I use logic and I find the logic de-esser absolutely aweful. Any suggestions for stand alone de-essers that sound great? The cheaper the better, in fact any free ones that are good?

Thanks.

Spitfish is really great! And it's free!

Cheers
Dennis

Unless I'm mistaken, Fishfillets (of which Spitfish is a subset) is only PPC. While our hero Urs Heckman made it OS X compatible (almost 10 years ago?), it's not universal binary and so doesn't work on Mac Intel…

Just to check, I downloaded and installed the AU and it doesn't show up in any of my DAWs.

Best,

Joachim

TB DeEsser part of a bundle of nice plug-ins.
It's good and very reasonably priced.
http://www.kvraudio.com/product/5746

Really nice and constantly getting better - I'm usually done with that one (and sometimes Cubase DeEsser). MDynamicEQ can effectively reduce sibilance as well.

problem is TB is vst only, OP uses logic.

Free.. hmm.. no.

Good, well yes, the Sonnox is amazing, the new dual band spl one is quite good too from plugin alliance.

I have both and between them can always find the right balance to handle any de ess task.

The other option is of course to use logic's built in compressor which can do a *great* job, as could a multiband compressor or any other single band compressor with built in sidechain (pro C fro example)

Here is some tips with logic's compressor to save you money:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/381284-using- logic-pro-compressor-de-esser.html

forgot it's not AU...

honestly, I just use a multiband compressor.

Same here

In the "real" world if there is a large enough budget (and thus time) you simply automate every single 'ess' sound. Usually with volume + EQ. It's tedious and it takes some time, sometimes a whole day if you have tons of vocal takes, but the results are superior to even the best de-esser out there.

Having said that, it might be worth exploring Voxengo Voxformer which includes a very flexible de-esser section. All new voxengo plugins are AU!

If you need a de-esser for hihats or drum overheads then I think the voxengo one will do just fine. You can also use logic's built in multiband very effectively (or the normal compressor and it's sidechain, like ttoz said).

Cheers!
bManic

Just for the record, there are (at least) two ways to host VSTs as AUs, in Logic for instance: either Plogue Bidule or DDMF Meta Plugin (just updated to v. 2.2, btw).

/Joachim

Or you can edit / process offline - the way I go when DeEssers don't deliver satisfying results (just my personal preference, of course).
I tend to avoid multiband / dyn EQ to spare some CPU, can be a pain if you apply them to many tracks.

I've had the hardest time finding an affordable, usable de-essers in AU format.

I grabbed the Waves De-esser when it was on major sale a few months ago.

Never been a fan of the regular Waves De-Esser, but I love the Rennaissance De-Esser and it's pretty affordable. That, and Eiosis E2 (not cheap) are my go-to de-essers. I just with that Eiosis would get with the times and release a 64-bit version.

Yep. I use Eiosis E2 and I think back when I bought it, I was hoping (unrealistically, I guess) for something good enough to be a "set it and forget it" kind of thing to largely eliminate the tedious process of drawing volume dips on sibilants. Ain't so...it gets the job done partway but I still have to go in and manually reduce a lot of the sibilants even further.