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If your vocal doesn’t need to be de-essed, then of course skip this step, but it’s included here since most vocals will need it. How much you attenuate will depend on the vocal performance and content however, I like to avoid compressing more than 5dB if possible. Taking care of this now ensures that you don’t need to use aggressive processing later on. Next up, it’s time to attenuate any additional or unwanted sibilance.
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Insert 2: Weiss Deesser Using a deesser helps control sibilance before it gets amplified by saturation or additive equalization. You can also subtly amplify aspects of the vocal, but keep in mind that this is going to cause more aggressive subsequent processing.Īdditionally, as we stated earlier, feel free to use a different clean equalizer here instead of the Pro-Q 3. Subtractive equalization is a great first step – with it you can attenuate any aspects of the frequency response that you don’t want to be amplified later on. Insert 1: FabFilter Pro-Q 3, Subtractive EQ Equalization is a powerful tool – use it early on to shape the vocal. I like to utilize the range of a gate to attenuate the signal if it falls below the threshold, but not cut it out completely.Īdditionally, it’s a good idea to use gating first in your signal chain if you do intend to use it since this ensures that breathes or other unwanted sounds don’t get amplified by other forms of processing. Although it’s best to edit out any parts of the vocal that you don’t want to be present, gating can save you some time, or make the vocal sound a little more natural. Optional: Gate Gating is optional, but can be helpful for quickly cutting out unwanted background noise.īefore we start getting into the signal chain, we do have one option step – gating. We’ll master it for you and send you a sample to review.
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