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A way to identify if sibilance is in the recording or your system

Posted by Awe-d-o-file (D) on July 29, 2016 at 09:43:59

In my experience there is sibilance often in vocal recordings. I must admit I listen mostly to instrumental but still often find sibilance in vocals. I'm speaking of female vocals of course.

First I want to say part of the problem is the unnatural
HF boost engineers give to vocal recordings ( mostly female) Ive made several recordings and spent lots of time in studios. Most of the HF portion of female vocals Ive heard is unnaturally boosted. I've heard Eva Cassidy sing in a studio vocal booth where she recorded and then heard that vocal track played back through a system and sure, there is always some difference.

However when reverb is used in vocals which happens more often than not if you hear the sibilance in the reverb you'll know its in the recording. Your system can still impart some itself but this can help identify if it's in the original recording or not.

Reverb actually attenuates HF and boosts midrange. Below is a link which will allow you to easily hear what I'm talking about. At about forty four seconds in you'll hear the lead vocal say a few words with "s" and see what I mean.

Its actually a complex vocal recording with about five different parts. I'm speaking of the lead vocal which is mono and dead center located. The reverb follows some milliseconds afterward. If you cant hear it use headphones but its very easy to hear to my ear. As I said the HF is attenuated in the reverb but sibilance is still easily identified.

Overall I find this to be a very good recording with a huge well located image. In my home system with a dimensional array the first ten seconds throws a 360 image with two speakers through the use of psychoacoutics. Enjoy!

ET

"If at first you don't succeed, keep on sucking till you do suck seed" - Curly Howard 1936

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Edits: 07/29/16 07/29/16

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