Welcome to Sage Audio. Today let’s look at How to Chain
Vocal Effects. But first, If you have a mix that you need mastered,
send it to us to receive a free mastered sample of it with the link in the description.
EQ or Compression First? For this video, I’m going to discuss some common
and not-so-common back-to-back combinations of plugins. The chapters are in no particular order.
A common question when processing vocals is whether to place equalization or compression
first - both orders have their benefits and drawbacks. If I place an EQ before compression,
I can attenuate unwanted frequencies, causing the compressor to work less - or amplify frequencies,
causing the compressor to work harder.
When a compressor works harder, we can often get more of the compressor’s tone and character.
If I compress first and then EQ, the EQ curves will be affecting more dynamically
controlled frequency ranges - meaning it may be easier to pull something forward.
If the compressor uses makeup gain though, it may be harder to attenuate unwanted frequencies.
Let’s listen to Eq before compression, used to amplify wanted frequencies,
and notice how the compressor has to work harder.
Creating Saturation with 2 Effects
Saturation is a combination of soft-knee compression and harmonic
distortion - which we can recreate using these 2 effects separately. Typically,
the compression aspect will occur first so let’s introduce that
along with make-up gain, and then distort the signal in turn introducing harmonics.
If we want, we can introduce an EQ after the distortion to mimic the frequency response of
tape or tube saturation, but let’s take a listen to just the first 2 processors we discussed.
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Saturation Followed by Upward Compression
One of my favorite processor combos on vocals is saturation - which introduces
downward compression and harmonic distortion, followed by upward
compression. Upward compression will compress quieter parts of the signal and then amplify
them - meaning the harmonics we generated with saturation, become more apparent and detailed.
Let’s take a listen to upward compression after saturation and notice how full the vocal becomes.
Emphasis, De-emphasis Technique
As we discussed in chapter 1, an EQ can be placed before a processor to emphasize frequencies
prior to subsequent processing. For example, if we want a saturator to add more presence to a vocal,
we could emphasize 2.5kHz with the EQ before the saturator.
Then, to balance the signal, we would de-emphasize that range
with another EQ, after the saturator. Let’s take a listen to the technique.
Short Reverb, then Long Reverb
When we think of reverb on a vocal, we typically imagine a
longer stylized one like a bight plate or a hall,
but room emulation is also very important. That’s why I like to first use short reverb
with dense reflections to make the vocal thick or sound more natural depending on the settings.
Then, I’ll introduce longer reverb to give the vocal more of an identity.
Let’s take a listen and notice how the 2 effects complement one another.
Thick Delay, then Long Reverb
If we want a less natural sound, maybe on reminiscent of classic recordings,
we can replace the room emulation we used the last chapter with a short delay. This will still
make the vocal sound more impressive, but won’t have the realism of room emulation.
If we follow the delay with plate or
chamber emulation, we can achieve a classic and full sound. Let’s take a listen.
EQ, Tuning, then Saturation
Usually, vocal tuning is introduced first, but if we use an EQ first we can emphasize in-tune notes
and reduce out-of-tune notes. Then when we tune, the tuner won’t have to work as harder,
reducing unwanted artifacts or unnatural sounding note changes.
Furthermore, we can introduce even order harmonic saturation after the tuner - which will also
amplify in-key notes. Let’s take a listen to a vocal tuned with these 3 processors.
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Soothe 2, then Vocal Tuning
A song’s key has 7 notes that are in-key and 5 that are not - if we know our song’s key
we can use this trick. First, I’ll create a midi track on which the 5 out-of-key notes
are constantly being played - I’ll use sine waves for the instrument to reduce harmonics.
Then, I’ll mute this track, and use it as the external side-chain for soothe 2,
which will be inserted on the vocal.
Soothe 2 will attenuate these frequencies, since it’ll measure them as being too aggressive,
resulting in a vocal with fewer out-of-key notes. If we follow this with a tuner
then the same concepts we covered the last chapter will apply here.
Let’s take a listen to these plugins used in this manner,
and notice how the vocal sounds more in tune, and the tuner doesn’t have to work as hard.
Compression, and Dynamic EQ
If we compress our vocal and use make-up gain, we bring quieter details forward while controlling
dynamics - of course, the more aggressive the settings, the more attenuation, but also,
the more amplification of low-level signal. If we compress
aggressively and follow it with expansion, we’ll enhance our vocals.
With a dynamic EQ, we can pinpoint which frequency ranges we want to expand, how aggressively
they’re expanded, and which frequencies are affected the most by adjusting the Q value.
So let’s listen to about 8 to 10dB of compression with make-up-gain,
followed by expansion via a dynamic EQ, and notice how if we expand
important vocal frequency ranges, we get detailed, controlled, and upfront vocals.
Short Compression, Long Compression
Last up let’s talk about combining compression in series - the attack and release of a compressor
control a lot about the sound. If we set the attack to 2ms, and the release to 50ms, we’ll
get dynamic control that’s relatively transparent since the level is returned to unity quickly.
If we follow this with a compressor with a softer knee to trigger compression at quieter levels,
an attack of 10ms, and a long release,
we can smooth out our vocals as well as contribute to controlling dynamics.
So the first compressor cleanly controls dynamics, whereas the second one shapes the timbre,
but doesn’t need to be used too aggressively since compressor 1 did most of the heavy lifting.
Let’s take a listen to how this controls the dynamics and shapes the timbre.
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with the link in the description. Thank you so much for watching.