FabFilter Dynamic Processor Software

De-esser's are very common these days, it seems every audio company under the sun have their own version of a De-esser plugin. They all do pretty much the same thing - eliminate sibilant 'esss' and 'efff' sounds of vocal recordings that are normally found in the high frequencies (around 5khz to 11khz normally) and the volume and frequency of these sounds is very dependant on the vocalist, microphone used and their gender. So with all these de-esser plugins from different companies doing the same thing, you would imagine they would all sound the same too? Well not quite. Some do better than others at first off eliminating the sibilance itself, and then secondly the effect or colour they have on the audio itself when not de-essing - which is normally a slight loss (or a big loss) in presence in the vocal and sometimes a lisping effect if overdone. In my experience there is no such thing as a perfect De-esser plugin, but there are ones that come closer than others. Enter FabFilter's Pro-DS. Used in Logic Pro 9 on a macbook with OSX 10.6.4 and 4GB of RAM, the pro-DS runs smoothly and fairly efficiently. The setup and configuration are straight forward as the installation and registration prompts are all there so that even the most computer illiterate of people can get started. FabFilter are always top class at providing helpful tips and pop-up menus to guide users through not only the installation but for the use of the plugin itself. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The stability of the Pro-DS is rock solid. FabFilter have done a fantastic job coding this plugin to work on all systems and has never crashed a session i have worked on in the year-and-a-bit i have been using it. As a rough figure i would say you could easily run 10 instances of this plugin without any problems, although you would probably never need to run this many at a time anyway. There is an option in the Pro-DS to turn oversampling on for x2 and x4 which will in turn use up a lot more processing power so just bear that in mind. OVERALL OPINION In practise, the Pro-DS works exceptionally well. It doesn't come cheap but you definitely get your money's worth if you are serious about audio mixing quality. For a start the GUI is beautiful, the controls are large, clearly labelled, easy to read and the colour scheme is attractive to the eye - not that any of this contributes to the sound but it does make you feel comfortable using it and helps with the workflow of your session. It features controls for threshold and range which are 2 of the main parts of a De-esser plugin as this dictates when the de-essing begins (threshold) and how many decibels it takes off the offending frequencies. The threshold features an extremely useful 'listen in' button attached the side of it which let's you hear every 'ssss' reduced and the red meter to the right hand side will let you know how much gain is being reduced off of each one. The yellow horizontal bar is the frequency range where you can set the scope of the frequencies you wish to De-ess, underneath that is an 'audition' button which lets you hear the selected frequencies you have chosen to de-ess or if using the wideband mode - the sidechain area that triggers off the pro-DS into gain reduction. With the mode section, Pro DS has a choice of 'single vocal' and 'all round' which as you can probably guess is suited to be used on single vocals and group vocals depending on the track you are using it on. Below that is a choice of 'wideband' and 'split band', Pro DS recommends 'wideband' for vocal tracks on their own and 'split band' for full mixes to hone in on a very particular frequency. Split band also introduces latency so this can mess with the timing of vocal tracks if not careful, so i personally use wideband mode for single vocal tracks as it is the most subtle mode for this purpose and only drops the volume of 'Sss' sounds when triggered as opposed to just taking away 1 frequency (because sometimes sibilance can occur at more than 1 frequency within the track depending on the vocalist) The waveform display can be turned on or off at the users preference and there are lookahead and stereo link controls for added precision. The colour added to the overall audio by the Pro-DS is manageable with a little EQ after the insert, or if time is not an issue - by automating the plugins threshold or bypass so that it is only on when you know an 'ess' or 'eff' sound is coming up. The final result on the sibilance is super smooth sounding gain reduction, the best i've ever heard and if you have the processing power available then turn the oversampling on as well. Just be cautious that as with many other de-essers, there is gain reduction in action even before it starts to show on the meters so listen out carefully for that. A little bit of look ahead is recommended in any case. I have tried at least a dozen or so de-essers by different plugin companies, both free and paid, but FabFilter's sits at the top of the pile for me. This will always feature on my lead vocal tracks, or if editing dialogue or narration then the main narrator/voice over artists track. You will never need another de-esser plugin if you purchase the Pro-DS. Compare it to something like Logic's own de-esser and the difference is night and day. If you want a second opinion, ask top mixing engineer Mick Guzauski who recently mixed Daft Punk's latest album 'Random Access Memories'. When interviewed about his favourite De-esser plugin, he name dropped the FabFilter Pro-DS. See the full interview at this link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKmvfgCILHg So basically if Daft Punk's mix engineer gives something the thumbs up, then it's definitely worth a look and then some. The FabFilter Pro-DS is in my opinion the finest De-esser plugin available as of November 2014, so do yourself a favour and get rid of sibilance properly with the help of this incredible mixing tool.

This is used mainly on a Mac Pro Duo running Snow Leopard. If you are familiar with compression than you will not need a manual. This plugin has the standard compression components including hard/soft knee and the ability to toggle between Clean, Opto and Classic (which sounds like FET to me). The boys over at FabFilter really do a great job making an inviting interface. This is still quite a busy interface especially with the Analyzer window dancing around, but it remains easy to look at with big writing and large knobs and graphs. All functions are easily located directly from the face of the plugin. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE The Pro-C is very solid and accurate. No crashes or glitches of any sort. As for performance, this is a great utility compressor. Both the Opto and the "Classic" add some character but the Clean channel is really my favorite, as it is quite clean and great for electronica. Sidechaining is a breeze thanks to Logic's built in GUI Header. You must select "EXT" in the expert menu on the Pro C first. Overall this plugin has been used a lot lately whenever we need compression that doesn't add much character. OVERALL OPINION This is a overall great plugin but the thing that stands out for me the most is something very simple....Undo/Redo buttons! Thank god some people still realize how valuable those are, especially if you have the parameters midi mapped and you accidentally bump one or have your midi controller force the plugins to match the hardware. Thank you FabFilter, I hope the rest of the Developers realize the importance of that little extra help. Not much to dislike about this plugin. It's relatively simple and does a good job. Everything about what FabFilter does is precise. The knobs are very fluid and everything flows. Kind of like migrating to Mac from PC. I have used many compressor plugins. My favorites are the Waves for character and before this plugin, I used the built in Logic compressor for most of my utilitarian stuff. Pretty expensive for the whole lot but these are solid plugins. I would recommend.

The FabFilter Pro-L is a high quality limiter plug-in that is available for DAW’s across the board. I didn’t really know too much about Fab Filter until someone I work with hipped me to them and I’ve been using them within his set up ever since (I’m an assistant for him). While I’ve mostly used the filter plug-ins that they’ve got to offer, the Pro-L is as good at what it does as any. Since I don’t own it I wasn’t involved at all with installing it so I won’t really be able to speak about this process. As far as learning how to use the plug-in goes, I didn’t find that this one had too much of a learning curve. It’s not as simple as something like the FabFilter Micro filter (a simple one band EQ), but it’s still not very hard to use. It gives you parameters for choosing the style/mode, lookahead, attack, release, and further options for channel linking, oversampling, dither, and noise shaping. It also has a graph that shows you everything in the background, which is always a good thing. I haven’t checked out the manual for this plug-in, but if you’re a less experienced user it might be a good idea to have it around simply to explain the parameters. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE I’ve only used the FabFilter Pro-L plug-in at the home studio of the producer who I work for. I’ve messed around with most of the plug-ins that FabFilter has to offer on this system, and the Pro-L is definitely one of my favorites, which I think is saying a lot because they really have some cool plug-ins to work with. The system that he is running the plug-in is Pro Tools HD 8 based, so we’re not going to be experiencing too many performance issues on it, as is the case with running this plug-in. The Fab Filter Pro-L is definitely one of the most versatile limiting plug-ins that OVERALL OPINION I’ve used before. It goes way beyond what your average limiter will offer. I’ve used this pretty much exclusively on the master fader of sessions for getting a little increase in volume and cutting off the volume at a certain point. The sound of the plug-in is nothing short of outstanding, and with so many options possible it really leaves it up to you to get the job done. The price is about somewhere in the middle, but it’s definitely better than it’s price would suggest. If you don’t know about Fab Filter and the Pro-L plug-in, you’re definitely going to want to check this one out.