I've Never Seen This Vocal Mixing Trick Before

[@AVDRE_Plays]

If you have RX, Just export the sibilance in solo output and use as sidechain trigger. Way less processing

[@Swordshreader]

Even better! Thank you for saving me 5 minutes.

[@lieutenantpepper2734]

make a video about it

[@hygro9625]

and without RX, do Big Z's way, export the sibilance vocal track, re-add gain booster utilities as needed.

[@swendlmusic]

What a great idea to achieve such accuracy! From my experience, I’ve had trouble removing de-essing from vocals because it often results in a loss of high frequencies. However, with this approach, it seems like you've found the right balance. Next time, it would be great if you could compare this method with the traditional one, so we can hear the differences in detail.

[@latefordeath]

Only those who have been down the de esser rabbit hole understand the mad man. Sir, you are a madman.

[@dreness666]

Processing key signals is a very common way to get processors to behave more the way you want. Akin to delaying a signal for a gate a bit early so it can properly shape the envelope for example.

[@foljs5858]

A very good tip when your envelope follower doesn't have a lookahead (and it doesn't have to be the original that's delayed, can be a copy used just for the envelope follower)

[@ryanybos]

This is the best idea for accurately removing sibilance I've seen in a long time & it totally makes sense. Great job Big Z thanks for the tutorial

[@naws_music]

nice work - gonna try this

[@MUKESHPATTA1]

If the fabfilterDs is catching those s sounds that well why not just use it for what it is ?

[@samphelps856]

Not dynamic in its frequency catching

[@slavmanofficial]

you are the daw Einstein

[@gianlucamarchese]

More like Zuckerberg, Einstein would be Dan Worrall

[@GuyMazig1]

Great insight 👏🏼

[@SnetremAip]

That’s really cool. This is the kind of content I really love to watch. Creative ideas that rethink the process. ❤

[@mystikrebel1089]

just the video i needed again as I'm working on this right now. Big Z I'm going to get your vocal course by next week

[@antoineschillemans]

THE BIG Z, YOU ROCK , GREETZ FROM AMSTERDAM!

[@officialjdotmusic]

This deserves some type of engineering award

[@minwoo9153]

it deserves the nobel peace prize.

[@BrandonHartOfficial]

Okay yeah this is game-changing. Thanks for the tip, BIG Z!

[@martinthe3rd664]

This is cool but why not just use the de-esser straight up? If it accurately singles out the sibilants. Normally with a de-esser you want to simply lower the sibilants, not soothe them? Just like manually turning them down with automation, but without all that manual work

[@ajayrajkumar3505]

This is exactly what I thought.....genuinely interested to hear why

[@trushreitsam5802]

@@ajayrajkumar3505 Same here... Just sounds like a CPU hungry workaround to use the excellent De-Ess Detection from Fabfilter in Soothe... which could be sounding better, but he didn't show a comparison with Pro-DS, so we're left guessing of the actual usefulness.

[@thomasbroker69]

Agreed vocal ends up,sounding processed but then that seems to be what he’s after, just choose a good quality deessor & tune it in, use more than 1 to catch the different ranges.

[@foljs5858]

had the same question... or use DAW automation driven by the final sibilance to feed a Fab EQ to lower it (or sidechaining that final Fab EQ if it has this feature)

[@foljs5858]

@@trushreitsam5802 Why would "cpu hungry" matter? He can print the de-essed vocals to audio and continue just fine with 0% de-essing CPU load.

[@gordonmorgan6298]

Love it, going to use it. Thanks 😊!!

[@devinwrightmusic]

You are gonna get to a million subs in no time. You’ve always been great (you actually mixed and mastered a track for me a few years back) but your recent videos including the production of them have been incredible. Thank you brotha! You have inspired me to get back into production 🙏🏼

[@SylviaTakvorian]

This is great. I'll definitely try it out. Thank you! What about plosives?

[@doingittodeath]

I really recommend that you try out Oeksounds spiff. Its by far the best transient designer I've ever used. Kinda heavy on the CPU if you oversample it but it's definitely worth trying!

[@rapsoli-w2q]

Man you mention everything in deep way ,thank you❤

[@MagicGirlsOnly]

slick little trick ❤

[@all1nclusiv3]

Bro, this is a really smart approach, such a great tip! Fab Filter DS does only take sibilance out without messing up with entire words like soothe does (I like to stack a couple of DS's that are chipping away a few dbs on different freq ranges, sounds way cleaner and natural), but nonetheless, what you showed is a cool trick, I'm definitely gonna use it and implement into my workflow for other stuff as well. 🔥

[@suchitputhalat4796]

Big Z is a genius ❤

[@UriKleinman]

Love this. Well done

[@yahymusic]

this is cool too but i used to separate the ess sounds in melodyne and manually edit them

[@bradparsonsmusic]

Mate, im in awe!!! BigUpz BigZ

[@oOEmKayOo]

Great tip. Never thought to use this tecnique in this way, tanks!

[@seansley]

Very clever, nice work, thanks for that

[@golbeatspro]

Great trick Big Z. For me manual de-Essing in the prep faze is the way to go!

[@bgzaudio]

love it bro!

[@tenjisaga]

you are absolutely top tier!

[@michaelcutsforth6895]

Brilliant!

[@emaex]

Wow, this is absolutely crazy, thanks for this cool method

[@vincentdenali256]

Pretty cool concept. I always struggle with de-essing I will need to give this a try. Thanks for sharing great tips.

[@naelbeno6249]

Crazy Routing 👍🏼

[@JRosenfeld]

Thankee,Man! It was really interesting and useful tip.Way to go!

[@SejnoPL]

Thanks for sharing this crazy approach :D

[@graywyot]

This trick is super awesome! Thanks for sharing.

[@jasonpayne9791]

You seriously have such great mixing ideas! How are you not designing plugins for fab filter?

[@ViralSpiralMedia]

Convoluted, but the results are the best de-esses method ever discovered. You did it again Big Guy!

[@alloutofoptions]

This is absolutely amazing 🫡 and it sounds so natural and smooth. Thnx bruh🙏🏽

[@djsmolface-beathoavenz1973]

This Concept is very nice!

[@JoeStuffzAlt]

It makes sense. You are making data for the plugin to base its decisions on. I've also seen distortion plugins used like this. With 32-bit and 64-bit float, you can shoot the gain into the sky and the data will still be good

[@Silentnarcotic]

That's definitely an interesting idea. I can't say I've had that problem that extreme that often... but definitely is something I would try at some point. I'll save this video. Thanks my guy.

[@BigZMusic]

Yeah I really don’t know how often I’ll use this haha but it’s good to have if something’s really not working

[@pham4925]

Just wanna chime in, if you want to turn down the sibilance just turn the sharpness and selectivity down and set those parameters in delta mode so you stop hearing so much of the vocal and just the sibilance. I feel this way you’ll get a nicer and crispier vocal. You can absolutely do that just in soothe. Sometimes you need two of them for different kinds of sibilance but the way in the video kinda kills the excitement from the top-end and flattens it to almost noise. Nothing wrong with turning a little of the vocal either, just gotta make sure it’s not too much of it.

[@HongFeiHo]

Nice one. Like the idea

[@NateVanDeusen]

why not just use the fab pro-ds that you started with to remove the sibilance you output to Soothe?

[@ndrey9125]

Well that’s a great trick! Awesome, thanks for sharing

[@T3Rmin4LCuRi0siTy]

pretty cool techique. However I have Melodyne and it has a very accurate Sibilance handling tool. Its so easy to target each sibilant and reduce them manually to whatever level you want to.

[@HopetonHodges]

What version of Melodyne I think I have the basic and never seen this function.

[@T3Rmin4LCuRi0siTy]

@@HopetonHodges its in Melodyne Studio version 5 and above.

[@AbyssJumpMusic]

I agree. With Melodyne Studio, one can actually turn down / switch off all unwanted sibilances from all the backing vocals keeping only s's of the lead, which gives you incredible control. However, this method from Big is also cool.

[@sha3439]

This was so god damn genius man 😂🙌🏻🙌🏻 does this work also on harsh synths?

[@elonthebass6870]

Pretty slick idea

[@taharkamusic]

Great idea

[@claudiomalz]

This is a great discovery!

[@paulmix3858]

I used that trick to sidechain an ordinary compressor (can be a stock plugin) on first place on vocal track fx chain. I "invented" this when I had a singer with a small gap between her front teeth so I needed a bit more focused de-essing.

[@reziahamed6654]

Just Freaking Wow !!!!! 🍻

[@Beatsbasteln]

lately i actually appreciated simple multibands for turning down vocal brilliance for some ms in response to ducking sibilance. because that way your attack parameter becomes responsible for the length of the sibilance, the fatness of the vocals, while release can be dialed in to get more distance, more moments to relax in the vocals. threshold is being deepened when you want the brilliance to come up higher, especially useful when the release only turns it up in the last possible moment and ratio/knee is just how much sibilance and brilliance should blend. you got all those cool musical functions in a simple multiband compressor already, so using soothe comes much later in my chain, only for final touches

[@beatsby81]

great idea!

[@reziahamed6654]

Please do a video on Melodyne if you happen to use it... Much Love 🍻👊

[@whitedovemusic2227]

Awesome trick Big Z!!! I realy luv and cherish your vidz and sounds😍🎶🥁🎹!!! They're interesting, fun, to the point, and so freakin valuable and helpful!!! Thank you so much🙏🙏🙏!!!

[@BigZMusic]

Thanks for watching!

[@HappyBowser777]

Really cool concept! For it to be more practical, maybe sticking to 1 eq.

[@mikem859]

Thank you for sharing of your own cool inventions with community 😀Hope, the good will come back to you :)

[@gustavokoshikumo]

pretty smart idea

[@notofinterest]

there is nothing wrong when a deesser reduce the volume of the whole band. i personally don’t know any singer who sing syllables together with the rest of the words at the same time?

[@foljs5858]

"i personally don’t know any singer who sing syllables together with the rest of the words at the same time" it's not about the singer singing them. It's about the de-esser catching them, even though it should just catch the "sss" part. They might not sing them at the same time, but unless you automate to only enable the de-esser the precise moment they sing, you'll also get some words.

[@notofinterest]

@ than you set it wrong. Sorry to say so, but if it catches other parts of the words there might be something outta control and therefor set it wrong.

[@djerikfox]

omg, this is genius!

[@jgvexclusive]

Really awesome hack man

[@josrud8939]

You are good bro

[@sounds_of_ferec6677]

Genius level stuff.

[@ItsMetabtw]

This is fundamentally a very old method. I remember Bob Clearmountain talking about it many years ago. Duplicate the track or send it to a dead end aux, use an eq to filter everything but the sibilance, boost it as high as you can, and use that as the key for your comp or deesser. It’s a very useful thing to know so nothing wrong with showcasing it with modern tools.

[@User-vl6xl]

Game changing

[@mable76]

Have you tried the sibilant balance tool of Melodyne? It is a little more manual adjustment, but still sounds more natural to me.

[@Rolanoid]

Pure genius. Devs racing to making a plugin that does all this.

[@darbomusic]

Nice 👍

[@1loveMusic2003]

This is genius. If you want to save on processing just print the de essed vocal then hide original track.

[@DominikDale]

this is actually wizard shit haha i love it

[@Cefshah]

Great idea!! I also wonder if the "Lindell Audio - 902 De-Esser" (Plugin Alliance) would help with this problem. 🙂

[@Cefshah]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/laS0qYirr5ZnarM

[@LousyMoonRecords]

Thanks!

[@peterscottaotunes]

Always quality stuff. Fabfilter should pay you. Btw I love FF and got almost full package :) of their plugins. Always amased how their programming is ellegant and efficient in the same time.

[@baryaish]

Looks cool! what I didn't understand is - what do you in your main vocal channel? you don't touch the De- Essing process?

[@michael3864]

Cool technique. Thanks for posting. FYI, Sonible Smart deEss will just grab the "s"'s and not other non-"s" sounds.

[@mehmetcemunal]

You shouls try airwindows debees.

[@yasutakeuchi]

first video in my "2025 production" playlist. Which will likely be about 90% Big Z videos

[@alexandertronin8496]

genius

[@cisemokram]

Thats wild

[@Trem.official]

That!s really smart

[@andreigheorghiu]

This does make sense, but I guess the most accurate way possible is just getting into the audio and automating down the sibilance when it pops out

[@javilaroid]

the BOSS

[@downwarddog7771]

Sonnible DS will do something similar with its different spectral modes.

[@bananeneter999]

Awesome. Now how do i do this in FL lol

[@mocreativ]

super nice, if it works, it works :)

[@Ploosma_D]

is it possible to isolate all the sibilance yourself, then make use of the EQ and sidechain?

[@thecart1594]

Nice work with the soothe just drop the preset please.

[@angelikakotczlowski3921]

genius!

[@yaoguangtang1759]

So good a method

[@TaureanMixing]

I started doing this a little over a year ago, I just never posted about it lol. ...in time all ideas are revealed.

[@rguez2332]

Why not just adjusting the soothe filters to just target the frecuencies of the s spot?

[@JazzWalk]

This is peak engineering here.

[@Somedei]

thanks but the ess starting to sound like zss, a bit of esses are normal, I rather use the Imogen Heap method turning down manually all thats hurting to -6 o around that area than overusing it and risking sounding unnatural

[@lieutenantpepper2734]

Technological breakthrough

[@davidsolena4853]

Thanks for this trick. Question: have you tried just to use FF de-esser + spectral Q4 in normal downward mode? (I guess you did) And that was not enough to catch the nasty sibilances? Because the biggest problem I see with this trick is the CPU take. Spectral mode on Q4 is quite hungry and sooth2 very much as well, relatively (not as much a VST synth though, but still, in heavy project this could eat a lot of CPU). I guess you can always freeze after de-essing though, but then you might want to brighten the vocal again in some parts of the song heavy on hi-hats/cymbals for instance.

[@jamalcole1985]

Everyone's opinions in the comments are valued. Lets be honest the listeners dont care, but we do.

[@QSteezy]

Bro loves soothe