What it does.
The editor describes the s tool in its own words: “Lowers the 4 to 10 kHz band by up to 6 dB in the frames where it detects an s or sh, never removing it.” The rest of the voice is left as it was.
SOLIPSIUM Super resolution audio engine
Sibilance
Turn down harsh s sounds in a voice recording.
Some voices and microphones make every s hiss. Drop the recording to check it, and read how the editor's s tool works and what it measured.
Drop a recording here
Solipsium checks it in your browser for clipping, hum and noise, without uploading it. It can then repair the first 20 seconds for you to hear, with no account.
WAV, MP3, M4A, MP4 and more, up to five minutes for the check.
Your first 20 seconds
After signing up, drop the same file into the editor to repair all of it.
What Solipsium hears
Make a free account to repair the whole recording
Then drop the same file into the editor. Scans and short repairs are free.
In the editor
Turned down, never removed.
The hiss band of an s or sh is turned down by up to 6 dB where the tool detects one, never removed.
What was measured.
In an October 3 test, we made the s sounds harsher in 154 versions of 80 recordings: 1 measured better and none worse, and the sound around the s moved further from the original in all 154. In the 80 recordings with nothing added, part of the sound measured worse in every one.
Not in the free try.
The 20-second try does not run the s tool. It is in the editor, with a free account, on a passage or the whole recording.
Next time
Where harsh s sounds come from.
Sibilance is part voice, part microphone and part distance.
Angle the microphone.
An s is aimed straight ahead. Point the microphone at your mouth from a little to one side or below.
Try another microphone.
Some microphones lift the treble where an s sits. A darker microphone can fix a harsh s before it is recorded.
Mind the treble on export.
A treble boost in a later edit makes every s sharper. Add any boost after you have listened to the s sounds.
Questions
About sibilance.
Will it lisp my voice?
It lowers the s by up to 6 dB and never removes it. In the October 3 test the sound around the s moved further from the original in all 154 versions, so compare Original and Repaired on the same words.
Should I run it on a clean recording?
Only where you hear harsh s sounds. In the 80 recordings with nothing added, part of the sound measured worse in every one.
Is sibilance the same as hiss?
No. Hiss is steady noise under everything, which the free try measures and lowers: remove hiss and static. Sibilance is the s itself.
What does the free try repair?
Noise, hum, clipping, holes, crackle, rumble, echo and a phone line's lost treble, each when it is measured. Drop the recording above to hear its first 20 seconds.
Is my recording uploaded?
Not for the check, which runs in your browser. Pressing Repair the first 20 seconds sends those 20 seconds; when your browser could not open the file, or it runs over five minutes, the file itself goes to Solipsium's server, so the try is offered for it only up to 25 MB. Solipsium keeps only the first 20 seconds and deletes them within an hour. If you are signed in, a file you drop or choose is uploaded to your account and opens in the editor instead. The privacy notice has the rest.
Free audio tools
Related free tools.
For the other sounds close to a microphone.
- Remove plosives
The thump of a p or b, filtered where the tool finds one.
- Remove mouth clicks
Short clicks from the mouth, redrawn by the editor's Clicks button.
- Remove hiss and static
Steady hiss from a tape or a preamp.
- Clean up audiobook narration
Room noise, hum and ACX's numbers.
- All free audio tools
Every free tool on one page.
In the editor.
Make a free account and drop the recording into the editor, where every tool on this page works on a passage or on the whole recording, up to 30 minutes at a time.
Open the editor free
Free account, no card.