Waves DeEsser

Inspired by the vintage gear used for precision de-essing and high-frequency limiting, DeEsser tames “ess” and “shh” sounds. As recordings boost high frequencies for greater intelligibility with narration, audiobooks, vocals, and podcasts, de-essing is now more important than ever.

However, de-essing isn’t only about voice. DeEsser’s gentle de-essing action can reduce amp sim harshness, tame cymbals in drum loops, sweeten the sound of digital synthesizers, and more.

Choose Your Solution

Choose one of two ways to suppress ess sounds. The highpass sidechain mode minimizes objectionable sibilants over the widest range, while the bandpass mode zeros in on problematic frequencies.

Fast and Simple

DeEsser uses a hard-knee compressor, so after choosing the frequencies you want to minimize, simply adjust the Threshold for the desired amount of suppression—as confirmed by the Attenuation meter.

Full Strength, or Full Fidelity

Split mode applies de-essing to only high frequencies, for maximum ess rejection. Wideband mode is gentler, and is useful for voice-only de-essing because it removes the crossover in the processing path.