Hey Guys,

I'm in the process of mixing some female vocals for a project of mine.

Just curious what your some of your vocal chains are.

All in one plugins are what I normally use out of convenience, but interested to know what some of you are using. In the past I normally only dealt with aggressive metal vocals, but this is more pop to rock female vocals. Kinda feel a little lost at the moment with it all as I'm not used to it.

Cheers

 

I dont often mix female vocals.
I used :
Digital Fishphones Spitfish Deesser (a 2003 free plug-in but I'm still using it)
TDR Kotelnikov compressor
TDR Slick EQ
Fab Filter Pro-Q 3
Plus a bit of Lexicon LXP reverb on the effect send.
All female vocals I mixed were good recordings of good singers.

FF Pro-Q and Lexicon are paid, the three others are free.

 

Pulsar - Pulsar Vocal Studio - https://pulsar.audio/vocal-studio/
A COMPLETE VOCAL CHAIN

 

Last edited: Jun 23, 2025 at 4:48 PM

For me it's a mix and match kinda thing, so...

Which microphone and preamp are you using?

 

Always: EQ (with 1-2 pole HPF at 100-200Hz) into 4:1 soft knee compressor with threshold set for ~6-12dB of compression, fast attack, moderate to slow release, depending on the song - faster song (think Sex Pistols or Clash ) faster attack-release. I use Drawmer DL-241 for compression, but like TDR Kotelnikov, Molotok, FIRcomp, ReaComp... Not too picky with the EQ either, TDR SlickEQ, DMG EQuality, ACMT 210X1. ReaEQ...

And then: a reverb, a delay or echo, a delay/echo into reverb, a chorus into delay/echo into reverb, a pitch shifter into chorus into delay/echo into reverb, a pitch shifter into saturator/distortion into delay/echo and maybe into reverb, and same last combo without the pitch shifter. 95% of the time. Man I love me some good old Elvis like vocals!

One of my favourite vocal chains would probably be EQuality into Drawmer compressor, into Eventide pitch shifter, Fabfilter Saturn or iZotope Trash 2, subtle or less subtle delay/echo like Eventide Digital Delay or some tape delay. There are tons of nice BBD/tape like delays. I'm not too fond of drowning vocals in reverb, but if needed a nice Lexy hall or room will usually do. Pretty old school. I trained myself in real analogue studios during 90s and 00s.

I make more or less strange edgy or gothic stuff... not Rock/Blues/Pop, although I just go with the flow, so that's not a rule at all, just most common.

Autotune what?

OH de-esser!... I use SPL De-esser when (rarely) needed, always before any further processing so the vocal goes clean into the compressor etc.

 

Last edited: Jun 23, 2025 at 10:00 PM

EQ (Pro-Q4 or Claro) ->Autotune -> Melodyne-> Compressor (Pro-C2) or the old La2A+1076 combo -> De-esser (Pro-DS) as inserts. Reverb/delay and other things I want to actually hear on sends. Output of Vocal strips to a Vocal bus. This is how my template chain starts out, but does not mean I adhere to it when I even have any vocals to worry about. Everything is disabled to start.

 

1176 - channel strip - efx - deesser

 

why compressor first?

 

I love a clean vocal chain with a good preamp and compressor, but honestly, I focus more on background conditions—like room safety and noise. That’s why I recently got a smoke detector service done too. Clear audio and a safe environment go hand in hand!

 

recently bought THR VOXGURU .. I am so happy with it