The Best FL Studio De Esser Plugins | 2022 Comparison

What is de essing?

De essing is an absolutely crucial part of vocal recording. It is essentially the process of reducing the high-end frequencies in vocal recordings that often cause a piercing frequency spike when the vocalist makes a “sss” or “shh” sound.

This sound is called “sibilance” and can completely ruin an otherwise perfect vocal take.

In the early days of my production journey in FL Studio, my de essing learning process was entirely trial and error. This led to manual de essing methods that I cringe at when looking back. It was only after finding de esser plugins that the process became a whole lot easier.

The best FL Studio de esser?

There are many VST plugins that automatically reduce sibilance called “de essers”. These plugins can be extremely useful as well as huge time savers.

Another method of de essing in FL Studio is to manually go through your vocal takes and reduce either the volume or specific EQ frequency at the specific points where sibilance occurs. But a quicker, easier and sometimes more effective method is to use an FL Studio de esser.

Below are the best de esser plugins I have found for FL Studio that will transform the way you deal with sibilance. Most of these products also have a free trial or limited version so you can try the product first (and maybe the limited version ends up being all you need!)

Please note: these FL Studio de essers can be used for most other DAWs, but from my experience work incredibly well within the interface of FL Studio.

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1. Oeksound Soothe2

Oeksound Soothe2 was a gamechanger for me when it finding a great FL Studio de esser.

Soothe2 is a dynamic equalizer with a clean, intuitive interface. It displays a great selection of de essing controls and a simple waveform display to visualise to de essing process.

Using this plugin is extremely simple. You place the bands where the sibilance is occuring, and the equalisation setting within the plugin will fluctuate in real-time to reduce any sibilance in your vocal tracks.

Click here for a 20 day free trial for Oeksound Soothe2, in which you get the exact same plugin as the paid version.

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2. FabFilter Pro DS

FabFilter Pro DS is another outstanding de esser plugin for FL Studio.

One of the main strengths of this de esser plugin is it’s accuracy and ability to detect and process vocal sibilance. When using this plugin, i’ve found that very little tweaking and fine-tuning is needed to reduce the harsh high-end spikes of sibilance.

The Pro-DS can be used as a split band or wide-band or processor and adds linear phase adjustment to the split band settings.

Like Soothe2, it also gives an excellent visual representation of the sound, making the plugin incredibly easy to use.

You can download a 30 day free trial here.

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3. Softube Weiss Deess

The Weiss DS1-MK3 is a hardware de esser often credited as a unit that revolutionised the process of de essing vocals. With Softube Weiss Deess, you can access the power of this piece of equipment within your DAW.

Is this a good FL Studio de esser plugin?

I have used this plugin extensively, and find it works incredibly within FL Studio’s interface.

One of the best parts about this FL Studio de esser is it has two seperate bands, each with their own parameters. This makes it an incredible plugin for fixing sibilance that occurs at more than one frequency.

You can download a free demo here.

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4. FL Studio de esser: Wave – Sibilance

This de esser plugin takes a simplistic, yet highly effective approach to de essing.

Wave’s Sibilance allows you to remove harsh sibilance incredibly quickly and intuitively, while still producing a high quality reduction of any annoying “shh” or “sss” sounds.

Rather than solely reducing narrow, mid-high frequency bands, Sibilance uses spectral filters to detect peaks in undesirable frequency regions and separates the rest of the vocal input from them before applying any de essing processing.

Click here to download a free trial of Sibilance.

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5. Brainworx SPL De-Esser

Brainworx SPL De-Esser is another example of a de esser plugin based on a classic piece of hardware.

The main controls include an s-reduction knob, a gain reduction meter, auto threshold and male/female detection modes.

Is this a good FL Studio de esser?

I’ve tested this plugin within FL Studio, and it works fantastically well. Definitely worth a download.

Click here to download a free trial of SPL De-Esser.

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Now you know about the best FL Studio de esser plugins…

For more info on VST plugins, click here for our list of the best 100 FREE VST plugins of all time.