What's your favourite plugin for vocals?

Any neat vst's or anything you have you like to use on vocal tracks, background or lead?

 

I have learned that processing on the channel strip is not as important as the technique for recording.
The quality of the microphone, the way you sing, the distant from the mic, the room, etc.

After that you just need a compressor and a eq. And some effects...

But nectar from izotope is a cool plugin.

 

EQ.
Compressor.
Parallel compressor.
Reverb.

Those are my favorite plugins.

 

Besides of the above mentioned,
I like to experiment with Nectar, Waves Morphoder, Izotope´s Stutter and Logic´s built-in vocoder.
I like the glitch

 

True !

I wasted a lot of time trying to make my own bad vocals sound great (I was a beginner at that time) with dozens of plugins but now that the recording itself and singing technique is way better, I put almost nothing on the track : Just a low cut with the Logic's Channel EQ, (Eventually cut a few dB around 300Hz), a little Comp (Kush UBK-1 or Plugin Alliance Vertigo VSC-2 mainly) and a little reverb (Overloud Breverb2 or Waves MannyM Reverb)

All of this VERY LIGHTLY. Someone told me the perfect citation for vocals processing "The perfect vocal effect is the one you hear the absence but can't hear his presence"

Haha yeah sometimes me too !

 

love those plugins, especially the reverb. *no*

 

Waves CLA Vocals is a good way to get a decent vocal quite quickly with one plugin.

 

im no master at this but, heres my process chain..

optional 0) auto-tune to pitch correct (melodyne)
1)i use any general eq to start (normally fabfilter proQ)
2) then waves Rcomp
3) waves de-esser
optional 4)maag eq to add air if necessary
optional 5) waves puigtech eq if the vocal need a boost
optional 6) second autotune for a melodic t-painish effect (antares auto-tune)

sends)
6)delay (echoboy/ fabfilter timeless are both amazing)
7) little reverb
optional) waves center to widen the vocal
optional) an amp, a common effect used on vocals
optional)waves maxxbass if the vocal need dramatically more bass

again im no master but heres my current vocal workflow, i tend to change it up but this is my current flavor of the month

 

to be fair, each instance will call for a differing technique, but all those listed above will be the tricks and tools you need to work with vocals...

I know it's tempting to want a one plug, "make my vocal sound like I want it to" preset...... but forget it. If I could make one preset for you for one song, it would be wrong for the next song, and wrong again in a different way for the song after that. There are some plugins that have the common tools for vocal treatment all together in one vocal channel strip, like Voxengo Voxformer, or TC Voicestrip Waves SSL 4000 channel strip etc etc I'd rather pick and choose what reverb, compressor, EQ, Chorus, delay, etc. I want to use on a given track.

that said, both the izotope nectar plug, Melodyne, and the Waves doubler, Waves Renn Vox and Massey CT4 are awesome. For de-essing try the C1 Parametric Compander. (btw izoptope nectar is a real resource hog be careful running multiple instances) also enjoyed using Antares Auto-Tune for tpain goofiness. there is the actual tpain effect plug too lol, and "the mouth" plug is related.

I would guess about 80% or more of the vocals you hear on the radio have an 1176 or LA2A, a nice plate reverb, a Lexicon Random Hall of some sort (usually a medium hall), and Eventide Harmonizing. It is "THE SOUND". so good luck recreating all that with just one vst preset lol

After that, everybody has their own tricks, and of course one of the pieces may be different, but like I said, that will certainly get you a long way towards "pro" sounding vocals.


have you tried vocal doubling?

basically you just record 2 (or more) takes of a vocal, one just slightly different than the other waveform, but only just. then maybe pan each track a bit differently and you have a nice doubled sound- then you can also eq one differently and add reverb and delays separately for a cool sound

with samples its harder, you can make a copy of the original sound, then eq it a bit differently in the hi's and mid's and such, then again pan each a bit, you just dont want the frequencies to cancel each other out (you understand at all what im trying to say?) you can also move 1 sample a few 1/4 beats before or after the 1st sample to offset it a bit to recreate doubling, but not so much it is an audible delayed sound

but the best way to get a "stacked" effect is to record the vocal multiple times... multiple takes on multiple tracks...



then there are the type of people like me who actually go out of their way to destroy vocals with distortion and manglers and stutterers to make them sound kewl


actually im going to post a track soon that i actually have a few seconds of real un-destroyed vocals! whoa!


good luck





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Here are some tuts i used back in the day, hope they can help someone else:

Code:

www.futureproducers.com/forums/production-techniques/recording-mixing-mastering/how-get-professional-sounding-vocals-337957/
www.futureproducers.com/forums/production-techniques/recording-mixing-mastering/how-gain-stage-your-mic-pre-interface-302602/

 

some times less is more like these guy's said the first thing is getting a good clean recording especially with digital and not to Hot a signal if you look at some professional tutorials on line and i do mean professional the guy's that have Grammy awards like dave pensado @ pensado's place ITL in to the into the lair the wave form's that he works with are medium height so there not even close to 0 db when the Pro's record they leave a go amount of Head Room so by the time they EQ Compress and limit every thing can get lowed and clear with no distortion

 

USB mic

 

It is true! The most important things are a good microphone and a good preamp and good recording technique. The better these are the less you need to e.g. EQ the vocal. A great quality microphone through a great preamp will produce better result without any plugins vs. a bad quality mic through any preamp + plugins or great mic through a not so great preamp + plugins. No plugins can replace a good mic and pre am combination, period! *yes*

 

Thanks for all the replies,
I generally do just stick with comp, eq, reverb etc. As well as paying attention to the mic choice and placement.
I run my mic for vocals/acoustic through a Golden Age Pre-73 MKII and to me it does wonders.

It was more of a question just to see if anyone used anything extra,
I was working with a band that kept wanting the "telephone" style effect but I think they overuse it and everyone has their own thing they like
so I was just posting to see what everyone liked to do, what their preference was when mixing, if they used any vst's or anything.

I've tried Nectar and Waves CLA Vocals before but I've never really gone in depth with them.

Thanks again for the replies though, much appreciated.

 

CLA vox

surf the presets
play with 5 sliders

Every Ting set

 

i use Waves 1)compressor like FET Compressor (Soft tube) 2)waves q10 EQ 3)add air with Maag EQ ( plugin alliance) 4)use 2 waves de-esser 5) send delays 6)lexicon reverb

what kin of reverb shod i use for my vocal in: 1)Hiphop 2)Electro house ?? do you have any idea ?

 

you can pretty much use any EQ or compressor that you have. Alot of times I don't like the sound of the waves or other compressor and I use the one built into ableton live, the same goes with EQ. Use your ears and imagine how the vocals should sound with the rest of the song. Do you want them to be really "in your face and bright?" The you would need to use a high ratio with a short attack time and a slightly longer release time, and you would need to remove quite a bit of the bottom end and low mids with an EQ and give a boost at the high frequencies. Do you want them to be warm and smooth? Then you need a lower ratio, a slightly longer attack time and a medium release time. Those are my suggestions when it comes to approaching vocals. I can however give you an idea of what I use sometimes to process vocals.

1) Fabfilter EQ to remove low end, low mids and any other annoying frequencies.
2) Fabfilter Pro-C to catch quick peaks and bring them down
3) T-racks CLA-2A compressor to smooth the vocals out and normalize levels
4) SSL EQ for a smooth high frequency boost to give that sheen and brightness to the vocals

Trust me, you do not need any more than that. It's all about how you want the vocals to sound and then using the tools to get there. As for reverb, same thing, I alot of times use the built in reverb in ableton. You want to EQ the reverb to cut the really high frequencies so that the reverb doesn't mask the vocal itself. You also want to cut the lows from the reverb to reduce muddiness. Use the pre-delay on the reverb to give the reverb more space as well. The delay time of the reverb will depend on whether the vocals are for example dreamy or "pop." A dream vocal would need a longer decay time whereas pop vocals usually have shorter medium or small type room/hall reverbs.

Hope that helps

 

I like to process my vocals with a bit of tube saturation to add some nice warmth.

I like plate reverbs on vocals as well. Of course heavy compression and deEss any sibilance.

In my opinion it is good practice to mix the vocals last but its not absolutely mandatory. I just find it a bit easier to fit them in the mix as opposed to fitting the mix around the vocal.

Don't use the compressors that come with your daw to process vocals, period. Not that they are completely shitty but we have better options available to us!

P.s has anyone else noticed the ableton glue comp says cytomic? (THE glue!)

Nectar is also a great plugin.

 

LA-2A

 

yep i dont use ableton but ist on board since 9

 

i do agree