Members Primal Yell Posted April 6, 2008 Members Share Posted April 6, 2008 Anyone have any pointers on how to *Prevent* excessss ssss-sizzling? Can someone explain the pencil technique please? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted April 6, 2008 Share Posted April 6, 2008 1. Use a mike that doesn't have a ton of presence peak / HF boost. 2. Have the singer learn how to not over-enunciate things like "sss" and "t's", etc. 3. Aim the mike at the throat or forehead, instead of directly at the mouth. 4. Use a good pop filter Pencil technique? It's kind of a poor man's pop filter alternative. You take a regular pencil, and rubber band it to the microphone so that the pencil is directly in front of the mike's diaphragm. The blast of air is then diverted to either side of the mike capsule / diaphragm, thus reducing the effect of the blast on the diaphragm and reducing pops, etc. It really only works with side address mikes - at least I've never figured out how to rubber band a pencil to a front address mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members alcohol Posted April 6, 2008 Members Share Posted April 6, 2008 I got this technique from a Shure Microphone brochure. Use a pop filter, but position the pop filter so that singing into the center of the pop filter is singing over the mic. Aim the mic at the mouth from below, at an angle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted April 6, 2008 Members Share Posted April 6, 2008 #1-3 of what Phil said. POP FILTERS: Obviously, pop filters can get rid of plosives, but do they get rid of sibilance? I've never really heard it get rid of sibilance. If someone is overly sibilant, you can sometimes have them correct for it by not nailing those as much. You really have to play psychologist and figure out whether the singer will get too hung up on pronunciation, or whether the person can do this and then get back to the performance in general. Having the singer simply move farther back sometimes helps in that the mic doesn't accentuate the sibilance quite as much. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted April 6, 2008 Share Posted April 6, 2008 POP FILTERS: Obviously, pop filters can get rid of plosives, but do they get rid of sibilance? I've never really heard it get rid of sibilance. I find that if they're hitting the "sss'es" and especially "t's" hard enough to really blast out some air with them, then yes, the pop filter can help; although it's usually not going to be enough to cure the problems entirely by itself - that's usually going to require a combination of things to fully correct it entirely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted April 7, 2008 Moderators Share Posted April 7, 2008 I did some voice over work this past week with me as the artist. When I do voice over stuff it's usually going to be played over the phone for telephony purposes where sibilance isn't an issue for the most part. But this gig? It was for a full fidelity sales DVD for conventions. The reason I mention this? Because when I got the chain that sounded great, an RE20 into an API, the forward qualities of the API were really highlighting any little sibilance in my voice. This was with a Stedman pop filter. Ken's got a point, I've never heard a pop filter help with this. It didn't. I experimented with angle, and while this helped a lot, the airy quality I was digging for the voice would go away with the sibilance. So I recorded it as is and played with de-essors. De-essors are great in a pop track. Their side effects are pretty well disguised. But for a solo VO? It wasn't cutting it. The solution? To re-cut the entire script while performing with sibilance in mind. This allowed me to compress and get the voice of god happening and all the gooey good airy high end too. Sometimes, depending on the situation, the best solution is to stop it at the earliest possible spot. The mouth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted April 7, 2008 Share Posted April 7, 2008 Sometimes, depending on the situation, the best solution is to stop it at the earliest possible spot. The mouth. Absolutely agree - AAMOF, I usually think fixing things at the source is the best option whenever possible, regardless of the source or type of track you're waxing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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