Audiobus: Use your music apps together.

What is Audiobus?Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.

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Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

De-essing sibilance apps or techniques?

Are there any good Iphone apps that work with Audiobus or IAA to reduce the sss sounds? I know there are dedicated plug-ins for PC and Mac DAWS, but I have not seen any for IOS and Iphone in Particular.

Thanks in advance

Comments

  • Fabfilter has pro-ds inside of Auria.

  • I know that vocalive from IK has a de-esser.

  • As @WMWM says, Auria has Pro-DS and I don't think there is another app or plugin that does this better.

  • You can also use pro-c or pro-mb as a de-esser, and the multiband compressors in audio mastering or final touch. And there is one in vocalive, but I haven't found it to be particularly effective. And, if you really need to do so, you can always automate the volume of any sibilance.

  • I second what @mrufino1 added as well. There are even presets in Pro-MB labeled "deesser". Can't remember if they're in pro-c or not, but I know they're in pro-mb. All very much worth every penny.

  • Thanks for the replies.

    I too found the vocalive not very effective. I don't currently have an Ipad, only an Iphone 5c, so Auria is probably going to force me to get one.

    I guess you could export the vocal track via Email into a PC DAW, clean it up and email it back, but I don't like to leave the IOS world if at all possible.

    lots to think about

  • Ah, I missed iPhone in your post. If possible, also try to "de-ess" in the recording stage- turn away from the mic a little on an sibilant or plosive, or wave your hand in front of your mouth quickly (John lennon was said to do this), or sing it differently. De-essers are cool for after the fact, but something to be said for getting the source right.

  • +1 for at the source.

    Not sure which iPhone DAW you're using but you may be able to automate an EQ.

  • Interesting tip about the hand.

    Found this reference on Gearslutz website

    "John Lennon used to "flash" his esses while he was tracking. You wave your hand quickly in front of your mouth when you are singing an s sound. Very quickly of course. And only one flash per s...

    You can also try to make your esses sound more like a z.

    As far as editing the goes. If the offending "S" is at the beginning or end of a word/phrase, you can just cut and draw a fade in/out over it to subdue it a bit. Or you can use automation. There's a lot of ways to tame the wayward s, but the best way is to handle it on the way in. But I don't have any problem with a de-esser, if the track needs it." from donpakka.

    I have tried the angled mic approach and conciously reduducing the volume of the s sounds but never heard of the hand method.

    Auria looks tempting though!

  • I know I'm resurrecting an old thread here but I see some have mentioned the de-esser in Vocalive here and said it didn't seem to do much for them. I had the same experience and was searching here for other de-essers but then found this thread over at IK Multimedia forum where Peter from IKM said that it could be a gain stage issue. I then adjusted my gain stage and found the effects in Vocalive definitely improved!

  • @Howard said:
    I know I'm resurrecting an old thread here but I see some have mentioned the de-esser in Vocalive here and said it didn't seem to do much for them. I had the same experience and was searching here for other de-essers but then found this thread over at IK Multimedia forum where Peter from IKM said that it could be a gain stage issue. I then adjusted my gain stage and found the effects in Vocalive definitely improved!

    So what kind of gain adjustment was required?
    Thanks for sharing this tip. B)

  • @Howard said:
    I know I'm resurrecting an old thread here but I see some have mentioned the de-esser in Vocalive here and said it didn't seem to do much for them. I had the same experience and was searching here for other de-essers but then found this thread over at IK Multimedia forum where Peter from IKM said that it could be a gain stage issue. I then adjusted my gain stage and found the effects in Vocalive definitely improved!

    Hey @Howard. I found it helpful. My S’s seem to go on forever so it helps but doesn’t eliminate the issue obviously. Some of the other vocal processing apps offer deesing, Singaling maybe. I’ll have to check it out later. My new interface isn’t behaving properly so if I have anything to add I’ll check back.

  • @CracklePot said:
    So what kind of gain adjustment was required?
    Thanks for sharing this tip. B)

    You just go into Settings in Vocalive and turn up the gain. I had mine set lower to deal with feedback issues as I try to keep the gain low when using my mic live but hadn't thought about the fact that the app requires more gain for it to kick in. Before raising the gain I would set the Mode to 10 and still not really hear anything but now with the gain turned up I set it to 6.5 and the de-esser kicks in.

    Also, richardyot and Ben, you mentioned a few other apps for de-essing but my point wasn't that this adjustment would make Vocalive the best de-esser app. :smile: It was simply that for those who had the app and wanted to get more out of it they would need to up the gain so that the de-esser kicks in sooner. Perhaps someone else who has a few of these apps can do a comparison for us with the gain set right. :smiley:

  • @howard. Awesome. Thank you for the details. B)

  • Make a copy of the track, EQ it so the SSS is very prominent, and then use this track as a sidechain compressor to de ess the original.

  • @Mayo said:
    Make a copy of the track, EQ it so the SSS is very prominent, and then use this track as a sidechain compressor to de ess the original.

    Just learned this trick from Mike Senior’s Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio and I plan on using it for myself:

    ‘Bob Clearmountain explains a particularly ingenious manual side-chain implementation that also finds favor with Jon Gass and Manny Marroquin: “I mult the vocal to the channel next to it, on which I’ll roll out all the midrange and boost around 7kHz as far as it will go. I’ll then send the output of the fader into its own buss and select a compressor on that channel to pick up on that buss, so basically it becomes a sort of loop in the channel. I put the compressor on fast attack and fast release, and link it to the original vocal channel, on which I turn on the dynamics. It works like a side-chain on the compressor and has the effect of a fast high-frequency limiter, its threshold being controlled by the fader on the parallel channel. It’s really effective, very fast, and it de-esses very smoothly and much better than any other de-esser I have ever used. Plus you can automate the threshold.”

    Whichever setup you choose, it’s important to work out which side-chain frequencies you need to boost. The easiest way to do this is first to use EQ boost in the main signal path with the aim of making the “s” sounds as overblown as possible. Once you know at which frequencies the sibilance resides, you can transfer that EQ setting to the compressor’s side chain instead and boost until the sibilants come down to an appropriate level in the mix.’

  • This is pretty much how all de essers work, and have for the last 50 years.
    They are splitting the signal, emphasising the frequency and then side chain compressing.

  • The need for a de-esser is a good indicator that the vocalist may be Reptilian. ;)

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