German and De-Essing

[antonis]

It never occurred to me before how ess-y the German language sounds in front of a mic.

Could a German mixer chip in on how de-essing is being approached?

I am working on 5 eps of this factual piece (hence, no sound stage drama), 50% is in German, and I am pulling out all the stops: SPL De-Essers, McDSP SA-2, RX6 Advanced, the built-in Dyn3 one and of course manually, trying in each case see what might work best.

I'm in the fourth episode now but I thought I'd ask.

[TVPostSound]

Watch "Berlin Station"
Spy series with a mix of German and English.

Not sure if its available in the UK?

[antonis]

Originally Posted by TVPostSound

Watch "Berlin Station"
Spy series with a mix of German and English.

Not sure if its available in the UK?

Am I going to be a-ssssssss-stounded??

[mgoorevich]

Each language with its specific problems. We've got in Hebrew harsh hggg ( ח- het) which sound often with plosive distortion.
And there are no de-hgetters plugins ;-)

[EGS]

Originally Posted by antonis

... trying in each case see what might work best ...

Works: https://www.waves.com/plugins/renaissance-deesser

[amagras]

Dynamic EQ

[originalscottyg]

I've done a fair amount of work with both German and Chinese dialog. I would say it depends on what the target audience is. If the final product is for an English speaking audience, then I would de-ess so it sounds good to your ears. But if the final product is for a German audience, then you probably don't need to process quite as much, as they are much more used to hearing harsher ess's and consonants. I learned the hard way that my preference is not always the right way, especially with Chinese dialog. Maybe they are just more used to all the cheap condenser mics over there, lol.

As far as tools, I usually use a combination of clip-gain, Izotope Spectral De-ess, Waves Desser in split mode, and Waves Ren-Desser in notch mode for "Ch's". Also TDR Nova dynamics's-eq sometimes works well.

[Reckless Erik]

Forgive my asssstonishment Scotty. Are you using 3 De-ess plugins at the same time on your DX?

[Ray JB]

Originally Posted by mgoorevich

Each language with its specific problems. We've got in Hebrew harsh hggg ( ח- het) which sound often with plosive distortion.
And there are no de-hgetters plugins ;-)

I love that observation!

R

[antonis]

Originally Posted by originalscottyg

I've done a fair amount of work with both German and Chinese dialog. I would say it depends on what the target audience is. If the final product is for an English speaking audience, then I would de-ess so it sounds good to your ears. But if the final product is for a German audience, then you probably don't need to process quite as much, as they are much more used to hearing harsher ess's and consonants. I learned the hard way that my preference is not always the right way, especially with Chinese dialog. Maybe they are just more used to all the cheap condenser mics over there, lol.

That's a very good point. Thanks for that. In this particular case, this is aimed for an international audience, so really who knows. But that's a good lead and in makes perfect sense.

Originally Posted by originalscottyg

As far as tools, I usually use a combination of clip-gain, Izotope Spectral De-ess, Waves Desser in split mode, and Waves Ren-Desser in notch mode for "Ch's". Also TDR Nova dynamics's-eq sometimes works well.

I have a very similar workflow although I am not using the Waves ones. I will check out Ren-Deesser to see how it performs. In this particular case I thought I'd demo the SPL De-essers and I wasn't that impressed. I ended up automating FF Pro-Q2 a lot.