Learn · All Quick-Starts · 4 min
SIFT
quick-start.
De-ess a bright lead vocal without taking the air off the top of it.
6 steps · every control name is the real one · Vocal
Let it find the band
Play the two seconds with the worst ess and press LEARN. G / N / H sets how hard the proposal is, and SOURCE narrows where it looks (Auto, Male, Female, Rap, Bright condenser, Cymbals / OH). SIFT proposes a threshold, a range and the band itself — read the line it prints, then KEEP or UNDO. If it did not find a clear ess it says so and leaves your band alone.
Or draw the band yourself
Drag the two handles in the Detection Band panel to set Band Low and Band High — the shading is what gets reduced, and the curve behind it is the input and output spectrum. A lead vocal usually lives between about 5 and 12 kHz; the numbers above the panel update as you drag.
Pick how much gets reduced
MODE decides the scope. WIDEBAND ducks the whole signal when the band crosses threshold. SPLIT reduces everything above Band Low, air included. BAND reduces only Band Low to Band High and leaves the air above it untouched — the footer under the panel spells out which one you are in.
Set THRESHOLD and RANGE
Pull THRESHOLD down until the reduction trace moves on the esses and rests at zero between them — it rests at exactly zero when nothing is being reduced, so a flat line means it is idle, not broken. RANGE caps how far it can ever pull, so a loud take cannot over-duck: 6–10 dB is a natural setting.
Keep the word starts
FOCUS keeps the detector on the ess rather than the body of the voice — raise it when a loud chorus is triggering reduction on everything. CONSONANT lets the front of the consonant through, so a rapper leaning on their Ts and Ss still articulates. Both are percentages; small moves matter.
Check it, then commit
Set AUDITION to SIBILANCE to hear what the detector hears, and to DELTA to hear what is being removed — you want esses and nothing else. Then look at the timeline: input, sibilance and reduction share one twenty-second view, so you can see whether it moved on the words you think it did.
Pro moves
Once it's working.
- At the default settings SIFT adds no latency. Lookahead lives in ADVANCED and only costs you what you dial in.
- Band Only needs room above the band: with Band High at 20 kHz there is no air left to protect, so it behaves as Split and the footer tells you.
- ADVANCED holds Auto Threshold, ratio and ballistics, release sync, detector, channel and stereo link, oversampling and matched bypass.
- Double-click a value to type it; option-click a knob to put it back to default.
