The Journal
Notes on clarity.
Field notes on de-essing, vocal clarity, and the craft of adaptive audio — from the team building Sound. Practical, measured, and honest about the tradeoffs.
De-essingLatencyTechnical
De-esser latency: what 5 ms of look-ahead actually buys you
Look-ahead lets a de-esser catch an ess before it peaks — but every millisecond is latency you pay everywhere. Why Sibilance runs 5 ms in the studio and ~1 ms live, and why longer isn't better.
· 6 min read
De-essingVocalsMixing
How to de-ess vocals without dulling them
The usual de-esser dulls the whole top end to tame a few harsh esses. Here's how to remove only the sibilance — the phonemes, the frequencies, and the settings that keep the air intact.
· 7 min read