Hi!
Can you recommend some high quality free compressors, de-essers, limiters, EQs, reverbs for vocal production?
(Especially De-essers and compressors)

Are there any free plugins that have as high quality as e.g. izotope Nectar?

(In this tread, I mean the specific purpose: producing vocals)


Thanks for your help!!

 

i suggest you have a look at our huge freeware thread or any "best freeware" list (like this one) ... there's a ton of quality eq's/comps/etc.

i'd probably go for tokyodawnlabs nova/slick/etc for eq and dynamics needs, but that's just my preference.

 

It is probably hard to find freeware with the quality of your mentioned products. Simply cause you mentioned some of the best plugins there are today. Izotope is a great developer and there is a reaon this software has its price. But you can get definatly professional results with freeware.

As mentioned check the freeware thread

 

Spitfish was my favorite De-esser time ago. Give it a chance. You have to download the whole pack (894kB).

http://www.digitalfishphones.com/main.php?item=2&subItem=5

 

LISP is a nice free deesser by SleepyTimeDSP. dev site is no more, but the plugs are still hosted here.

 

I used AVOX plugs for a time (not freeware) then Nectar, and really loved the simplicity of it. But my best results with vocals came after I decided to build my own chain using whatever compressors, eq's, de-essers, etc. myself. Plus I learned a lot more about what was actually going on under the hood of these all-in-one vocal solutions. Worth the time and effort to learn to construct your own plug in/effect chain, imho.
I found this article to be an excellent place to start learning to build your own vocal processing chain:

http://www.mixedbymarcmozart.com/20...-vocals-a-complete-tutorial-on-mixing-vocals/

 

What platform are you on? Need 64-Bit or are you using 32-Bit (as in either your DAW of choice is running 32-Bit/x86 or it has a built-in bit-bridge built-in or you may be using jBridge)? If so and on PC then your options open up quite a lot.

I'd highly recommend the freeware thread, It's a great thread with decent people sharing whatever they happen to stumble across or hear about. I don't think anything I might suggest is not already covered in the thread, However just for an overview of great freeness:

http://www.tokyodawn.net/tokyo-dawn-labs/ - Take the lot, It's all superb (along with the commercial stuff being excellent value for money), The freeware is not some crippled version of the commercial counterpart as is the case with some developers (SlickEQ is ideal for any task really but shines on channel duty with the built-in flavours of saturation to accompany the filters. Kotelnikov is a sublimely pristine compressor that does not mess with the source material, Alongside Voxengo's Polysquasher which is another very non-intrusive compressor are the one's I reach for when needing to reign in the dynamic range but without "colouring" it which is what many character compressor's are loved and replicated for. NOVA is a Swiss army knife that will do parallel dynamic equalization, Tone shaping, Radical rebalancing and as per-request of course it can handle de-essing duty. I'd also say Feedback Compressor II is worth grabbing, It is a kind of pre-cursor to Kotelnikov, I know a few people that for certain reasons still go for it first instead of Kotelnikov, I guess it is a matter of taste http://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-feedback-compressor-2/ - Bottom line is you can not go wrong with either! Proximity is also a great tool that is deceptive at first, As in I tried it by simply putting some dedicated reference stuff through it but that was a mistake, It shows it's greatness when deployed on a proper, real world multi-track mix, It makes a lot more sense in such context).
https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/pa_free_bundle_v1_1.html - As they utilize a download manager and the quality is top-notch, It is worth having all of the freebies they offer. In particular for vocal use but far from limited to just vocal processing (These are dependable, stalwart mix tools on any source also are the Brainworx bx_Cleansweep high and low pass filter for removing unwanted and useless extreme lower frequencies and very highs which frees up headroom and is easy to use on a multi-tracked mix to top and tail with haste. Brainworx bx_Solo mid/side (sum/difference) matrix which enables rapidly listening to and also processing the mid/sum of any stereo tracked source to full mix along with the side/difference only in the same manner. It also is a real gem for adding stereo width without causing phase hell, Especially so I find on returns/aux tracks just after a reverb for example, Also can narrow a signal as easily as it does enable widen. Elysia niveau filter - A superb tilt-style filter which is just a pleasure to use, Obviously it isn't intended for surgical precision equalization but what it does do it does so well, I use it like a variation of a simple tone control, If you've not used this or similar before, Try it both before and after surgical cuts using an appropriate parametric EQ, It allows for swift balancing of source within a mix when one would like to swiftly take down some higher end on say a bright drum overhead that has a shrill splash, crash, china, spock...etc. or to do the opposite on say a snare with too much body or a guitar track where the tone stack has had the highs and presence rinsed or a 57 straight on the grille, centre of the cone. SPL free-ranger, A limited but still very useful graphic eq, Great for use as a channel insert and the interaction of the amount of cut or boost affects the bandwidth or Q of each frequency which gives it a very smooth character or "musical" as some term such designs. There is also a free version of the Brainworx rockrack V3 in player format, 26 patches covering all eight amp models which is decent sounding pedal/amp/cab emulation, In fact it is awesome for the price!)
Klanghelm, Again just have at all the freeware http://klanghelm.com/contents/main.php You get two flavours of compression and a saturation processor, Like Tokyo Dawn Records, All of the commercial plugins are top-notch and the pricing is excellent.
http://www.voxengo.com/group/free-vst-plugin-download/ - Some great stuff to be found, Overtone GEQ, Marvel GEQ, Boogiex2 and Tube Amp all are great freeware.
Reverb wise, Well that depends on the style and what you're after, The Bricasti M7 library of impulse responses by Samplicity is a superb place to begin http://www.samplicity.com/bricasti-m7-impulse-responses/ - Just load them up into any convolution/impulse loader, There are some decent free algorithmic reverbs, However I'd bet you'll find a something in the Bricasti M7 that'll be what you're looking/listening for regarding vocal treatment. It's not as obvious a reverb as anything from the Lexicon plugins yet not nearly as flexible as Exponential Audio's plugins, Relab do a great algorithmic lexicon-aping reverb, There are Eventide/Princeton Digital, Sonnox Oxford Reverb is not often mentioned but works really well in any mix pretty much and so on yet VahallaDSP for me personally is where algorithmic reverb is nailed, Valhalla Room and Valhalla Vintage Verb are priced so well it is almost too good to be true, YMMV though.
If you are on PC and able to use VST2.4 x86/32-Bit plugins then these by Herbert.L.Goldberg aka Bootsy are all really good and really free, Easily some of the finest freeware of all time which set a new standard IMextremelyHumbleHO https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/ and the blog is well worth reading through as the information is all useful, good information downloads index is here: https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/downloads/
Finally just off the top of my head, A co-conspirator with Herbert and Fabien of Tokoyo Dawn Records/Labs is another freeware game changer, vladg/sound https://vladgsound.wordpress.com/ A great compressor with character in Molot and a peak-limiter, Clipper that was and still is stunningly good in Limiter#6, (The three worked on SlickEQ together) along with a pre-cursor to what would become TDR NOVA in the form of Nova-67P is also certainly snatching. https://vladgsound.wordpress.com/ again, Articles posted on the blog are all useful with fine information, Downloads index: https://vladgsound.wordpress.com/downloads
Oh and for surgical work, a lot of cutting for correctional use, I'd go with reaEQ from the reaPlugs http://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/ and also have a route around DDMF's offerings: http://ddmf.eu/

That is only a sample of the awesome free to extremely wallet friendly, High quality tools for mixing ITB, Do checkout and sub to the freeware thread as it is always moving. Hope that helps some to start you off, All the best and to all as always

Dean

 

Free Tokyo Dawn, Voxengo, Klanghelm, ToneBoosters, GVST, and SleepyTime plugins are enough for any kind of production, really.

And VladG's limiter and compressor, also his analog channel, yes. There's also good old MDA plugins that contain a useful dithering plugin. LoudMax limiter is also very handy and rather transparent unless you really, really push it too far.

Excellent post Death Thash Doom!

p.s. Voxengo Boogex can be used with IRs for reverb duties, and Voxengo OldSkoolVerb sounds decent, too.

 

Last edited: Mar 13, 2017

Thanks guys for your great help!!

I checked the other posts about freeware.
What are best freeware plugins to eliminate unnecessary background noises from vocals? (some alternatives for Waves NS1 Noise Suppressor)


2)
I like the way LISP detects sibilants. But is it possible to make LISP not react to quieter "esses" ?
Quiet "esses" in a vocal can require volume boosting, instead of being turned down...

 

You could via either some routing and filtering create your own two band chain featuring two instances of LISP (or utilize a chaining plugin such as xlutop's chainer, Plogue's Bidule, DDMF's MetaPlugin, Plug And Mix Chainer, Blue Cat Audio's Patchwork or even more useful in this situation their MB-7 plugin, NYRV Audio AGENT and VSTforx is another good one but I rarely see/hear it mentioned for good a idea of the options around which enable you to in essence roll your own multiband and modular processors and effects).
For free that sort of thing is not easy to come by yet it should be possible using Image-Line's Minihost Modular which is freeware (v1.5.8 Beta 3 is the latest version and I've no idea if they plan on working on it further or it is just as is. It is a very decent tool should you need such which runs standalone and as a plugin in either effect or instrument mode just like FL Studio offers/is capable of). Linkage here:
Information/Guide: https://www.image-line.com/support/FLHelp/html/plugins/Minihost Modular.htm
Download Page: http://www.image-line.com/documents/news.php?tag=minihost+modular
IIRC you just need to create an Image-Line account to be able to download it, It isn't crippled in anyway nor requires any kind of authorization.
Then if you we're to buy just a single copy of Computer Music Magazine, You get access to all the magware which is really excellent stuff for such money, It costs £6 or £7 but the CM software is worth a lot more than that, Beat Magazine from Germany is another good investment every now and then to gain access to all their magware/Beat Edition plugins. I mention CM as it has a CM Edition of AGENT by NYRV Systems which alone is worth the £6 or £7 easily! Just in case you've not bought CM before and for details on the magware have a skim over this for information: http://www.musicradar.com/computermusic/computer-music-vault-downloads-faq-556822 and a list of all the stuff that is in the CM Vault once you have bought a copy of the mag (best to go for the most recent edition):
http://www.musicradar.com/computerm...-vst-au-plugin-instruments-and-effects-571808
NYRV Audio AGENT information: http://nyrvaudio.com/overview.html

If that all sounds or is not up your street then you could try running a few instances in series along with automation to achieve what you are wanting.

Either way it should/is do-able with a little bit more effort and thinking when sticking to freeware ;)

Regarding noise reduction and removal, I'm not aware of what is available freeware wise in this area to be honest, However I have had very useable results with the ReaPlugs ReaFIR plugin for getting rid of unwanted noise captured that was not for whatever reason not dealt with prior to tracking or becomes an issue when editing and processing further down the chain, Also Variety of Sound/Herbert.L.Goldberg aka Bootsy's preFIX is a really good noise solution and was designed for getting rid of stuff before starting a mix as to avoid having to deal with the least amount of correction measures whilst mixing, You'll find a link to it above and the information page about it you can checkout here:
https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/2011/03/04/introducing-prefix/
https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/prefix-final-teaser-and-release-info/
https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/prefix-getting-those-alignments-done/
https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/from-phasing-to-phase-alignment/
https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/compressor-gate-and-expander/
https://varietyofsound.wordpress.com/2010/09/11/the-gateexpander-in-use/

As for Noise removal plugins which are able to "learn" the signal and separate the noise from the sound via creating a "fingerprint" of whatever you tell it to "learn" available in the land of the free, I am not aware of any but it is possible there is such which I am obviously simply not aware of.

Hope that helps, All the best and to all as always

Dean

Edit: Christian Budde who is a bit of legend for freeware and awesome tools such as VSTPlugin Analyser has some options which have got to be a shot http://www.pcjv.de/vst-plugins/effect-plugins/ and also his VST Plugin Merger tool and Split Plugin Creator are both very useful to have to hand in case you ever wish to do what they allow you to do: http://www.pcjv.de/applications/

That is off the top of my head all that comes to mind currently

 

Last edited: Mar 19, 2017

Some additional Flavors that come to my mind when thinking Vocals:

Acon Digital - Multiply (Chorus)
TAL Chorus
TAL Reverb 2 & Delays
lkjb Luftikus - Maag EQ clone
lkjb Refine - Some finalizing thingy
Sonimus SonEQ - Pultec Clone
ADT by Vacuumsound - Artifical Double Tracking
Airwindows Channel 4 and Console 4 (For some virtual analog console flavor)
Klanghelm MJUC Jr. - Tube Compressor
VladGSound - Molot (Character Compresor)

 

Sorry for reviving this necro topic. But has anyone any good contender vs ns-1, as a set it and forget it plugin?