DAB radio and (to a lesser extent) TV produce a little irritating sibilance
(over emphasised S sounds) when reproducing speech through my system. I am
thinking about experimenting with a notch filter to attenuate the offending
frequencies to some extent. Has anyone else tried this? What is the best
centre frequency to zap, and how narrow a band can I get away with?
I realise the ideal solution would be to design something like a studio
de-esser, but I don't want to go that far. If a simple filter detracts too
much from the overall quality I will live with the sss sssounds.

Thanksssss

Andy

"AC" wrote in message


DAB radio and (to a lesser extent) TV produce a little irritating
sibilance (over emphasised S sounds) when reproducing speech through
my system. I am thinking about experimenting with a notch filter to
attenuate the offending frequencies to some extent.

So get a parametric equalizer. You have fingers and ears, right?

Has anyone else tried this?

It's common practice among audio production people.

What is the best centre frequency to zap, and how narrow
a band can I get away with?

Your mileage will vary, depending on the particular sibilance.

In rough terms, maybe 8 to 12 KHz, maybe a third octave more or less.

I realise the ideal solution would be to
design something like a studio de-esser, but I don't want to go that
far.

De-essers are often dynamic, which is to say their filtering action is
level-sensitive.

If a simple filter detracts too much from the overall quality I will live
with the sss sssounds.

Your mileage may vary.

So get a parametric equalizer. You have fingers and ears, right?

Yes, that's the obvious starting point, but I don't have access to one. I
was hoping that someone who has one might be kind enough to try it on a DAB
tuner and tell me the Q frequency, Q factor and attenuation required to
suppress the sibilance without wrecking the overall quality (IF that is
indeed possible). I can then replicate that particular setting with a couple
of op amps and a handful of components...far cheaper than buying an
otherwise un-needed equaliser.
I expect it isn't going to be THAT straightforward, otherwise the
manufacturers would have built it into the tuner in the first place!...but
you never know.

Andy.

"AC" wrote in message

So get a parametric equalizer. You have fingers and ears, right?

Yes, that's the obvious starting point, but I don't have access to
one. I was hoping that someone who has one might be kind enough to
try it on a DAB tuner and tell me the Q frequency, Q factor and
attenuation required to suppress the sibilance without wrecking the
overall quality (IF that is indeed possible). I can then replicate
that particular setting with a couple of op amps and a handful of
components...far cheaper than buying an otherwise un-needed equaliser.
I expect it isn't going to be THAT straightforward, otherwise the
manufacturers would have built it into the tuner in the first
place!...but you never know.

I picked one of these on eBay, still in the original box for about $60:

http://www.behringer.com/PEQ2200/index.cfm?lang=ENG

That;'s one channel.

If you control it with a PC this is a 2-channel parametric with superior
flexibility:

http://www.behringer.com/DSP1124P/index.cfm?lang=ENG

So get a parametric equalizer. You have fingers and ears, right?

Yes, that's the obvious starting point, but I don't have access to one. I
was hoping that someone who has one might be kind enough to try it on a DAB
tuner and tell me the Q frequency, Q factor and attenuation required to
suppress the sibilance without wrecking the overall quality (IF that is
indeed possible). I can then replicate that particular setting with a couple
of op amps and a handful of components...far cheaper than buying an
otherwise un-needed equaliser.
I expect it isn't going to be THAT straightforward, otherwise the
manufacturers would have built it into the tuner in the first place!...but
you never know.

Andy.


Sibilence is anywhere from 4kHz-10kHz. It changes depending on who produces it.


The Q can be pretty high

A parametric will work but a "de esser is a better tool for the job. Waves
compression programs have a de-essing option.
Richard H. Kuschel
"I canna change the law of physics."-----Scotty

On 15 Jan 2005 16:12:07 GMT, (Richard Kuschel)
wrote:


So get a parametric equalizer. You have fingers and ears, right?

Yes, that's the obvious starting point, but I don't have access to one. I
was hoping that someone who has one might be kind enough to try it on a DAB
tuner and tell me the Q frequency, Q factor and attenuation required to
suppress the sibilance without wrecking the overall quality (IF that is
indeed possible). I can then replicate that particular setting with a couple
of op amps and a handful of components...far cheaper than buying an
otherwise un-needed equaliser.
I expect it isn't going to be THAT straightforward, otherwise the
manufacturers would have built it into the tuner in the first place!...but
you never know.

Andy.

Sibilence is anywhere from 4kHz-10kHz. It changes depending on who produces it.

The Q can be pretty high

I'm also resource-challenged. But wouldn't the sibilance be
significantly louder than other energy in the same range? If one were
to boost everything over 4kHz in a compressor's side chain, would that
do a passable job of de-essing (obviously not perfect, but perhaps a
lot better than no de-essing at all)?

Tony (remove the "_" to reply by email)

In article ,
"AC" wrote:

DAB radio and (to a lesser extent) TV produce a little irritating sibilance
(over emphasised S sounds) when reproducing speech through my system. I am
thinking about experimenting with a notch filter to attenuate the offending
frequencies to some extent. Has anyone else tried this? What is the best
centre frequency to zap, and how narrow a band can I get away with?
I realise the ideal solution would be to design something like a studio
de-esser, but I don't want to go that far. If a simple filter detracts too
much from the overall quality I will live with the sss sssounds.

Thanksssss

Andy

Can you check that out on an oscilloscope? You might have an amplifier
that's being tickled into oscillation or the tuner could have problems.
Sometimes a poor stereo decoder will lock on to frequencies getting too
close to the pilot and it blurts out distortion.

AC wrote:

DAB radio and (to a lesser extent) TV produce a little
irritating sibilance (over emphasised S sounds) when
reproducing speech through my system.

You can not fix distortion, nor mic resonance, with an equalizer, but
you can make it less obvious. For a possibly useful passtime: email the
stations in question and ask them to use mics with less presence boost,
some years ago I actually persuaded a local station to take the 5 dB
presence boost device off of the mics.

thinking about experimenting with a notch filter to
attenuate the offending frequencies to some extent.

Depends on what ails the mic used. It is most probably a mic coloration
issue. It does not seem to be a problem when DPA mics are used, but it
frequently can be with some of the small "on the clothes mics" if they
are the model with a fairly narrow 10 dB upper midrange boost created
with an acoustic resonator in front of the membrane.

French TV5 Europe are awful at selecting mics, and speech frequently
sounds like crap, but the stuff made with the local brand of mics never
seem to suffer from sibilance. Some of the small local stations manage
to supplement with what appears to be raw clipping ....

Has anyone else tried this? What is the best
centre frequency to zap

Aim for 6k5 .... and dont make it too narrow, perhaps even 5k2.

and how narrow a band can I get away with?

Like an octave band EQ and let it have say 0 dB, -2.5 dB, and -5 dB
settings. You will probably end up leaving it on the tv-sound input and
set to -5 dB ... it appears to be religion to boost that range if in
doubt, and tv-people seem to doubt a lot. There iS even a preSeT in some
video Software'S Sound SectZion to put in such a booST if iT iS lacking
......

I realise the ideal solution would be to design something
like a studio de-esser, but I don't want to go that far.
If a simple filter detracts too much from the overall
quality I will live with the sss sssounds.

It is much better with a cheap and simple solution that is not perfect
than to use a a lot of money and effort on a costly solution that is not
perfect.

Thanksssss

:-)

Andy


Kind regards

Peter Larsen

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