You can use more drastic settings (like higher ratios and faster attack times on the 1176 and more gain reduction on the LA2A) for more aggressive sounding vocals, or more tame settings to retain the natural dynamics of the original performance. The resulting sound is smooth, natural and helps the vocals sit well among the rest of the arrangement.

The point here is that the faster and more aggressive 1176 does the heavy lifting on the loudest passages, allowing the LA2A to work in a less drastic way. Next, set the LA2A to be applying a pretty consistent level of gain reduction (1-3 dB generally is what I shoot for) throughout. Place the 1176 first and set the input (which also has control over the threshold) so that the compressor is working hardest (think 2-5 dB of gain reduction) during the loudest passages of the vocal track.

If you dial in these two compressors properly, you can make it seem as if your vocalist has nearly perfect control over their singing dynamics.

So what’s the deal with two plugins occupying the top spot on this list? Well, although they are each tried-and-true, character-rich dynamics processors, my favorite application is to use them in tandem. These are two emulations of classic hardware compressor units, and while there are plenty of plugin manufactures that offer versions of these, I find that none capture the mojo and three-dimensionality of them as well as Universal Audio. Here are my top plugins for mixing vocals.ġ. That being said, a fair amount of work goes into the tonal sculpting, dynamics shaping and precise pitch shifting that makes today’s vocal performances sound so squeaky-clean. Beautiful, emotive vocal performances existed long before all of the latest and greatest plugins. Working in a well-treated room is important, too. Obviously, the ability to communicate emotions through lyrics kind of stacks the deck in the favor of the voice, but I digress.īefore I break into this roundup of my top plugins for mixing vocals, I want to be clear that there is absolutely no substitute for proper singing technique, correct microphone choice & placement, and using a high-quality signal chain including a microphone preamplifier is a necessity. No instrument matches the feeling, the vulnerability or the power of the voice. The human voice is at the center of most popular music productions.

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