A question about de-essers and signal flow etc

[puppethead]

Ok, I have a couple of questions about de-essers, signal flow and latency within pro tools. I'll start with the easy questions first:

1. Does pro tools 6.1 allow you to detect the amount of latency each plugin is using? If so, how do you do this, because I tried clicking on the volume and while holding all sorts of buttons (shift, alt, ctrl, K) and none of them worked.

2. When a signal goes through a compressor plugin and the gain has been made up, if one wants to increase the volume, is it better, in theory, to increase it from the compressors output or is it better to increase the volume from the fader? Does it matter?

3. When de-essing within pro tools I rely on automation, because plugin de-essers either don't act fast enough or act too fast and process much of the signal. I'cve tried side chaining, but the results were less than steller. As I said, I usually rely on automation, but I read on here that Rail said he uses cross fades to de-ess the signal instead of automation (due to automation not being sample accurate.) My question is how do you use cross fades to do this?

4. The signal flow in pro tools goes from top to bottom when it comes to plugins, but should I de-ess before I eq, or should I de-ess after I eq? I usually go comp-eq-other fx/processing, or eq-comp-other fx/processing, but what do you do in your chain?

Any help or tips are greatly appreciated!


BTW, spkguitar if you can chime in here I'd really appreciate it.

[nowhere]

with compressors & mic pre's the input knob effects the signal I.E. with a compressor the input will change the amont you are compressing or how much you are bringing into the comressor. the output knob has no colering, will not change the sound just turn it up. just like the PT fader. so you choose it deos not matter wich one because they do the same thing.however in the digital world unity gain should be the limit for your fader.in the analoge world you could drive the fader all the way up.

with de-essing you do whatever works, i rearly do the samething twice. however de-ess before you eq so you dont boost the allready harsh frq. compressing will do the same thing only make things louder, get ride of esses first thing. but then agine do what works... (the waves de-esser is the best digital de-esser ive used. the SPL is the best outboard)
to remove them with crossfades just select the esses in the edit window then hit apple F, preview your fades and ajust them so they duck the ess not complettly kill them.

[nowhere]

i mix out of the box.protools is more like a tape misc with editing.all my protools faders are at unity
if you mix in protools that statement wont make much sense.

its an old school way of doing things. like on NEVE consols, you leave the tape fader/output at unity then ajust useing the input. where as on SSL'S you get the input as hot as possible then ajust the tape fader to whatever you want

[nowhere]

what your saying is correct,however somwhere we are getting confused about what eachother is trying to say. but o well deosnt matter

[Dr.Marv]

1. Does pro tools 6.1 allow you to detect the amount of latency each plugin is using? If so, how do you do this, because I tried clicking on the volume and while holding all sorts of buttons (shift, alt, ctrl, K) and none of them worked.

2. When a signal goes through a compressor plugin and the gain has been made up, if one wants to increase the volume, is it better, in theory, to increase it from the compressors output or is it better to increase the volume from the fader? Does it matter?

3. When de-essing within pro tools I rely on automation, because plugin de-essers either don't act fast enough or act too fast and process much of the signal. I'cve tried side chaining, but the results were less than steller. As I said, I usually rely on automation, but I read on here that Rail said he uses cross fades to de-ess the signal instead of automation (due to automation not being sample accurate.) My question is how do you use cross fades to do this?

4. The signal flow in pro tools goes from top to bottom when it comes to plugins, but should I de-ess before I eq, or should I de-ess after I eq? I usually go comp-eq-other fx/processing, or eq-comp-other fx/processing, but what do you do in your chain?

Hi,

1. I just did about 3 seconds worth of research on the latency thing and it would seem that LE does not have latency compensation. They suggest you just nudge the track to the left by a few milliseconds to compensate.

2. This depends on the plug in. The standard Pro Tools compressor has a "make-up gain" control for the purpose of making up the gain lost during gain reduction. It is the last in the chain in terms of the plug in itself. You might notice that if you use the compressor to reduce gain you'll see the channel meter drop accordingly, regardless of where the channel fader is. If you bump up the make up gain too much you might push the level into clip, regardless of the channel fader. Watch out for any bus sends too, because they are also affected by your levels exiting the plug in.

3. I started answering your post and have just realized that I really have no idea how Rail does this... so here's a guess based on the information you posted... I may be completely wrong. Copy the track you wish to de-ess. Apply the EQ changes you want to make to the copy... so basically you have one track with no information in the 4kHz range for example... at the points where sibilance occurs, comp a piece of the EQ'd track over the original track and cross fade at the joins. And we're talking about minute (as in tiny) pieces of audio here... just where the sibilance get nasty. This is kind of what a de-esser does, I guess... maybe not the best way to go about it though. Rail?

4. Really there isn't any right or wrong with this kind of thing, but if you consider what a de-esser is - a bandwidth limited automatic volume control (which basically means a compressor kicks in when a certain band of frequencies breaks a threshold), then you probably would be less inclined to put your EQ before the de-esser because it might mess up your de-esser settings... if you plan to adjust your EQ settings, anyway. I dunno.... like I say, there's probably no right or wrong way - if it sounds like crap then it's probably wrong.

Hope that helps in some way

Cheers

Dr. Marv

[easyb]

Don't know how Rail does it ( I wouldn't be where I am!), I guess that he just pastes some previously copied crossfading over every offending 's', 'ch' etc., instead of automating volume curves for each one of them - what it's what I've beeing doing, until now! Thanks one more time Rail, I'm gonna try it!!


With EQing or side-compressing I only could achieve poor results, although sometimes they do the job - for a 'preview' for instance. They kill too much content at places where it wasn't intended to.


When recording, I rotate the mic a little to prevent the talent's voice to be aligned in-axis with it (those high frequencies are very directive).


Hope this helps...


EasyB

[Dr.Marv]

Yeah... further thought on the cross-fading idea...

make a cut (ctrl+e on PC) over the point of the waveform you wish to de-ess and apply a cross fade (ctrl+f on PC). Depending on which type of fade you use you should be able to affect gain reduction at the point you wish to de-ess.

much much faster than auto fades and my previously very wrong idea.

this might help with popping too

Cheers

Dr. Marv

[puppethead]

Thanks for the info everyone. My 002r just crapped out on me, so I'll have to wait to try these techniques out. As far as latency is concerned, how are we supposed to know how much to even move it by? Does anyone have a list that states the latency of each plugin? I saw one of these a few years ago, but I can't recall where I saw it. It seems like I'm stuck for now and will have to lay off the heavy plugs.

[johnwayne]

Ctrl click in the volume window. You can see the peak ,volume, or delay on the track. go to delay now Alt click in the window. It will show you the amount of samples.