Methods, systems, and computer program products of automatic de-essing are disclosed. An automatic de-esser can be used without manually setting parameters and can perform reliable sibilance detection and reduction regardless of absolute signal level, singer gender and other extraneous factors. An audio processing device divides input audio signals into buffers each containing a number of samples, the buffers overlapping one another. The audio processing device transforms each buffer from the time domain into the frequency domain and implements de-essing as a multi-band compressor that only acts on a designated sibilance band. The audio processing device determines an amount of attenuation in the sibilance band based on comparison of energy level in sibilance band of a buffer to broadband energy level in a previous buffer. The amount of attenuation is also determined based on a zero-crossing rate, as well as a slope and onset of a compression curve.