So you're talking about a singer who vocalises live in your presence, no microphone, the raw sound of her voice - that you hear unavoidable levels of sibilance? ... or is it only after they perform into a microphone, are recorded, and you hear playback on a studio monitor that this sibilance is a "problem" ... ?
No, not necessarily.
The problem I have frequently encountered is that the vocal track on its own is fine but appears to be sibilant once you mix it with the drum kit (cymbals).
That said some voices are just sibilant regardless.
In these cases you can get rid of the sibilance but the efforts to do so also can change the rest of the voice far too much. During the recording/mixing stage the best compromise has to be found but that tends to leave some sibilance on the record.
Male voices are a lot easier as they have more harmonics than female voices making it possible to get rid of the sibilance without changing the voices overall character too much.
The problem I have frequently encountered is that the vocal track on its own is fine but appears to be sibilant once you mix it with the drum kit (cymbals).
That said some voices are just sibilant regardless.
In these cases you can get rid of the sibilance but the efforts to do so also can change the rest of the voice far too much. During the recording/mixing stage the best compromise has to be found but that tends to leave some sibilance on the record.
Male voices are a lot easier as they have more harmonics than female voices making it possible to get rid of the sibilance without changing the voices overall character too much.
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Tattoo, I have build your test rig and chosen 20 listeners to do the test. Where do I go from here?
Tattoo, I have build your test rig and chosen 20 listeners to do the test. Where do I go from here?
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Have you tightly defined the question your experiment is supposed to ask?
See section 2 for some typical ways to nail that down:
http://www.linearaudio.net/images/LA Vol 2 Yaniger(1).pdf
I've set up for a few bands, and worked a few sessions at Little Mountain, and Mushroom Studios. Some vocalists chose mics which "juice up" their voices.
Sometimes these add sibilance.
Do you choose to "fix" their choice?
I think that would deflate the recording.
Large diaphragm condensers are notorious for that. Mike position as well- a lot of singers (most?) want to cozy up to the mike and like the "sound" this gives their voice. Recordings I've made that way sound very commercial and are full of sibilance which is not heard from a meter or more away from the piehole.
One look at the Fletcher-Munson curves and you can't think of "volume" in a simple way again.
How do I train the listeners and will that not influence the outcome of the test. I could replace my randomly chosen group with a new group consisting of musicians, sound engineers and audiophiles.
I am more interested in how to continue in setting up the test.
Again, the setup will depend on the specific question you're asking. Have you defined it?
Any question that will help me improve the equipment being tested. Tattoo has suggested a A/D-D/A converter so I am sticking with that.
What about the sound tracks that should be used?
What about the sound tracks that should be used?
That's far too vague to intelligently design an experiment. Think it through a bit and see what you can come up with in the way of a specific and answerable question, otherwise you'll put out a lot of effort and end up with nothing useful (or even worse, something incorrect that will send you down the wrong path).
It's OK to have more than one experiment if your questions require it. The design of sequential experiments is often contingent on the results of previous ones (almost Bayesian!).
The picture I could get used an AD/DA converter. (And SY mentions this particular test in his paper.😀) It was just a coincidence, the DUT can be anything.
In the pdf of SY there's an other paper mentioned that describes how to train and select listeners: www.itu.int/dms_pubrec/itu-r/rec/bs/R-REC-BS.1116-2-201406-I!!PDF-E.pdf
Yup, final playback is when sibilance becomes problematic..
Gear can be sibilant also.
That's an intended natural and pleasant/pleasing sibilance.
That should reproduce perfectly pleasantly also, but this is where far too many systems fall down.
Most consumer/decent systems are self sibilantly reactive, and for a bunch of reasons.
When the system reactive sibilance is removed, all of the music source sounds fall in to their individual sound stage places, and are easily individually discernible.
IOW, modulation distortions removed/reduced.
Suddenly recorded sibilant sounds, sound natural, and not unpleasant.
Cymbals splash and ring/decay naturally.
Subtle vocal characteristics like lisping, and differing speech impediments are revealed....etc....
There are signal modulated dynamic modulation causes also.....I believe circuit VLF noise behaviour is one important cause that differentiates well regarded/reviewed gear from lesser gear.
My gear is very close to this goal, and I'm liking it.
Dan.
Not really, no. If you are a natural distance from the singer, you don't hear anything like that.
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