i been searching around the internet for mic and de essing techniques, and almost every search brought me to gear slutz, where there is lots of smart people with experience about expensive gear and lots of wisdom about recording and micing, so i have been doing frequency reduction with eq on miked tracks, but this is boring and dull, so I kept reading more about using filters instead of eq to roll off the lows and highs, the high pass filter rolls off the lows from the bottom up and the low pass filter rolls the highs from the top. this is exactly what i have been looking for i think. people compare this method to the sound DR DRE gets in the chronic. so I guess im going to try doing this to thin out and beep up tracks, the 606 has all the right filters with the dbeam menu setting, does anyone know if regular filter + drive is regular high pass filter ?

Nope, the 606's filter+drive is all LPF all day. Been hitting the FUNC on that one every time I turn it on, hoping to get one of the secret menus to pop up.

Have a crack at the enveloper (pad) on MFX45. If you didn't already know, focus the screen on the effect then FUNC+F2 it & you'll get 2 new options: filter attack & filter type. HPF's right there for you in -12 & -24 forms. It's not set'n'forget, this filter only works as long as you push the pad for the sample (it's a gated effect). Never tried it on the input pad, you might have to sample then filter (not play-through & filter).

If you wanna narrow the sample with LPF & HPF to de-ess & not conflict with low end, you'll be best off resampling with the MFX45 filters rather than combine MFX45 & d-beam.

ha sorry for the confusion, i meant low pass on filter + drive. to cut the highs from the top. i totally forgot that enveloper has all the filters too, this will work good, i was just going to keep dbeam lit and tweak the menu till i got the right setting.

i notice on my vocal track the frequency spectrum is way over the music, i want to narrow the bandwidth from the top to match the beat. so that would require a low pass filter.

and about secret menus, you can get a cool real time oscilliscope if you hit function in dbeam menu . maybe i shoulda posted that in the secret screen thread but i couldnt find it last time.

yo, cutting highs from vocals with a low pass filter does NOT work good, like i expected, instead you might wanna try the high pass to cut the bass , that works much better. after much experimenting and 2 flunked albums, I come to the conclusion that the best de esser is yourself, stand further back and dont aim right at the cardioid. A popper filter would work a bit, bit i dont have a stand for mine. another thing, that will absolutley almost guarentee good vocals, is a tape bounce of your accapella, this will make it sound very good, and roll off unwanted high frequencies, back to the drawing board, and time to remaster all my tracks, grrrr

just an advice: try to learn better how to use eq guys; that is the right way to do mixes sound better and homeogenic. the filters are cool, but more drastic i think.

Filters are great because they do more than eq can in terms of 'fitting' a sound into a mix. However, depending on the mic/etc. eq would be the way to go. Sometimes the person's voice has too much bass that muddies up the actual basslines so you gotta HP filter instead so they don't take the headnod shit and make it grimey.

It's all about experimentation and no 'simple solution' exists. You gotta learn when and where to use certain techniques and that's all experience and experimenting. read something, try it, audition...compare it with other tracks you make using different techniques or even same track using a different technique so you can hear them side by side.

Personally, when it gets to eq and such, I like to do that via software. I get it sounding as best i can before I go to software, though. I don't have a bunch of expensive gear to run filters and eq's on all my tracks with.