In this four part free video tutorial series, brought to you with the support of Waves, we show you four plug-ins that can quickly transform your vocal tracks into radio ready mixes. Three of these plug-ins are Waves Signature series plug-ins, which Waves have made in collaboration with some of the music industry’s most talented producers and engineers. The 4th plug-in featured in this article enables users to create their own custom plug-in chains.

In this article we will be taking the same vocal performance and working on it four different ways to help you hear the differences in sound and style between the four plug-ins.

Greg Wells VoiceCentric

VoiceCentric was created with multiple Grammy-nominated producer, songwriter, musician, and mixing engineer Greg Wells, who has mixed hit records for artists like Adele, Katy Perry, OneRepublic, Mika, and Twenty One Pilots.

The Greg Wells VoiceCentric is a user-friendly plug-in featuring one main control and three additional controls for Wells’ customized Delay, Doubler, and Reverb settings. Designed for those looking for an A-level mixed vocal sound, this plug-in gives you instant access to Greg Wells’ signature sound – a world-class solution for vocal processing.

Butch Vig Vocals

Designed for those looking for a creative approach to shaping vocals, Butch Vig Vocals features intuitive EQ controls, a compressor and a de-esser, and several tools for colouring your sound in numerous shades, including Tube and Solid State saturation, a unique Focus knob, and other inspiring features, all carefully crafted by Butch himself to help you realise your vocal vision.

Eddie Kramer Vocal Channel

We will let Eddie Kramer himself explain the Vocal Channel:

“When mixing, there’s always a fight going on between the vocal and the rest of the track. For me, what makes a good mix is when all the elements combine seamlessly, complimenting one another. When we designed the Vocal Channel plug-in, we did it in such a way that the user can position the vocals within the mix, and then blend it back into the track, without it popping out, in such a way that it retains all its original clarity and presence.”

Studio Rack

This video shows how to create custom Waves vocal mixing plug-in chains using Waves Free StudioRack plug-in.

Users can download Waves StudioRack for free from the Waves website. StudioRack enables Waves plug-in users to host Waves plug-ins and save plug-in chains as presets. StudioRack plug-in chain presets can be saved, shared, and loaded in different DAWs making StudioRack an essential collaboration tool for the modern music producer.

There you have it, four different ways to mix the same vocal in a song. Which plug-in did you prefer the sound of the most?

Visit Waves for more information on the plug-ins used in this video.