Any plugs to remove acoustic guitar string squeaks?

Aloha guys,

Just recorded this young kid playing some
beautiful solo ‘Slack Key’ guitar but she is ‘squeakin’
all over the place.

Before trying a massive editing job I thought I’d ask about
to see if there is some sort of ‘technological magic bullet’ in this area.


Mahalo and TIA (thanks in advance)
{‘-’}

No magic bullet.

Try a parametric EQ. Start with very narrow Q, gain all up. Sweep the frequency band to find the offensive freq. Then cut gain to notch it out and listen for unpleasant artifacts. If is sucks all the “air” out of the guitar, it’s too much, bring the gain up a bit. I wouldn’t try to remove all the squeaks, it’s a natural part of steel-string performance and will sound weird and unnatural if completely removed.

It WORKS!!!

and … there’s a 10 day trial!

Be warned though! it’s highly addictive … and expensive! :open_mouth: :laughing:

Tanx guys,

Great advice all around.

I’ll give the demo a try and report back.
{‘-’}

The de-esser that comes with Cubase does a great job. Just play with it. I use it for this purpose. It actually is a magic bullet.

I’ve been looking for the same thing. I’ve noticed that zooming into sample level in the sample editor you can always see the squeaks by the jagged wave forms. I’ve been wondering if anyone would ever develop a plug to range select a squeak and then interpolate the smooth curve? Anyhow, I’ll give the deesser a go. Thanks.

+1 for iZotope Rx… that stuff is pure voodoo! :wink:

I always use a narrow band in a multi band eq. For years… sometimes a de sser. My goal is to control it. Not eliminate it. It is part of the instrument’s charm.

I think it’d be fairly easy to paint this out using spectralayers as well.

Good point.

Just that someone necroed because they had the same issue. But yeah, necro…

The DeEsser still does it for me, nothing wrong in using more than one.

I recommend DeEsser to you. Maybe it can help you.


Regards.

Has anyone ever thought of trying the DeEsser? I’m pretty sure it hasn’t been mentioned …

:mrgreen:

DeEsser has been mentioned already.
Check it out.

If all you need to do is get rid of guitar string squeaks in one recording it’s a bit much to buy the whole SpectralLayers, even though it would do a great job.
But maybe there is a demo version you can use for 30 days and get rid of as much as you have time for.
SpectralLayers is a phenomenal tool for manipulating sounds in all possible ways and then some!!!

If that’s not your cup of tea there is always the DeEsser.