?I'm in the middle of producing a very important EP. I'm really need this recording to sound great. I can't compromise on any aspect of engineering on this recording, because this record will demonstrate what I can do entirely with in house production and an artist. So the pressure is on to get the most important instrument on this project, the vocals, to sound amazing.

I've been in luck, Daniel Sexton's voice has matched very well with the sound of my Soundelux U99. (That's a great thing, because it really sucks to shell out big bucks for a microphone just to find out that it sucks on a given singer!). Anyway, the Soundelux U99 and Daniel's voice have gotten along just fine for most things. However, we had a problem. One one particular chorus, he was pushing it a little extra hard. This happens to be the most aggressive singing on the record in terms of amplitude. The “esses” started to immediately rip my head off.

Microphones May Need To Change With Vocals

This demonstrates an interesting lesson. A vocal microphone may be perfect for a given voice, but if that voice changes to something else, the microphone may need to change with it. I thought the U99 sounded great on the verses, but the choruses were really killing me. I had a SM7 on standby in case I needed something with less presence, but for this particular song I really liked the sound of the Soundelux U99. I just didn't want the “esses” to shit a laser beam through my skull.

Pencil Trick

So, I tried a trick that I had read about on forums years ago. I searched through my junk drawer until I found an old pencil. In fact, the pencil was so old that the paint was chipping off and the wood was discolored to the point of looking dark brown. The eraser was little more than a memory. (Okay, I felt like being a real writer for 3 sentences. BACK OFF!!! har har). Anyway, the damn rubber band had already been broken and had been tied back together.

I took the rubber band and put it around my Soundelux U99 microphone. Then I slid the junky old pencil up along side the microphone so that it was dead center on the capsule of the recording. In other words, the pencil was blocking the center of the microphone's capsule.

The Results

We sang the chorus once and I immediately knew we had solved the problem. The “esses” were still there and may require a little work, but they were reduced to a reasonable level without any real noticeable change in town. Frankly, I'm very surprised that this trick worked nearly as well as it did. I'd try the pencil trick EVERYTIME before reaching for a de-esser plugin or even an expensive rackmount de-esser.

I have a feeling that I may just mount a pencil permanently to some of my cheaper microphones that have a more hyped high end. This may even make them usable a lot more often!

Brandon