Sonnox Oxford SuprEsser DS

The Oxford SuprEsser DS is designed for the treatment of sibilance and fricatives in vocals, and the treatment of unwanted whistles and 'spirant' artefacts associated with wind instruments. For the most natural sounding results, the SuprEsser de-esses only the frequency band you set - so you won't end up with an over-de-essed lisp-like voice with all the top end gone!

Detailed visual feedback is provided thanks to the highly intuitive graphical display, allowing quick identification of the frequencies that need treatment and where to set the threshold. The threshold level and peak hold levels of the user-definable band are shown on the graph, alongside the FFT display of the narrow band signal, which includes retention of the peak level and the frequency containing the most energy.

At the heart of the Oxford SuprEsser DS is an enhanced version of the compressor section of the Oxford Dynamics plug-in, which is renowned amongst professional users for delivering precise and transparent control of peaks. Around this is built a pair of cross-over filters, modelled on the Oxford EQ, to make the compressor react only to the defined frequency band.

Three listen modes allow the user to listen to the mix, the output of the band-pass filter ('Inside') or the output of the band-reject filter ('Outside').

Careful thought has been put into making the Oxford SuprEsser DS extremely easy and quick to use. Once the frequency band has been defined, simply lower the threshold fader until the gain reduction meter starts to kick in. The plug-in then automatically tracks the general signal level and the threshold follows accordingly so that it gives the same relative amount of gain reduction as the signal level rises or falls. This is perfect for vocals where, for example, a vocalist is louder in the chorus than the verse, but you want to apply the same relative amount of de-essing, and not over de-ess in the chorus. This Auto Level Tracking mode lets the SuprEsser do all the hard work. It can also be switched off for a fixed threshold.

Pressing the 'More' button gives access to ALL the controls.

In its default mode of operation, the Oxford SuprEsser DS feeds the defined 'Band' signal to the compressor to affect only this narrow band signal. The result is that the compressor reacts only to specific frequency components when they reach a specific threshold, and applies compression only to these specific frequency components, leaving the rest of the spectrum untouched. 'Wide' can also be selected to allow wide-band compression reacting to only specfic frequencies or any combination of Band and Wide defining 'when the compressor reacts' and 'what it compresses' (narrow or wide-band).

The Oxford SuprEsser DS comes complete with many presets to act as good starting points, alternatively the advanced section gives full access to all controls for precise correction, or even creative use.