Waves C6 On Vocals

[Mellissa Sprock]

Its possible to re-humanize vocals that are too heavily autotuned with waves tune graph mode by drawing a more natural note transition but it would be really cool if waves tune real time could do it automatically and in real time.

Yes but not Real Time, Tune has a section on the right to introduce vibrato, you can design exactly how you want it to end and start, the frequency (is a lfo) the ramp and the amplitude, it save me a lot of time with amateur singers with bad vibrato practices.

Then you put the processing on the parallel FX bus, which is practically a Pultec-like EQ, followed by a compressor with internal sidechain HPF, and then another Pultec-like EQ. So I grabbed two instances of Waves PuigTec EQP1A and a CLA-2A.
image.jpg1445890 396 KB

Now, the idea is that you use the first EQP1A to dip the lows and boost treble, in order to prepare what frequencies will trigger the compressor which follows in the first place.
image.jpg1158436 163 KB

To wrap up, all those three plugins are in the LeadVoxPultec bus used for parallel processing, so due to the routing I can blend to taste some of the processed LocalVoxPultec FX bus into the LeadVox.

If you really care about avoiding phase distortion, consider use other eq besides the PuigTec, since the cut and boost at PuigTec (or any other Pultec) dose have a little different shapes and do not compensate each other perfectly.

@topazh1 phase can be a problem, but to my experience it is always up to specific plugins you use in the parallel chain. When I tried above mentioned setup myself, I did not hear any annoying phasing issues.

@Zargg in this case it is not just EQ in the parallel chain. Many people ask if one should EQ before compression or after, and this parallel chain is a good example of EQing before compression specifically in order to influence how compressor will react to the material.

THere are 2 things i have noticed in any emulation of a Vintage plugin .One is a Slight phase issue and the 2 nd is the Harmonic Distortion . This could be more super imposed in a plugin domain i feel due to the limitations .
When you are layering 2 of the pultecs together with a La 2a which in reality will give rise to these 2 factors , have you checked the vocals after the Mastering stage ?
This units have guts of fire ( if you know what i mean:) ) so please check at louder LUFS if it still sounds Musical.
Aslo could you please also try the CL3A instead just to break the all tube setup and make it sound more clean?

And for an eq, why not try the HLS, or the SSL, perhaps the Neve again. Neves have been known to have a really nice high shelf. Or maybe we should just cut to the chase and throw the H-EQ in the chain, that way we have the choice of several filters all based on vintage, harmonically rich eq.

Butch Vig helped to marshal in the entire concept of 'distorted vocals on purpose' when working with legendary bands such as Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and Garbage. His mixes tend to have vocals sitting right out front, unapologetically in your face. Continuing their trend of giving you a 'producer in a plugin', Waves has created the Butch Vig Vocals offering in their signature artist series. I slapped it on a vocal track and here's what I found out.

This should go without saying, but even I need to remind myself occasionally: try to craft your vocal sound in the mix. I'm often surprised by how many producers I work with will spend countless hours tweaking a vocal sound isolated, then put the vocal in the mix and be surprised that they have to start all over again. With a plugin like BVV, you're going to want to tweak it sitting in the whole mix. Butch Vig Vocals is unapologetically aggressive in its processing power. The compressor can absolutely squeeze the heck out of things, and the filters will decimate frequency information from a vocal signal. The crazy thing is, it all truly works together to get you a really 'grungy' vocal sound within seconds.

The Waves Signature Series essentially puts a lot of different processors all into one interface, allowing the user to re-create the signal chain of various famous producers and recording engineers. In this case, BVV is no different. Everything you need to work with vocals is here. There is a compressor, a de-esser, discrete input and output levels, specifically tuned EQ choices, (we'll get to that in a minute), and tube/solid state preamp saturation.

On top of your traditional vocal channel processing controls, the tube and solid-state saturation controls allow you to dial in your favorite type of distortion. After working with the plugin for a bit, I can confirm that the 2 options sound dramatically different, and 'break up' your signal in different ways.

The second example enables the Butch Vig Vocal plugin on both the lead and backing vocal track. I went for an aggressive sound, and you can clearly hear the vocals sitting a bit on top of the mix (as well as quite a bit of pleasant sounding distortion):

My only little gripe is that the 'steampunk' type interface can sometimes be distracting when making adjustments. It looks cool at first glance, but the color scheme can occasionally make it hard to find what you're looking for.

Matt Vanacoro is one of New York's premier musicans. Matt has collaborated as a keyboardist in studio and on stage with artists such as Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater), Mark Wood (Trans-Siberian Orchestra), Mark Rivera (Billy Joel Band), Aaron Carter, Amy Regan, Jay Azzolina, Marcus Ratzenboeck (Tantric), KeKe Palmer, C-Note, Jordan Knig... Read More

for vocals the waves 1176 plugs are good for compression. the Puigtec EQs are great on kick drums. I also use waves F6 as a dynamic eq, but it might be complex for some users. lots of Wave stuff is real good and the UAD plugs are excellent, but very expensive.

One technique I've come up with is to route the lead vocal to a bus and insert a compressor on the corresponding Aux to get the consistency of level I need throughout the track. That's with the Platinum model (not looking for color) and with rough settings that are a little more drastic than I would normally dial, fast attack, fast release, rather high ratio, low threshold (it doesn't have to sound good).

Then I start automating the volume of the vocals so that the compressor works less and less (looking at the needle). When the compressor no longer works, I have a pretty decent idea of what my automation curve should look like. The rest is done by ear.

Keep in mind that with my solution you still have a volume fader at a fixed position for mixing: the Aux volume fader. You can even put your vocal track into a summing track stack (only one track inside the stack). The subtrack is automated but the main track allows you to mix with a fixed volume fader position. You can then close it so it's only one track/one channel.

I find that Vocal Rider, as well as Bass Rider, or any other gain riding align out there, is general good at giving you quick results without having to go through the whole track and meticulously level it by hand.

It's not perfect, but then neither is manual editing. To help account for those tricky moments your an always write Vocal Rider's levelling out as automation to the DAW and fix it there. Personally, I like to just automate its Output control in these instances. and compensate for any issues there. It's much simpler and much cleaner, it also becomes obvious where all your manual edits are.

When dealing with more dynamic content like dialogue I like to handle it a little differently. Imagine if someone went from a whisper to a shout, you really don't want to level it all out as it would subtract drastically from the performance. You can, however, make it tighter and less dramatic.

This is where automating the Target control as well can become quite useful. I'd generally do that first and pretty much follow the dynamic contour of the scene with it, making sure the Rider control hovers around the centre for the most part The idea is to just make it better, more levelled so your dynamic processing has an easier time. You will still probably have to automate the threshold on the compressor and/or limiter, but because to your work with Vocal Rider it won't have to be as extreme.

The idea is to work smart and not hard. However, if there is still a few issues after I've gone through the process I will then consider editing it on the timeline. It's note always necessary, but sometimes it's still needed.

When dealing with more dynamic content like dialogue I like to handle it a little differently. Imagine if someone went from a whisper to a shout, you really don't want to level it all out as it would subtract drastically from the performance.

Most of time its all shades of grey. When is a section too loud to be a whisper but to quiet to be regular vocals/dialogue. Do you break it out to more tracks, is it even worth breaking out if its only 5 secs or the entire duration of a 5 minute song or scene?!

In my mind there is no one singular approach, you kind of have to adapt to the needs of the project all the while trying to keep things as simple as possible without making alot of hard work for yourself. Vocal Rider offers me a way of doing that, even on several broken up tracks it still helps simplify a great deal.

Waves sells an absurd number of plugins so it can be difficult to identify which ones are relevant to you. In this article, we'll take a look at 10 of the best Waves plugins for processing vocals. This list includes a wide variety of plugins, ranging from vocal cleanup plugins to creative vocal effects.

Cheap condenser microphones, poor recording techniques, and wispy vocal performances can lead to harsh high-frequency transients called sibilance. Words containing the letter "s" tend to contain sibilance.

You can reduce the effects of sibilance when tracking vocals by setting up your microphone off-axis so that it's not directly in front of your vocalist's mouth. Recording with a pop filter helps tame low-end transients (plosives) by absorbing bursts of air but this does almost nothing to tame sibilance.

c80f0f1006