countering a lisp

[frans_13]

Tracking a raw (not pop) punk band - the singer has a lisp. I tried to lessen it for the sake of intelligibility and to make him look good. Mind you, it's the kind of band that doesn't look 'good' anyway, that's not the highest priority.
So first I used a condenser with enough high end, turned up the eq around 7k. Split the mic input, smashed it in a tube pre and smashed that further with a purple action. Trying to blend that in - which doesn't work too well all the time.
Comes mix time. Tried a multiband compressor plugin, one band for the singing the other for all the essy frequencies. Meh. Tried a de-esser on a mult but switched to listen so you only ever hear what the de-esser usually supresses - works so/so. Took the smashed track on one song, cut away every letter that's not an "s", turned it up a little underneath..works halfway okay. Did it for a chorus but the budget doesn't warrant a few days of editing... and I wonder if I should even tinker with it on such a level.
It's not about "fixing" it or making him sound like he doesn't have a lisp, because I don't want to doll the singer up and the rather political lyrics and delivery don't fit too obvious tinkering.

Anyone else had such a situation and what did you try? Thanks for your contributions.

[lefthanddoes]

When I hear about a lisp, I imagine the S frequency being higher than expected. Duplicate the vocal track, use that listen mode on your deesser to isolate the S's, then use a pitch shifter to shift down just the formants on that track, blend that in to the normal vocal track. I imagine doing this ITB. I also have no idea if it would work.
A friend told me about a well known song by a well known hit artist where they decided after the final mix was completed that there was too much deessing, and it sounded like a lisp, so the producer went in and just overdubbed all the letter S's himself, like basically whispering along with the track. Obviously that might not be the solution here.

Did the guy even ask you to try to fix it?
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[vvv]

That's a interesting situation, but I'd ask the band what they want, first. Depending on how "punk" they are, they might want you to add highs and use a exciter!

The only commercial-release singer I can think of with a lisp might be Jesse Sykes, but I only hear it sometimes and it might be the result of de-essing as much as anything (otherwise well-produced records, tho', so I think it could be her, altho' I've posted before about her vocal-track artifacts).
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[Gregg Juke]

Yeah, careful with the de-essing. From what I've been able to gather, the reason Donald Fagen "thounds tho lithpy on tho many of those Thteely Dan hit-th" is because of de-essing, so you might be adding to, rather than detracting from, the effect. My own experiments with de-essing haven't been mind-blowing, at least the results didn't seem so to me, so I usually try to tame that at the source (practice, pre-production, and producing/coaching).

BTW, are you the producer? (I mean signed, sealed, and delivered?)... Otherwise, what was noted above-- _ask the band_ what they want first!
Maybe they like things that way.

GJ

[Darlington Pair]

[jgimbel]

[JWL]

I'd have to hear the particular singer in question, but I'd guess that the "thhhh" lisp has a lower dominant frequency than a clean "ssss" sound. Sweep through with EQ and lower one frequency (2-4k ish) and boost another (5-10k ish).
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[frans_13]

Yes, the lisp consists of "esses" having the center frequency lower then what we're used to hear, they sound rather like an "ffff". That's why I was considering sharpening the sound at the essses.