Sibilants are whistling consonants captured by a microphone when recording vocals. Depending on the room, the quality of the equipment, the pronunciation of the person and the distance to the device, letters C, Z, C can be expressed sharply and acutely, which complicates the intelligibility of the performer when listening to the listener.
The characteristic intensity of sibilants in a conversation means a change in the shape and position of the language, resulting in a large number of whistlers, which in their own way contrast in different languages. In the musical field, sibilants are pronounced cutting high-frequency sounds.
Reasons for their appearance
The reasons may be: the pronunciation of the artist / speaker, poor-quality (inappropriate) microphone, lack of a pop-filter or a close distance to the storage devices.
Repair methods
When working on a project, a mixing engineer can use compression or specialized processors and plug-ins to compress the cutting frequency domain. In modern DAW sequencers, there are built-in de-essers (DeEssers) whose task is to eliminate sibilants. The most popular VST plugins include Fabfilter Pro-DS, Waves Sibilance, Eiosis eDeesser, Accusonus De-Esser, Softube Weiss Deess and others.
It is also possible to manually suppress protruding consonants by drawing an automation curve and correcting them using the equalizer.
If there are sibilants in the headphones, it is recommended to replace them with better ones, and consult a doctor to avoid hearing impairment. Some sound card drivers have special settings for suppressing the frequency domain in the region from 7000 Hz to 15000 Hz (which does not eliminate them in the project when working with music, but improves the quality of the perceived sound).
