How to use the DeEss properly in Premiere Pro

Hi everyone, in this video we're going to use the DeEsser. This one here, it removes the sibilance from our voice, when we are saying things like super smooth, what did I say earlier? I can't remember, but it is a way of reducing those, if they feel a bit harsh, apply the default, and then have to dive in pretty quickly, to looking at the filter a lot more. Not particularly hard, even though it looks a little scary, let's jump into the DeEsser. 

Let's bring in a file, it's a new one, that is in your 'Exercise Files', it's under 'Sound', and it's called 'Sweden', it's a new one, it's a wave file that I just recorded, it's my voice, let's listen to it once. "Our family, are going to save our money, this year, and go to Sweden in December, and experience everything the Ice Hotel has to offer." So I did that on purpose with a lot more, like sibilance than I need to, like a lot of-- this is going to be a little bit louder, on your headphones as well, a lot of "sss". I did it on purpose so that we can remove them, with the DeEsser, there you go. That's why it's called a DeEsser, it removes the s' and the c's, and any of that sort of noise out of your voice. 

Mine's not too bad but let's work with it. Let's dump it on any old sequence, and let's have a look at it. The DeEsser, out of the box never seems to work for me, you might have different luck. So I've made sure it's dialogue, I'm going to go to DeEsser, and I'm going to try and remove it, I'm going to go, I'm going to turn it off, I'm going to max it out and turn it on and off as we go along. "Family, are going to save our money this year, and go to Sweden in December." So what I want to do, Sweden sounds like the best, "In December, and go to Sweden." Sweden sounds like the best bit, so find Sweden, and let's isolate it, so let's do, “Go to Sweden,” so in point, "to Sweden." that will do. 

So that's the kind of rough thing, you can grab a different part of it. "December." I need it to loop, or again, under our 'Effects Controls', where are you Effects Controls? We can use, make sure it's selected, we can use loop in this bit. "Tweden, Tweden, Tweden." That's not what we want, we want the S, where is Sweden? "Go to Sweden in December." Sounds funny. "To Sweden this year, and go to Sweden this year," and "Go to Sweden." There you go. 

So we've got all of that, maybe go to, maybe Sweden's in there, "To Sweden, and go to Sweden." You're going to go slightly mad listening to me say Sweden lots. So what we need to do is get rid of-- let's turn it on and off, let's see if it works, Use the right one, play around. "and go to Sweden, and go to Sweden, and Go to Sweden." "and go to Sweden, and go to Sweden." Did you feel like it didn't do anything? It doesn't. Never works for me at least, yeah, I don't know, maybe because I work on my voice the most, so it's weird Kiwi voice. 

The first thing you need to do is turn it on, and then go and change it. So put mine back to the default-ish level, with it selected, it's applied this DeEsser effect, let's go to 'Custom Setup', let's go to 'Edit', and what you'll find is, most of the s', for most people's voices, or the sibilance, happen between around here, kind of up a bit higher, up to like-- so this is Hertz, so kind of, I find it's around this area more, so that's what we need to do. 

To make this work we need to-- it's a bit of a tricky thing to do, I'm going to move it, so I can see my little loopy Timeline here, I want to find where that S is really hard, "To Sweden in December." - I play… - "Sweden, and go to Sweden," "and go to Sweden, and go to Sweden, and go to," I want to try and pause it, so this Play button, "and go to Sweden." You can use this one or the regular one, whatever you want to do. What we're trying to do is capture that, like when I start doing Sweden, I'm going to do it again, right there. “Sweden, and go to…" That felt good. 

You can kind of see it, like that is-- that big lump there is my "ss." What we need to do is, you can't really drag it, you need to use the center frequency, and this is kind of either side of it, the bandwidth around our center. I'm going to drag it so it gets-- see this big peak here, everyone's sibilance is going to be different. So figure it out, might be lower, might be higher, you might get the DeEsser to work like this. So there's my center frequency, once you get it there you can then do the bandwidth out, and just make it bigger or smaller, depending on, you want to kind of try and grab it all, and that's going to grab most of my S, hopefully. Let's hit 'Play' again over here. "Sweden, and go to Sweden." 

Now what you've got to do is, how low do you go, 0, it's weird, like, I don't know why decibels do this, but 0 is maximum. So that's not doing anything, go all the way down here, and it's going to remove a lot of the S, and sound a bit weird. So let's remove it all, and let's have a listen, "and go to Sweden, and go to Sweden." It sounds like I have been punched in the face, or, have something in my mouth when I'm saying, "with Sweden." So it's too low, so you've got to find something, that doesn't seem obviously bad, but remove some of the S', "and go to Sweden, and go to Sweden." Can you see what's happening there? 

So with it off, let's turn the power button off, let's have a look at how tall it is. "In December." "and go to Sweden, and go…" It's weird, like sometimes, catches it, and sometimes it doesn't, why doesn't it? "Sweden." Turn it on again, that's why. "and go to Sweden, and go to…" So I'm going to turn it off, okay, we can't. Let's just turn the power back up, and let's do it that way. "Sweden, and go to…" Turn it back on. "Go to Sweden, and go to Sweden." See how tall that is? Editors will make this lower, you can just hear my voice, "go to Sweden, and go to Sweden." but if I turn it back up to maximum, you'll see it dipping, like a-- "and experience everything the Ice Hotel…" Has removed all that part of that frequency of my voice, that is the DeEsser. 

You'll have to adjust the center and the bandwidth, and how much it goes down, for me, what's going to feel good, "and go to Sweden, and go to Sweden." "and go to Sweden, and go to Sweden." "and go to Sweden, and go to Sweden." something so it's not too bad, but without wrecking the rest of my voice. So we'll leave that on there, let's listen to the rest of it, all the way through. You probably don't want to, I'm going to do it anyway. Let's set the In and Out points, there we go, and let's play it through. "and go to Sweden in December, and experience everything the Ice Hotel has to offer." 

So it's doing something weird with my voice, I know my voice, you know my voice very well now as well, so it's a little bit more obvious. For somebody who doesn't know my voice, you can remove a lot more sibilance that, you know, nobody's going to know that that's not their voice. Obviously, you don't want to-- you're doing feather touches, just gentle little adjustments, but that's it, make sure you apply it, see whether it works, jump into the Custom Setup, see how you go finding that little peak. It's a little bit tricky to time it, and play it, and have the hump on screen. You will have to do a bit of practice with that, as you can see, I'm not particularly good at it, kind of hacking away, and eventually find my little mountain to remove, and then try and remove enough, but not too much. 

All right, that is the DeEsser in Premiere Pro.