Help - Recordings often rejected for sibilance. How to avoid this in recording??
I am often getting reads rejected by VB for sibilance. I am toning down the S's in post, but how do I minimize this in the original recording?
I have a professional Rhode mic with a pop shield and am recording in a small room with sound dampening blankets on the walls. I stand 6-12 inches from the microphone.
Please take a listen to the most recent rejection and let me know what you think.
https://soundcloud.com/aprilc-3/sibilance-sample/s-dtNsm
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Hi April!
Sibilance in your case is not as bad as it gets, but can be a problem with certain combinations of letters. Many people exhibit sibilance harshness in the SH or TION sounds, others in plan S sounds. Others have problems in just about every combination possible.
Your case is more of an S sound type. This begins in our diction and enunciation. As voice actors, announcers and such, we're sometimes overly concerned with pronouncing every word very carefully and inadvertently become specialists in stressing letters. Listen to your S sounds and determine if you're prolonging their duration while reading, overstressing them or if the shape your mouth/teeth make while speaking is contributing to this. That's how I defeated this problem.
Your mic, a Røde from what I read, can also influence this issue. I have a couple myself and used an NT1 for a very long time. That mic has a slight presence boost right around the 5-8 kHz range. This means those frequencies are lifted and made more present, which can be a good thing, except that sibilants can be found in that very same frequency range (and the plosive sibilants like the -TION sounds at around 2-4 kHz depending on your diction. Try testing the mic with a slight rotation so it is off-axis, that helps a lot! Also, play with your gain settings and mic proximity to achieve the best result.
By the way, listening for sibilants is not a pleasant task and requires good cans: having great headphones for this is a MUST. We highly recommend the Sony MDR-7506 Studio Monitors, which are the VoiceBunny standard issue for all QC agents. If there are any harsh frequencies in the highs, these headphones will painfully let you know!
Now, on the processing side, it also helps a bunch to know how to use the de-esser and spectral editing techniques. In Audition is super easy to do the latter and in my opinion, the most effective, less destructive and more precise way to reduce sibilants (and even pops or other great-take-ruining noises!)
In another post, I described my spectral editing technique to another pro. Hopefully, it will help you too!
Cheers!
- Héctor Adolfo Ituarte (VoiceBunny QC Agent)
Thanks for the feedback. I am already using the spectral analysis and manually editing the hot spots. I have now rigged my mic stand to have the Rhode mic hanging upside down to try and get the 45 degree angle for side address like in an article I read from another post, but I'll have to keep playing with the angle since it doesn't sound any better.
When you say "rotate the mic off-axis" do you literally mean turn the mic so that the gold dot is not facing me? How much would you rotate it?
Thanks!
Hi April!
Yes! Precisely that: the Røde gets fixed to its mic stand by a large washer which you tighten. You can simply loosen that and rotate the mic a tiiiny bit (maybe 5 degrees maximum) so that the mic capsule (which the gold dot indicates) is not pointing straight to your mouth, but a slightly off-center. Once you find the right angle of rotation, simply retighten the washer so that your mic is fixed in position.
It does take a couple of trial runs before you find the best placement! So be patient. You can try making the 'sssss' sound while adjusting the position of the mic to see how much the effect decreases. The added benefit is that this will also help with some plosives that can get past the pop-filter and make the overall sound of the mic less aggressive, as it can be a very "in your face" microphone, due to its frequency response.
Thanks for reaching out! I'm eager to hear the amazing audios you'll come up with once you're done!