De-essing plugins are useful for controlling vocal sibilance (those annoying transients on “S” and other consonant sounds) on vocals. A good de-esser softens sibilance on vocals with transparency without further affecting the tone. While I love FabFilter’s Pro-DS for being able to smartly identify sibilance in particular for ultra transparency, there are plenty of good FREE options. Let’s cover a few of the best free de-esser plugins.
Best Free De-Esser Plugins
Here are three solid options for the best free de-esser plugins you can grab without spending anything.
DeEss
DeEss from Airwindows (who churns out tons of free plugins) is considered by many to be the best and likely the first I would recommend trying.
I tried DeEss for the purposes of this tutorial after hearing good things and I can attest it is very good at smoothing out harshness without dulling or cutting into the remaining transients or “bite” of the vocal.
Part of the appeal of DeEss is its simplicity.
It has three controls in “Intensity”, “MaxDeEss”, and “Frequency”.
Some of the controls can seem a little backwards; Max DeEss and Frequency are more extreme the lower they’re set.
You may need to tinker with those two controls, then adjust the “Intensity” as sort of the Wet/Dry parameter.
As with any de-essing plugin, the more extreme the settings, you can essentially remove or shave down sibilance to the point that it sounds like the vocalist has a lisp.
Spitfish
Before I was using FabFilter, I used SpitFish for de-essing which you can download for free.
While this is a great de-esser despite its age, one element of its age still shows in that it’s 32 bit operating system dependent. If you are running a more modern machine and DAW, odds are this plugin won’t work for you.
That said, I recently put together an entire tutorial on how to make 32 bit plugins work in a 64 bit environment so refer to that to gain access to this and any other plugin you don’t have a 64 bit equivalent for, typically older plugins.
Multiband Compressor
Don’t discount the efficacy of a multiband compressor for working arguably as well as a de-esser can.
When you get down to it, a de-esser is nothing more than a multiband compressor which specifically targets and attenuates higher frequencies through compression.
As such, you can use your own multiband compressor of choice, even your DAW’s stock multiband compressor as a DAW.
I put together an entire tutorial on how to use a multiband compressor as a de-esser; here is a snapshot from it using FabFilter’s Pro-MB multiband compressor:
As you can see, you want to target between 5 and 12k, specifically in that 8k range as the main point. Set a fast attack to capture most of the transient of the sibilance with a fast release to help exclusively target those sounds and leave the rest untouched.
An aggressive 8:1 ratio works well with a hard knee, and set the threshold to effectively achieve 3-5dB in gain reduction on average and 5-10dB on the most offending instances of sibilance (which is also a good place to start).
Regardless of the method you use to de-ess including the free de-esser plugin listed above, remember the goal isn’t to completely eradicate it as it will make the vocalist’s sibilance turn into a lisp and sound unnatural.
A little sibilance is normal and you should still be able to hear the effect of the consonants.
As always, it helps to listen to reference tracks when comparing sibilance to your own mix as this helps you dial in the perfect settings so that you’re not over or under de-essing and hit that sweet spot where the consonant sounds are attenuated, not removed altogether.
Also note that de-essers aren’t purely for controlling sibilance.
While that may be their main purpose, you can use them to smooth out a harsh mix whether that’s taming too much cymbal brightness, guitar sharpness, etc.
The next time you encounter a track in your mix which is a bit grating on the ears in that +5k range, try a de-esser with some conservative settings to smooth it out.
