De-Essing

De-essing is the technique of combining a compressor and equaliser to remove the sibilant parts of a sound, in almost all cases, a vocal performance although sometimes it may be used on an entire mix in the mastering process. Sibilance is often heard on the ‘s’ or ‘shhh’ parts of the performance.

De-essing works by compressing the offending frequencies, in one of two ways.

1. Using a dedicated de-esser which combines the elements or
2. by adding an equaliser in the side-chain of a compressor.

The frequencies most affected range between 2-10Khz.

De-essing is a restorative treatment and sibilance is best avoided in the first place by recording with the right microphone, the use of pop-shields and avoiding over-compression of vocals at the input stage.