Ssssss

[Rick Barber]

S's slurred. What do I do?

I did my first flat recording recently. Did each side of a 33.3 album which happened to be a mid 80's recording of country hits. These cuts are lively to say the least. (Audio punch lively!) And I will be doing more flat recording and using the RIAA curve provided in DC6. Overall I like what I here, but there is the problem with s's on one cut.

I have experienced this lively slurring of s's before but usually I can track it back to an over aggressive use of one filter or another.

In this particular case the slurred s's are on the original recording that I made. Which makes me believe they were there on the record. My only alternative right now is going back to my original preamp that has a Riaa curve built in. I may try that soon but...

My question is How do I tame those sssssssss'ssssss so they sound more like a plane old s??
Any help would be appreciated.
RickB

[Geebster]

This is probably too obvious and you have already tried this... but have you tried to use the Dynamic Processor to tame the ssssss's? There are 4 built-in de-essing presets, maybe one would be a good starting point.

GB..

[Craig Maier]

Why - - - you need to use the De-Esssssssssser, of course!

It is found under the Dynamics Processor under the Effects menu (although it is not really an effect). There are a number of De-Esser presets to choose from as starting points. Experiment a bit.

That should do the trick.

[Geebster]

Uh-Oh... I am in serious trouble!!

I am starting to think like Craig...

GB..

[Craig Maier]

LOL! Brilliant minds think alike. Did you notice that we both wrote that answer at the exact same time to the minute - - - 7:11? What a hoot.

[Geebster]

LOL! Brilliant minds think alike. Did you notice that we both wrote that answer at the exact same time to the minute - - - 7:11? What a hoot.

More like Mentor (get it?) and student!!!

GB.

[Rick Barber]

Thank you gents! I will give it a try this very day and report back the results.

[mightymic]

i have an old country lp by Tom T. Hall he made for children, the big hit from that LP is a song called "Sneaky Snake" and he has a kids choir backing him up. talk about a Dessssssssssing night mare man.

[Rick Barber]

This particular song is George Jones who's gonna fill there shoes.

I have tried all 4 presets and they don't seem to do the job. I have even re recorded the record using a cartrige that is a little less quality. I am not sure which sliders to move to help get the ssss s out or at least aceptable.

This is probably a re record of a re record.

[Craig Maier]

In general, it is unlikely that the preset will happen to match the problem at hand, but it is more like a starting point.

Move the threshold downwards until you see the red bar graph meter moving at the bottom right hand side of the effect. Adjust the frequency to around 2,000 to 4,000 Hz. Adjust the ratio control until you achieve the best degree of de-essing required with higher numbers being more agressive filtering. If the situation is real bad, you may have to reduce the frequency below 2,000 Hz. Experiment until the esssing is decreased without infringing on the rest of the music.

Probably the key control is the threshold in order to establish discrimination between essssing and music.

[Rick Barber]

Thanks Craig. I will give that a try later today. (I am at work right now.)

[Drew]

If this happens alot, you might try another cartridge. I found that the cartridge I started out with (Stanton 500) had alot of high frequency sibilance. I changed to another, more expensive cartridge (Shure 93 something or other) and that helped alot to where I didn't have to use the deesser as much, if at all.

HTH-

Drew

[Craig Maier]

Drew,

I think that an incorrectly tracking cartridge/stylus can also produce siblance. Could it be that the Stanton was mis-tracking?

[Drew]

Hey Craig;
I'm not sure... I ordered a second 500 from Tracer and got the same result (there might be a thread I started awhile back on that issue).

Unless, I set up both carts wrong, which could be possible also; to the best of my knowledge, I set them up correctly. I just know when I changed to the Shure cartridge, the sibilance all but disappeared.

I can go back and try to re set up the Stanton and see what happens.

[Rick Barber]

Still not working I tried a number of things and I ever re recorded it using a different cartrige on my turntable. I normally use a grado green but I have a radio shack laying around that I only use on very bad records. However this is the frist time I used the RS version.

Same exact results. I am tempted to use my other pre amp and see it that makes a difference.