a good idea to kind of walk through this and solo some of these because this is what I want you to understand I want you to see a visual representation of these frequencies I want you to um understand the numbers and and Associate those with the sound so what we're going to do this little EX size I think this is really going to open your eyes open your ears to um frequency and EQ and voice over producing so what I'm going to do is I'm going to open up uh an EQ now this is not the EQ that is in the preset this is this is her the F6 and the chef Chann sheps Channel or the preset that I've used and that that's disengaged which it's not on but I'm opening up another EQ here this EQ that we're looking at is this first EQ then here's the studio rack and we'll we'll turn that off so that's her processing preset that we're not using that's disengaged and then Insight Pro so um if you if you didn't know uh the audio in most Daws I don't know if I've seen a Daw that doesn't work this way but the audio flows from the top down so the audio is coming into this F6 RTA realtime analyzer the F6 EQ first it's going through the studio rack which is disengaged and then it's going into Insight Pro it's going from the top down so the first thing we're going to do is go through this EQ and I'm going to turn on just this one band and I'm going to to solo the band and I'm going to cycle through while we're listening to her voice because I want you to see we're going to look at the frequencies that we're soloing we're just isolating this band of frequencies let's make it a little bit wider um and I want you to hear them as I sweep them up and then I want you to visually see where they fall here on this representation uh on the Insight Pro all right let's play through the audio and I'm going to start at the very bottom we are listening to her audio right now but we're talking about uh listening to frequencies we so we're soloing frequencies around 30 htz 40 50 and we're not really hearing anything until we get to 60 70 80 90 that's where the voice kind of starts now this is uh she may not have the deepest voice but we really don't start getting voice material until about 70 and up okay let's keep going now we can go around 100 180 200 300 um take a really serious run at voice over so that's kind of the low mid area that boxy kind of sound there so I want you to understand that's that's you know we're listening to 200 to 300 Hertz and that's what that sounds like let's keep going hi there my name is Lisa masck and I'm based at 400 canone that I'm using is 320 1zl so now we're getting up into the the mid-range and that upper mid sound and we're going to approach the sibling now around 3 four um uh 4,000 Hertz hi there my name is Lisa and bnip Manitoba Canada there's 2 La 320 I use 3,000 this is where some of those siblin sounds start happening hi there my name 7,000 I've I find that a lot of the really high siblin sounds really the a lot of the S's and the high s's happen sometimes up around 8 n or 10 and then uh beyond that it starts getting into the air and just it's beyond that siblin sound and then really starts dropping off and we don't hear a lot of those really upper high frequencies so the reason why I did this is because I want you to associate uh the numbers and Visually what it looks like on an EQ you sweep through there and also on the Spectrum analyzer and what it sounds like at the same time so now um and you can do this by the way too you could grab an EQ uh and you could uh use a higher low pass filter and just kind of sweep through just to understand the numbers and how they associate to the sound in your voice that's really going to help these are really the fundamentals of working in EQ I have a training course called a fundamental EQ for voice and it's a fantastic course I'm very proud of it it's one of the most popular courses I have and if you are interested in in uh being able to produce um audio especially voiceover um because this EQ course focuses on how to do it for a voiceover recording uh it's a great course it's uh it's definitely going to allow you to work any EQ software or hardware and all those questions that you have like hey I'm not sure how this EQ works or I'm not sure which direction I'm going in why am I moving this up instead of down why am I going to the right or to the left what do these knobs do I mean it really answers all those questions and you'll feel confident about um making the changes with an EQ let's shut off the EQ and let's look at Insight Pro from isotope and now what I want to do I'm going to I'm scroll through this audio again um I'm going to shut off that first EQ so we're only looks we're only listening to the raw audio and we're going to look at the visual representation but this time I want you to when uh we hear Lisa's s's or sh sounds or some of those siblin sounds it's going to show us exactly where they are and what numbers that they are centered around and we're going to make a note of these because these are the numbers these are the frequency spaces we're going to translate and use when we set our dser so um there's um I'll Point your eyes and ears to this she has two different spaces where I believe there's some siblin sounds that we can attenuate we can modify and reduce a little bit she's got kind of a higher s sound but then she she has a lower sh kind of a sh sound when she says things like shotgun microphone so let's listen for the siblin Sounds in her voice and then we'll also visually take a look at what those are like in the Insight Pro Spectrum analyzer hi there my name is Lisa masick and I'm based out of Winnipeg Manitoba Canada the microphone that I'm using is a Lon 320 La 320 I use the Scarlet solo so I'm going to stop right there and you know this is what I'm noticing which she says Scarlet solo I'm noticing that this area this space right here centered around gosh 10,000 um 10.5 this is the frequency space where her High s's are peaking you this is where the most of that energy is so I'm going to kind of make a note of that but we're going to keep playing through there and see you know this is uh remember this is a peak Line This is the highest that they get so we could look at this it only updates if it actually goes even higher so that's it's a good way for us to Mark the destination and and the frequency spaces we want to work with interface and I have been using Lenny's preset your preset for a couple of years now and I've loved it however we have moved to a new home I'm now in a walk-in closet still I'm still seeing this is one of the highest ones it looks like this is kind of another area but um you know around here this is good it's giving us that information let's continue and I happen to know that she has an sh coming up here that's a little bit lower let's see if we can hear it and find it um I'm ready to upgrade my mic and I'm not sure if I'm better with a shotgun or um and this is uh 36 uh 3.6 khz so if we make note of that 3.6 khz and then the frequencies centered around about 92 those are some good um places to start and obviously I think it's always a good idea to at the end use your ears and you kind of use this data that we've captured use the these frequency spaces that we can see our triggering on the uh the Spectrum analyzer so we know where those high frequency siblin Peaks are could translate that over to the dser but then we're going to use our ears to kind of fine-tune it but I think you'll you'll uh you'll see that this really like we're using the equipment we're using the meters we're using this Insight Pro Spectrum analyzer to really help us hone in and get the data that we need to set the dser in the right area here's the waves dser and uh I'm going to set the um the detector circuit to a band pass because I want to focus in on just the frequencies the high let's start with the higher frequencies that we heard and uh I've dropped the threshold here so it starts up at the top and we're going to drop it to about 37 because I want about 6 DB I have found when I said a dser that attenuating a dser around 6 DB is probably a pretty good amount of dsing um it's a good place to start and so that's what I'm going to kind of look for which means when the uh s siblin sounds past the threshold uh it's going to attenuate them by 60b so it's bringing down the volume of just that frequency space where we've identified the siblin sounds to drop down now we're looking at the 10,000 uh or the 10 khz space which is the upper end of her uh siblin sound so let's hear what that sounds like I'll I'll turn this on and off so you can hear the difference and listen for those s's hi there my name is Lisa masle hi there my name is Lisa masck and I'm based out of Winnipeg Manitoba Canada really seems to um soften those higher s's um and listen there is um there's no rules I have identified by looking at the frequency analyzer and also my ears when I heard some of her sh sounds I thought well there's like a little bit of a a whistle there when that happens I'd like to drop that down too there's no reason why you can't use 2DS at once especially if you focused them on specific frequency spaces and you're only attenuating the s's when they happen when they get too loud so really what's happening is all the other times when it's not offending and it's what it's not over siant nothing's happening the DS is not it's not changing the sound at all so we're only working on um uh attenuating those siblin sounds when they happen when they pass a certain threshold really what that means is a dser is basically a compressor that is working only when uh it needs to on only on a certain frequency band not the whole piece of audio so let's double let's make another so I'm going to copy this dser again right underneath so the first one we see is at uh 10 and so let's make this one I think it was around 34 wasn't it it was like the sh sounds let's find those sounds first I know they H was in here when she said shotgun M and I'm not sure if I'm better with a shotgun so here I've isolated where she says the word shotgun where we hear that little whistle let's look again at insight and I'm not sure if I'm better with a shotgun so let's see around 36 let's go down to 36 let's see what threshold setting it would take to get about 60b of reduction on this dser mik and I'm not sure if I'm better with mik and I'm not sure if I'm better with a shotgun or Mike and I'm not sure if I'm better with a shotgun or mic and I'm not I want you to see if we can hear the difference between the uh the raw sh sound when she says shotgun mic and then I'll engage it and you can hear the difference between the dest shotgun mic sound here's a first with it off mik and I'm not sure if I'm better with a shotgun or mik and I'm not sure if I'm better with a shotgun so here's what it does um because it's just dropping down the amplitude of that narrow frequency band only when it's overabundant when it's above the threshold what's happening is it's bringing that down and it's softening the sound of her voice because we're not having that overabundant spike in that frequency space for that sient sound to poke through so we're just really it's it's uh in real time shaping the frequency of the audio as it's moving it's the power of using plugins like this you could really shape the sound on an ongoing in an ongoing way over time in real time all right let's put them both on let's listen to the uh raw file again and then I'm going to show you how I've done something similar in the shomi channel let's just listen um with the two dsers uh engaged here hi there my name is Lisa masck and I'm based out of here here's what I'm going to do I'm going to put the I'll put the higher one on the right side just so it's seems a little more uh a little easier to compare so this one is the higher frequency and this one is the lower frequency and you can see it attenuating when you hear it hi there my name is Lisa masck and I'm based out of Winnipeg Manitoba Canada the microphone that I'm using is a Lon 320 La 320 I use the Scarlet solo interface and I have been using Lenny's let's move over to the sh sound here hi there I'm wondering um I'm ready to upgrade my mic and I'm not sure if I'm better with a shotgun or um just a better condenser mic so it's really valuable to have uh processing happen only when we want it to and then when we don't have those overabundant sounds it's it keeps the audio untouched which is what we want different dsers are going to have different features they're going to uh their interface is going to be a little bit different but they all kind of do the same thing and I want to just um let's look at uh one a little bit closer here this this is the prods from fab filter and uh you know what what we have here you can change the size of the frequency window of that uh band that you want to modify the band that you want to attenuate when it hits a certain uh threshold that threshold we could set here and let's actually let's let's set this and we'll I'm going to translate the setting this is for the higher so we're in the 10,000 frequency so let's go seven let's go between nine let's 9 and 11 so that's about let's open it up just a little bit more so I'm going to go 8 to 13 we'll set the threshold about - 38 and we want the range to be about 60b and let's see now um I'm going to we've disengaged this dser but we've engaged the prods and let's see what that sounds like hi there my name is Lisa masck and I'm based out of Winnipeg Manitoba Canada the microphone that I'm using is a Lon 320 La 320 I use the Scarlet solo interface and I have been using Lenny's pre now like I said they all work a little different they have a different sound to them the curves are a little bit different how they respond is a little different some give you a lot more control I'm hearing um in my uh I'm hearing in to my ear it sounds like it's doing a little bit more dsing than I need it to sounds a little bit muffled to me the important thing here is that I want you to see that um you know you can use a frequency analyzer you can use the visual representation to identify the frequency space and you can translate that to any dser but I do suggest once you find the space you kind of listen and you make the final decision with your ears that's really important I I really try to do that I want to use the data from The Meters I want to use the data from the plugins to help me make my decision but my final decision on what I think the best sound is that happens uh with my ear another one of the reasons why I love the Shep zom channel is it offers two dsers which can be really handy when you're processing voiceover audio and you can see 94 uh is where I've set the center frequency of this upper dser number one and number two the second dser is about 37 and because of the curves because of the narrow band I'm choosing to use um I can set the threshold and again it's a little bit different from the numbers that we saw on the frequency analyzer but this is what I've come up with so um what I want to do is I'm going to play the entire custom setting for you um and then I'm going to engage in and out disengage and engage the dser uh so listen for when it's off you can listen for those siblin frequencies and and see if they're just a little over um overabundant and see how they are um drawn in see how they're minimized see how they're they're tamped down see how they're um attenuated those frequency spaces are attenuated when to engage the DS let's listen to First without and then I'll engage it and toggle it for you hi there my name is Lisa masck and I'm based out of Winnipeg Manitoba Canada hi there my name is Lisa masck and I'm based out of Winnipeg Manitoba Canada the microphone that I'm using is a Lon 320 La 320 I use the Scarlet solo interface and I have been using Lenny's preset your preset for a couple of years now you can see when the upper um frequency space is being attenuated in the meter uh here and then you can see when the lower frequency space is being attenuated uh and I'll let's move over to that shotgun mic section so you can see um how this one is attenuating the lower space of the siblings myself and really go after this I also am wondering um I'm ready to upgrade my mic and I'm not sure if I'm better with a shotgun or um just a better condenser mic so all right one thing I want to do it's pretty cool right we're able to use the frequency analyzer I think that's a powerful tool to really draw our attention and it'll help us kind of make sense of it all it's like yes that is definitely where the frequencies are overabundant and so I could focus on those and yes I know I'm in the right space now let me use my ear to kind of fine-tune it but um I want to talk a little bit about how much dser to use or if you should use it at all I mean I think you could listen to this and say well um some people like the brightness she may like the bright sound and say I don't know if this uh needs a DSR at all or really it's not doing that much or some people may say oh this is still too harsh for me so how much DSR do you use do you use it and when shouldn't you use it and I always feel that it's really important that you as the voiceover artist need to like it that's more important than what anybody else thinks because if you like the sound of your own voice you're going to perform better I say this constantly all the time but I think this is really an important uh concept to understand uh number one is you and it has to be something that you're comfortable with this is your art form this is what you're putting out into the world this is how you're being created and if you like it that really it's really all that matters there will be some people that love it along with you and there's some people that may not like it and that's okay um you know we don't have to be everything we don't have to per be perfect for everybody but we have to really feel confident in what we're doing and that's going to help Propel your voiceover career further I believe so I really think because really this is Art right it's like what are we're we're attenuating 3 4 6 DB in certain frequency spaces you know so really there's not really much we're not Chang with a dser we're not changing your voice that much but um so I think the the road map here the vector that you need to follow is are you happy with it do you like the sound of it and that's definitely what I do when I set a dser send back a sample to somebody I go hey this is the sound I came up with this is my interpretation of what I think sounds good but what do you think and and what do you like and if they want me to adjust any way if you want me to adjust any way uh uh whether it's the DS or how much EQ or brightness or uh or warmth or lowend or highend I'm happy to do that for you because I want you to be happy then when I put a a a custom preset together for somebody that's the bottom line I want you to love the sound that's my goal right I want you to love the sound uh anyway I'll wrap up here by saying um give it a shot mess with a frequency analyzer um a lot of eqs have a frequency analyzer in it uh the F6 does that uh Insight Pro from isotope is a handy tool but there's even some free uh frequency analyzers uh plugins VST plugins online that you can grab and and just try to mess with the EQ and and understand what those numbers are and how they associate with the sound uh of a voice in that frequency space um my EQ course I think is a fantastic way to really uh dive a little deeper into understanding frequencies as I break it down you will be able to understand any EQ and you'll be able to manipulate any EQ for voiceover after that course and again uh don't be shy if you are interested in sending me your voice so you can hear what my custom processing sounds like on your voice by all means send it in and I say this all the time um you don't have to be a professional voiceover artist to send me your voice I actually believe that I can help more people earlier on in their career earlier on in their the development of their studio right um I can help you make it sound better that's what I do you got any questions about any of this stuff or setting a dser or suggestions you need for me by all means please leave the questions in the comment section I'm Lenny B voiceover audio engineer thanks for watching

Channel: Lenny B

Views: 1,438

Keywords: DeEsser, Voice-Over, Processing, Plugins

Id: S5aUYNhwtjM

Length: 27min 42sec (1662 seconds)

Published: Mon Apr 29 2024