Waves Sibilance vs Renaissance DeEsser

Both of these ship from the same company and the newer one did not replace the older one, which confuses the choice more than it should. They are different processors that happen to solve the same complaint.

What they actually do

Renaissance DeEsser is a broadband and split-band de-esser. When it detects sibilance it pulls down either the whole signal or the band above the crossover, for as long as the trigger holds. That is a fast, predictable behaviour and it is why the plugin needs almost no controls.

Sibilance works spectrally. It identifies the sibilant components inside the moment and reduces those, rather than ducking a band that also contains everything else happening at the time. The audible consequence is the one that matters: pushed hard, it takes the ess down without taking the brightness of the vowel with it.

That difference is the entire comparison. Everything below follows from it.

How hard you can push

This is where the two separate. Renaissance DeEsser is honest up to moderate reduction and becomes obvious past it — the whole top end dips in sympathy with each ess, and on an exposed lead a listener hears the plugin working. Sibilance can be pushed considerably further before it announces itself, which is what makes it usable on the kind of bright, close-miked pop vocal that generates the problem in the first place.

Neither is a substitute for a better mic position, and both are being asked to repair a decision made earlier.

Latency and CPU

Spectral processing needs a window of audio to analyse, so Sibilance carries more latency and costs more CPU. Neither matters while mixing, because the DAW compensates. Both matter if you are tracking a singer through the chain, and both matter on a session carrying forty vocal tracks.

Renaissance DeEsser is close to free on both counts, which is a real argument for it on a backing stack where nothing is exposed enough for the difference in quality to register.

Metering

Renaissance DeEsser gives you very little to look at, which is fine when the fix is obvious and unhelpful when it is not. Sibilance shows you what it has identified, so when the detection is wrong — and it sometimes is — you can see that it is wrong rather than wondering why the vocal has gone dull.

Side by side

	Sibilance	Renaissance DeEsser
Method	Spectral	Broadband / split-band
Pushed hard	Stays transparent	Darkens the vowel
Latency	Higher	Negligible
CPU	Moderate	Very low
Feedback	Shows what it caught	Almost none
Set-up time	Seconds	Seconds

Which one

If the vocal carries the record, Sibilance. The extra reduction available before the processing becomes audible is the whole reason to own a modern de-esser.

If you are cleaning up backing vocals, doubles or a podcast, Renaissance DeEsser does that job at a fraction of the CPU and you will not hear the difference under a full arrangement.

If neither is installed yet and only one is going to be, buy the spectral one and use it everywhere — the reverse mistake is harder to undo, because a darkened lead cannot be brightened back without bringing the sibilance with it. The rest of the field is in the de-esser roundup.