The Best De-Esser Plugin for Taming Brutal Vocals & Cymbals

Every metal producer has been there. You’ve got a screamer who’s tearing through the track, but every "S" and "T" sound drills into your eardrums like a dentist's tool. Or you’ve got these otherwise perfect drum overheads, but the hi-hat and crash cymbals are a wall of fizzy, harsh white noise that masks the entire mix.

This is where a good de-esser plugin becomes one of the most crucial tools in your arsenal. It’s not just for smoothing out pop vocals; in metal, it’s for surgical sonic warfare.

But here’s the thing: hoarding 15 different de-essers won’t magically fix your mix. The real magic happens when you understand which tool is right for the job and why. It’s about choosing a plugin that allows you to make the right decisions quickly and effectively. If the GUI is a confusing mess that slows you down, it’s the wrong tool for you, period.

Let’s break down some of the best de-esser plugins for metal production and, more importantly, how to use them to get brutal yet clear results.

What Makes a De-Esser Great for Metal?

Before we get into specific plugins, what are we even looking for? In the context of a dense, aggressive metal mix, a great de-esser needs to do a few things exceptionally well.

• Precision: You need to be able to target a very specific, narrow band of harshness without sucking the life out of the surrounding frequencies. Taming the "shhh" of a cymbal shouldn’t make it sound dull and lifeless.
• Transparency: Most of the time, you don&#39t want to hear the de-esser working. You just want the harshness to disappear. A good de-esser is like a ninja, getting in, taking out the problem, and getting out without a trace.
• Flexibility: The best tools can be used in multiple situations. A great de-esser for vocals should also be a monster at taming fizzy, quad-tracked guitars or piercing hi-hats.

Our Top Picks for the Best De-Esser Plugin

Here are a few workhorse plugins you’ll see in the sessions of pros, and how they can solve specific problems in a metal mix.

FabFilter Pro-DS: The Surgical Standard

If you need absolute control, this is your weapon. The FabFilter Pro-DS is a favorite for a reason: its visual feedback is second to none. You can literally see the sibilance it’s targeting, which is insanely helpful for training your ears and dialing in the perfect settings.

Its "Single Vocal" vs "Allround" modes are game-changers. "Single Vocal" is incredible at intelligently separating sibilant from non-sibilant sound. But for metal, the "Allround" mode is often the MVP, letting you tame high-frequency hash on just about anything.

Actionable Tip: Use Pro-DS on your drum overheads or hi-hat spot mic. Set it to "Allround" mode and use the "Audition" button. This solos only the frequencies the de-esser is affecting. Sweep the frequency control between 8kHz and 15kHz until you hear the most piercing, unpleasant part of the cymbal wash. Now, turn off Audition and apply just enough reduction to tuck that harshness back into the mix without killing the cymbal's air and attack.

oeksound Soothe2: The Automatic Problem Solver

Okay, calling Soothe2 a de-esser is like calling a Hellcat a "family car." It’s technically true, but it misses the entire point. Soothe is a dynamic resonance suppressor. In simple terms, it automatically finds and turns down harsh, resonant frequencies in real-time.

This is the exact kind of specialized tool that makes a huge difference. When you have a wall of distorted guitars, you often get a nasty "fizz" or static-like high-end that can be a nightmare to deal with. Traditional EQ can work, but you risk making the tone sound dark or muffled.

Actionable Tip: Slap Soothe2 on your main rhythm guitar bus. Set it to target the high-mids and highs (say, 4kHz and up). Use the "delta" button to hear what it’s removing—you'll likely hear all that fizzy, static-y garbage. Dial in the 'depth' knob until the guitars feel smoother and less fatiguing, but still have all their aggression and bite. This is a game-changing move for cleaning up tones without drastic EQ. For more on this, check out our guide to EQing modern metal guitars.

Waves Sibilance: Simple, Fast, and Effective

Sometimes, you don’t need a 100-parameter plugin. You just need to fix a problem, now. The Waves Sibilance plugin is brilliant in its simplicity. It uses what Waves calls "Organic ReSynthesis" to identify and separate the harsh parts of a vocal from the main signal, allowing you to treat them without messing up the original tone.

The best part? It has basically two main controls: Threshold and Range. It’s almost impossible to get a bad sound out of it. This is a perfect example of focusing on workflow. If complex plugins intimidate you or slow you down, a simple, effective tool like this is far more valuable.

Actionable Tip: Got a screaming vocal track where the harshness is all over the place? Put Sibilance on the track. Don’t even worry about the frequency graph. Just pull down the Threshold until the visual meter shows it’s grabbing the harsh peaks. Done. It’s a 10-second fix that gets you 95% of the way there, letting you get back to the creative parts of mixing.

Don't Sleep on Your DAW's Stock De-Esser

Seriously. Before you spend a dime, push your stock de-esser to its absolute limit. Whether you’re in Pro Tools, Logic, Reaper, or Cubase, the de-esser that came with your DAW is probably more than capable.

Why? Because it forces you to learn the fundamentals. You have to manually find the offensive frequency, set the threshold, and decide how much to reduce. There are no fancy algorithms to do the work for you. Mastering your stock plugin makes you a better engineer because you’re training your ears, not relying on a plugin to make decisions for you. Remember, a stock de-esser is just a frequency-dependent compressor, a concept essential for any mix engineer. Dive deep into how that works with our guide to using an audio compressor.

It's Not the Tool, It's the Ear Behind It

Here’s the bottom line: you could give a hundred different producers the exact same set of plugins, and you’d get a hundred different-sounding mixes. Plugin Acquisition Syndrome is real. We've all been there, buying a new plugin hoping it’s the magic bullet, only to find our mixes sound pretty much the same.

That&#39s because the quality of your mix is determined by the thousands of tiny decisions you make. Where do you high-pass the guitars? How much de-essing is too much? Does this kick drum need more 4kHz or less?

Your taste, your experience, and your skill are what matter. When you see pros like Jens Bogren or Will Putney use a specific tool, their mix isn’t great because of that tool. The mix is great because they have world-class ears and know exactly what problem they need to solve. Give them a stock EQ and de-esser, and they’ll still deliver a killer mix.

The goal isn't to collect plugins. The goal is to develop your ear so you know instinctively what needs to be done.

And the best way to do that? Watch the pros work. See their decision-making process in real time, on real sessions. Inside Nail The Mix, you get to do exactly that. Every month, you can check out our full catalog of sessions, get the raw multitracks from bands like Gojira, Lamb of God, and Periphery, and watch the original producer mix the song from scratch, explaining every single move they make. That's how you turn knowledge into skill.