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Old 12-03-2018, 03:04 PM   #1
SiddieNam
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Default Calm down hissy cymbals during mastering.

Dear good people of Reaperland

I have recently been trying to rescue an old track from an audio cassette using Reaper. I've had some success; I got rid of noise quite pleasingly with ReaFIR, and with some compression, EQ and stereo processing it's come together ok. Plenty of frequencies still in there across the spectrum and sounding pretty decent.

But I am having hellish trouble with hissy cymbals and other harsh sibilance that have got a fair bit worse during the other processing steps. Any hints and tips for calming them down, or changing my approach? I've tried a de-esser, but without much luck, sadly.

Remember, I haven't got the original multitrack where I could attack the cymbals and other sibilants on their own; I only have the original studio stereo mixdown as transferred to an audio cassette. All advice gratefully received.

Siddie.

Last edited by SiddieNam; 12-03-2018 at 03:23 PM.
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Old 12-03-2018, 03:55 PM   #2
Judders
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First I'd retrace my steps to find out how the harshness got introduced in the first place.

Rather than a de-esser, I'd go for a dynamic EQ, tuned to limit the offending frequencies. Here's a very good free one: https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-nova/
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Old 12-03-2018, 04:04 PM   #3
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Parameter modulation with ReaEQ is powerful. You can dial in really specific dynamic eq with two instances of ReaEQ. (One to zero in on your "side-chain" trigger band, one to modulate for the actual dynamic cut.)

You mentioned ReaFIR to remove noise...
This plugin is SO crude for this. You'd be adding all kinds of glaring distortion damage. Go find a demo 'or something' of iZotope RX and redo the noise reduction. You'll have a lot more to work with and it will be much more preserved.

Just a comment:
Cassettes usually introduce a lot of compression to begin with. Careful with doing more of that! You usually want to go the other direction. I get the part about digging in the decimal dust and loping off peaks though!
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Old 12-03-2018, 10:45 PM   #4
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https://www.airwindows.com/acceleration/

It's freeware/donationware. Like a number of his other plugins, it's something you can consider part of a toolkit when "normal" tools don't quite do a specific job. (Plus he has some other plugins which aren't so straight-up "utilitarian". I recommend checking out his stuff in general.)
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Old 12-04-2018, 03:58 PM   #5
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Thanks to everyone for their thoughts so far.

Quite surprised that you don't rate ReaFIR; I have actually found it pretty good in a basic way. Still, there's no harm in trying new things; I'll check out the plugin you suggest.

As for the other things; I'll have a further go at the EQ as you suggest. Last time I tried it I seemed to be able to get all the results I wanted EXCEPT for losing the shouty cymbals, but I see what you're saying and will give it a go.

Other suggestions for plug-ins and approaches gratefully received too -- thanks everyone. I'll give it another go and report back.

If you want to listen to the track I'm referring to as far as I've got with it (sibilants and all), it's here. It may help you refine further suggestions. All further thoughts from anyone very welcome.

https://soundcloud.com/siddie-nam/ga...-2018-remaster
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Old 12-04-2018, 04:03 PM   #6
JamesPeters
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Oh wow. Yeah EQ it to reduce the high end. That rips my ears and my eyes out. This isn't about subtly affecting only the cymbals or something.

If you can't hear this especially when comparing to other mixes, you either have high frequency hearing loss or your monitor system is inadequate.

Last edited by JamesPeters; 12-04-2018 at 04:16 PM.
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Old 12-04-2018, 04:10 PM   #7
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Yeah, generally overcooked in the treble and the bass.
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Old 12-05-2018, 12:36 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JamesPeters View Post
Oh wow. Yeah EQ it to reduce the high end. That rips my ears and my eyes out. This isn't about subtly affecting only the cymbals or something.

If you can't hear this especially when comparing to other mixes, you either have high frequency hearing loss or your monitor system is inadequate.
Ha ha! Yeah. I can hear it, thanks. That's why I asked!

I've struggled to get it down as I'm a musician not a mastering engineer! I can cope with audio mixing generally when doing individual tracks, but all I had to work with was a slightly crap audio cassette with just the studio stereo mixdown. So, as I said earlier, the more I got everything else sorted out in a reasonably effective way, the worse the harshness got. Anyway, further advice appreciated. I don't mind starting again, really.
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Old 12-08-2018, 03:40 PM   #9
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I generally use TDR Nova (dynamic EQ) for this. Use band 4 (defaults to a shelving high pass), turn on Threshold, and pull down the threshold level till it cuts when cymbals are banging. Maybe play with Band 4 Ratio, Gain, Freq, and Q controls to dial it in.

Simple. And free.
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Old 12-08-2018, 03:57 PM   #10
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Definitely could use a huge midrange boost haha.
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Old 03-04-2019, 09:04 PM   #11
Beastmode Beats
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cut 6Khz on your equalizer and up and gradually choose the best sound, its better to use plugins or mixers with 20Khz available for the most crispy hi's, so cut and gradually increase the gain, each Hert increases by atleast 2Db within each frequency range, so its all about your ears, or using a compressor that includes built-in EQ to suppress the selected frequency ranges you want to crop out.
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Old 03-04-2019, 10:16 PM   #12
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Default Mid side

On some parts, the harsh stuff seems very stereo, unless I am wrong. And the vocal in the middle isn't as harsh.
So perhaps trying some mid side processing and do whatever to the sides if they seem very harsh (with dynamic EQ, regular EQ, , maybe de-esser) as it won't make the vocal more dull.
Just a thought.
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Old 03-05-2019, 03:49 PM   #13
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Was it recorded with Dolby and played back without?
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Old 03-06-2019, 08:36 AM   #14
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I find you can have significantly better results decoding dolby "manually" after the fact vs the hardware decoder when it can no longer "lock" onto the signal on the tape properly. ie. When the hardware decoder does more damage and takes you further away from what the original recording sounded like than even listening to the undecoded Dolby pre-emphasis.

The tricky part of dolby is the corner frequency also moves depending on level of the high end content. Parameter modulation of the frequency in ReqEQ will get you there.
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