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Archive for the ‘Virtual Effect’ Category
Friday, April 20th, 2012
This post was sent in by Joe Clar at JoeClarMusic.com. I’ve expanded on it to include a few additional resources. These additions are identified in italics. The original post can be found here.
De-Essing Approaches
I was recently working on a song and the sibilance was just a little too much for me. Like anything in audio there several ways of accomplishing the same task and different people will have different opinions but these are a few ways that I found to be effective.
1. Automate Each and Every Sibilance (The Manual Approach)
There’s a thread with this in Gearslutz (link) that offers a very good solution. It is basically to put a trim plug in and then automate the volume of the trim plug-in on each sibilance. This way is also completely free and similar to compressing by riding a volume fader.
Advantages- No artifacts, Cost-effective, You can choose how much you want to decrease each sibilance, Doesn’t interfere with volume automation for the track and you can bypass the plug-in or go back and tweak if needed.
Disadvantages- Can be time consuming if there are lots of background vocal tracks or doublings, Can’t be saved as a setting that can be applied to future or similar vocal tracks.
Photo from Gregory Scott’s Gearslutz post
“I put this on a trim plug so it’s separate from volume automation, makes it much easier to edit as the mix progresses.
If you slide your first two nodes to the right, you can let as much or as little transient thru as you’d like. If you add nodes, you can put the transient at one level and the ess at another.
Each sibilant (ess or tzz or chhh or fff) is tuned by ear, so the amount of control is unparalleled. Once you get up to speed, you can do a whole track in about 5 minutes. Sibilants are very easy to spot visually, they’re much denser and faster than anything else on the track.”
-Gregory Scott – ubk
A variation of this tip is to use clip gain/item volume or other pre-FX gain adjustment in your DAW to turn down the volume of the offending areas.
I recently set up an action in REAPER to speed up this process [split selected area, turn item gain down 2dB] I have the action assigned to a convenient keyboard shortcut. I have another to boost and another to mute. I’m using these a ton for de-essing, breath reduction, leveling vocal and dialog dynamics, and similar tasks on instrument tracks.
Recently I was mixing a song called Mother Earth, every time the word “Earth” was sung the TH sound was held too long. No one makes a De-Ether so I knew had to figure out a manual method. I found the best way to was to reduce the TH section of the waveform by 2dB and time compress it by about 60%.
2. Use a De-Esser Plug-in (The Automatic Approach)
When a De-Esser plug-in is set correctly it can be fast and easy. However it usually takes a little time to find the problem frequency, then to set the threshold so it doesn’t get triggered by other material, and then to have it work for many different sections of the track. There’s quite a bit to take into account and you will most likely need to automate some of the parameters of the De-Esser to get it right. There are some videos on Pensado’s Place that go over this in the Into The Lair Section. Pensado’s Place is definitely a show worth checking out, he is very knowledgeable, a Grammy Award winning mixer and a genuinely nice guy sharing what he has learned working in music.
Fab Dupont has a great video demonstrating the how-to and differences between 6 popular de-essers.
One method I found works for me when using a De-Esser plug-in is to set the frequency band to be fairly wide and to use a shelf shape instead of just notching out a narrow frequency band. Usually the offending frequencies fall between about 4k to 12k but I’ve gotten good results using a hi-shelf shape at 6k and about 6db of gain reduction. When I was using a narrow band it wasn’t really taking out all of the harshness that I wanted. I also have read using multiple narrow bands but I would most likely use the manual method before resorting to this.
Advantages: Once set correctly it can save you from having to automate each sibilance, It can take out just the upper frequencies and leave the un-offending frequencies in tact, Can be saved as a preset so if you recorded many tracks with the same singer, the same microphone in the same studio then it should be pretty close for each vocal track, The attack and release times can be set on some De-Essers.
Disadvatages: Can sometimes need automation to get right, If the De-Esser is triggered too much it can give the singer a lysp.
Note: De-Essing can also be thought of as frequency dependent side-chain compression. A multiband compressor has many similarities of a standard De-Esser plug-in and is a good way to visualize what a De-Esser is doing.
Conclusion:
There isn’t really one way that will work for every singer in every song so experimentation is required to find out what’s best for that particular situation.
Posted in Audio Editing, Plugins, Techniques, Virtual Effect | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, April 4th, 2012
My review was first published on The Home Recording Show episode 161 with guest Sean Costello (ValhallaDSP). The discussion after the segment is equally geeky and entertaining.
Valhalla UberMod is a unique multitap delay and modulation plugin. The various algorithms allow from 2 to 32 modulated delay taps. Ubermod can be used to create lush choruses, tape and bucket brigade style echoes, reverbs and many strange other effects. Ubermod costs $50 and is available for OSX and Windows, VST, RTAS and AudioUnit; 64-bit ready.
After my gushing review of ValhallaRoom on The Home Recording Show # 147, I got in contact with the creator Sean Costello and dove head first into UberMod. I’ve been trying out Valhalla UberMod for over a month now, and it is surprisingly hard to get my thoughts on it written down.
UberMod looks simple but its really a very deep plugin. I spent a few evenings just getting used to how it works and trying things out. I eventually gave up trying to control it completely and just let it do it’s weird and wonderful things.
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Posted in Plugins, Review, Software, Virtual Effect | 2 Comments »
Sunday, March 11th, 2012
I’m working on a review of Valhalla DSP UberMod and came up with a few presets I thought I wanted to share. I might add more later. The review is coming up soon and we’ll be having Sean Costello on the Home Recording Show in a couple weeks.
Download the zip and add the files to the presets folder.
Dimension My take on the Dimension D chorus, which widens but without swirling.
Another Dimension Another Dim D style widener.
Short Percussion Verb A short aggressive reverb that works well on percussive sounds.
Longer Percussion Verb Similar but larger size room, longer decay.
Posted in Plugins, Software, Virtual Effect | 1 Comment »
Thursday, February 23rd, 2012
Earlier this month I reviewed T-RackS 3 Deluxe. This review is for the two newest (already a year old) additions to T-RackS. The Black 76 and White 2A are modelled on classic hardware units that have been around for decades and are some of the most used mixing tools used in professional audio production.
There’s still some time left for the T-Racks Double Deal group-buy, the deals has even been sweetened with a freebie at 1000 users and 2000.
Black 76
The T-RackS Black 76 is an analog modelled recreation of the classic Urei 1176 Peak Limiter. Introduced in 1968, it was the first true peak limiter with all solid-state circuitry. The 1176 is not often used for mastering but is an essential tool for modern pop and rock production, that works on just about any source. It’s a timeless piece of audio hardware with a distinctive sound, especially when pushed hard.
Hardware 1176′s are not cheap, especially vintage ones in good condition. Luckily there are half a dozen software versions that do the 1176 mojo very well, plus you can use as many as you want, use them in stereo and without any noise.
The attack time ranges from about 20microseconds to 800 microseconds, significantly faster than most dynamics processors, even modern designs. Release time is adjustable from 50 to 1,100 ms. Ratios are selectable on buttons for 4, 8, 12, and 20:1. An ALL mode is also available which is the same as pushing all the ratio buttons in on the hardware, resulting in a ratio between 12 and 20 with much more aggressive slope and overdriven sound.
There were 8 revisions of the 1176 design, the current Universal Audio Re-Issue hardware is based on the D and E models, T-RackS Black 76 is modelled on revision E.
T-RackS Black 76
Compared to the Waves CLA-76, overall I like the T-RackS Black 76 more, both for sonics and features. When I compared Waves to the two Universal Audio UAD versions, I preferred Waves by far. This is just my opinion, both the CLA76 and Black76 (and UAD versions) are great tools but the T-RackS does something I like a little more, and is really something else when used in MS. (more…)
Posted in Plugins, Review, Software, Virtual Effect | 5 Comments »
Monday, February 13th, 2012
Introduction
T-RackS 3 is a suite of high-quality digital and analog-modelled VST/AU/RTAS Dynamics and EQ processors, for mixing and mastering. T-RackS can also be used outside of your DAW as a standalone mastering application. Version 3.5.1 is the latest at the time of this review.
T-RackS Standard comes with the 4 ‘classic’ processors and metering suite as individual plugins also available within the T-Racks Shell or standalone.
T-Racks Deluxe has all the same functionality but adds a few more processors for a total of 9 including two analog modelled devices, the Fairchild Limiter and Pultec Tube Equalizer.
Each of the processors are also available for $99 each. The two newest additions to the T-RackS family – Black 76 Limiting Amplifier (modelled after Urei 1176), and White 2A Leveling Amplifier (Modelled after Urei LA2A Tube compressor/limiter), are only available as add-on purchases.
The decision to offer the individual processors was based on user feedback and common use. When T-RackS 3 was first released it was considered a mastering plugin, but users started liking the effects for mixing as well. Splitting up the system outside of the T-RackS Shell has made things much more convenient. (more…)
Posted in Mastering, Mixing, Plugins, Review, Software, Virtual Effect | 4 Comments »
Wednesday, February 8th, 2012
This month (Feb 2012) IK Multimedia is running a special 60% off on T-RackS 3 Deluxe. It’s just $199 in the online store or from your favorite retailer. [update - $99 upgrade offer for T-RackS 3 Standard users]
Buy and register Deluxe before Feb 29th and you qualify for the group buy to get a T-RackS 3 Single Black 76 or a T-RackS 3 Single White 2A for FREE.
Here’s how it works:
1. Buy T-RackS 3 Deluxe for only $199.99/€149.99* on our online store or your preferred music retailer.
2. As soon as 2,000 registrations are received, you will also be given a FREE T-Racks 3 Single title to choose from Black 76 and White 2A.
Make sure to spread the word so everyone gets a better deal! Building your own mixing and mastering studio has never been easier, but hurry, this promotion ends February 29th, 2012.
Check the Group Buy Counter here.
* All prices exclude taxes.
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Posted in New Product Announcement, Plugins, Software, Virtual Effect | 1 Comment »
