In this free tutorial video, Paul Drew uses the Plugin Alliance SPL De-Esser Dual Band to tame a sibilant vocal.

This dual band version of SPL’s analog hardware de-esser is considered by many to be the very best in professional recording. Traditional de-essers compress the frequency range where esses typically occur. Without constant knob-tweaking, this de-esser can deliver lispy- or nasally-sounding vocals, especially on tracks with high amounts of sibilance. SPL´s Auto Dynamic De-Esser is designed to eliminate these challenges by monitoring the entire frequency spectrum and automatically detecting the sibilant frequencies. The bandwidth is set so narrowly around the range of the sibilance that neighbouring frequencies remain unaffected. This frequency band is mixed back into the main signal phase-inverted to cancel out the sibilance. The result is de-essing that is incredibly simple to apply, while preserving the original character and timbre of the voice - even at high reduction settings.

The SPL De-esser plugins also contain features not found on the original hardware, such as an M/S Stereo mode that allows you to de-ess a full mix and without losing the high frequencies of cymbals, guitars or keyboards, which makes the SPL De-Esser a valuable tool during mastering.