whats is desser?

[Jason Calleiro]

so im kinda a newbie to allt his..but what exactly does a deesser do? what wuold you use it for?
thanks

[Avid]

DE-ESSER: Device for reducing the effect of sibilance in vocal signals.

http://www.waves.com/htmls/se rvice/tips_tricks/hutch.htm#deessing (http://www.waves.com/htmls/service/tips_tricks/hutch.htm#deessing)

As that article says, avoiding the need to de-ess is best, but there are other ways to deal with sibilance. Waves knows a bit about this since they have included the De-Esser plug-in in their Native Power Pack and other bundles for awhile:
Waves Native Power Pack:
L1 Ultramaximizer
SuperTap 2-tap
Q10 Paragraphic Equalizer
C1 Parametric Compander
S1 Stereo Imager
De-Esser
TrueVerb

De-essing capabilities can be found in both hardware and software products, for instance here are a couple of pages of results on a search at Sweetwater on the word de-esseer:
http://www.sweetwater. com/store/search.php?search=de-esser&action=search (http://www.sweetwater.com/store/search.php?search=de-esser&action=search)

[Roy Howell]

Hi Jason,
Sometimes singers over emphasize the 'SSSS' while singing words with strong S-sounds, and it's real obvious in the mix. A de-esser is supposed to help filter that out to help the vocal sound.

~Roy

[Roly]

Also if a singer's s's are quieter than the rest of the vocal track and you compress the track the s's will come foreward in the mix. Here's a helpfull tip. When tracking thick harms with lots of s's at the end of words have some of the singers not sound the s's. This works. Possible problem would be panning issues- hey there's no s's on this side! cheers Roly