What Plugins Do I Use On My Vocals First?
How Plugin Chaining Works
Plugin Chaining - The order of audio plugins used on a mix bus usually for vocals or mastering.
Plugin chaining comes in very handy in mixing and mastering. If you don’t know what plugin chaining is, it’s the simple process of choosing the order of plugins usually on aux buses, vocal buses, and mastering buses.
There are many different ways you can approach a plugin chain. There are thousands of mixing and mastering pros and their techniques vary. So here is a basic plugin chain for vocals i think that this guy made it really simple for beginners.
Vocal Chain
1. EQ
– I filter unwanted frequencies and cut first. Then I add what I think the vocal needs. EQ both in solo and in the mix.
2. Compression – I have a bunch of different compressors that can all do great things for certain voices. I often use the Waves CLA-76 the most. It gives the voice thickness without sounding compressed.
3. Saturation – This could be anywhere in the vocal chain and doesn’t have to be after EQ or compression. There are bunch of different saturation settings I go for to thicken up the low-end of the bass or add mild distortion to smoothing out the vocal with some tape emulation.
4. EQ – this is where I re-balance the frequency response of an instrument. I usually put an EQ after all of these plugins to add some more high-end again.
5. De-esser - I usually top it off with a nice de-esser to get rid of those ess and sibilant sounds from the vocals.
It doesn’t matter what plugins you use but as long as you have this basic formula; eq, compression, a little distortion(if you need it), another eq for correction and I would add a de-esser to this equation.
