sonible smart:deess

smart:deess is a proprietary AI audio plugin for producers, mixers and speech editors who need to control harsh consonants and plosives in voice recordings. It runs in a DAW on macOS or Windows and combines detection of individual speech sounds with spectral processing to adjust their tone as well as their level.

A trained neural network identifies sounds such as S, Z, Sh, Ch, T and P in real time. It detects where each sound starts and ends, then processes the whole sound rather than only its loudest portion. Different phoneme types receive separate treatment, so an S doesn't get the same processing as a Ch or T. You don't need to set a detection threshold.

The plugin analyzes the incoming voice and automatically adapts its settings to the recording. You can review that analysis and refine the result. Its Color controls let you make sibilants softer, balanced or sharper, which is useful when reducing harshness while retaining some edge. The same spectral processing can also restore definition to dull or lisping sibilants.

Sibilance and plosive control share one plugin, so it covers both piercing consonants and the bursts associated with sounds such as P. On Mac it supports VST, VST3, AU and AAX; on Windows it supports VST, VST3 and AAX. It runs natively on Apple Silicon, requires 4 GB of RAM, and supports machine-based or iLok authorization.