Waves is targeting professionals, not home studios. That’s probably a good thing for the dozens of web forum posters I see every week ask “when would I use RenComp instead of RenEQ?” Generally, you know the answer to that question before shelling out $1,200 for the plugins.

However, if you absolutely must pirate a piece of software (“I need the SSL bundle so I don’t sound amateur …”) at least have the sense to buy it legally before making any money with it!

I mentioned Drumtrig in the list of drum replacer plugins. It’s a free, dressed-down alternative to Drumagog: Only one sample per track, but incredibly easy to use.

As with the similarly-fated Paris EQ, I saved the install file:

Here’s a brief description of the plugin from Storm’s old site:

By using this plugin on single drum tracks like Snare or Kick you can replace the sound with any sample (.WAV file) you like. Great if you’ve tried everything to salvage a poorly recorded drum sound and got nowhere!

If you like this plugin but fancy something a bit more sophisticated, have a look at Drumagog. It’s not free but it has a lot more features.

And there’s a copy of the Storm Recording website on archive.org with some more information. (Note that the plugin is Windows-only.)

That’s a pity, because the plugin is fantastic. Although it’s colorful, so not appropriate for every EQ task, it’s sometimes perfect for bass guitar and vocals (I referenced the Paris EQ in my best free vocal plugins article.) On some material, I’ve even preferred the Paris EQ VST over the much more expensive Waves REQ.

I saved the install file I downloaded, so as a service to my fellow homerecordists who may not have a chance to try the plugin, here’s a link:

And here’s Matt’s description of the plugin from the readme file:

The Paris VST EQ is a 4-band parametric stereo VST equaliser plugin utilising the same algorithm as the E-mu/Ensoniq Paris system. It offers the same musicality and quirkiness as the original including soft-limiting, grungy distortion ability, and resonant behaviour under certain conditions.

Previously only accessible to those who owned the Paris custom DSP hardware, this unique EQ is now available to all PC DAW users.

(Note that it’s Windows-only.)

In a pro studio, most of this treatment is handled by expensive hardware and plugins (like those from Waves and UAD.) But you don’t have to break the bank to polish up your vocal tracks thanks to the many libraries of free plugins found on the Internet, most available for any DAW that supports the VST standard.

I’ve compiled a list of the best plugins for a killer free vocal chain, along with a sample of the plugins at work on one of my vocal tracks.

The Plugins

De-esser: Spitfish [Windows and Mac]

Noise gate: Floorfish [Windows and Mac]

EQ: Nyquist EQ [Windows and Mac]
Also consider Kjaerhus Classic EQ [Windows only] and Paris EQ [Windows only]

Compressor: Kjaerhus Classic Compressor [Windows only]
Also consider MJCompressor [Windows and Mac] and blockfish [Windows and Mac]

Reverb: DX Reverb Lite [Windows and Mac]
Also consider Glaceverb [Windows only], Ambience [Windows and Mac], and Kjaerhus Classic [Windows only]

Tape Saturation: JS Magneto [Windows only]
Also consider Saturator [Windows only] and Voxengo tube amp [Windows only]

Although I haven’t included them the example below, the following plugins are also suitable for a vocal effects chain:

Chorus: Kjaerhus Classic Compressor [Windows only]

Delay: Bionic Delay [Windows only] and Kjaerhus Classic [Windows only]

Limiter: W1 [Windows and Mac]

Building The Chain

A vocal performance starts in the singer’s diaphragm, travels through her throat and mouth, to the air, the microphone, then the speakers, and finally the listener’s ears. In general, I like my signal chain to reflect this path, by placing each effect in the same order as the physical property it adjusts. So:

• A de-esser modifies the effect of the singer’s tongue and teeth.
• A noise gate is analogous to the singer’s lips, opening and closing.
• Equalizers and compressors, in some ways, address the result of microphone selection and placement.
• Finally, reverb and delay simulate the space in which the vocal is heard, analogous to the listener’s ears at the end of the chain.

These are just guidelines, of course. You can combine effects in any order to achieve a specific sound. (For example, put reverb before the compressor for a pumping reverb effect.) However, this “vocal path” approach is a good starting point for most vocal effects chains, especially if your goal is simply a polished track.

Hear it in action

I’ll illustrate the effectiveness of these free plugins with the vocal from On My Feet Again. Here’s a short section from the original, raw track, recorded with an SM58 directly into my mixing board:

There are some obvious issues with this recording:

• It’s dull: I chose the SM58 for this song because I like the way it saturates my “loud” voice. But that pleasant dynamic saturation comes at a price: Reduced clarity in the high frequencies.
• The dynamics are uneven: Notice how much the second “still” jumps out. Ideally, I should have re-recorded for a more even performance. But I liked the energy in this take, and since I knew I’d be compressing the track anyway, I decided to keep it.
• There’s sibilance: I could have eased up on those S’s a little.
• It’s dry: This is by design, as I wanted to keep my room sound out of the recording. However, a track this dry often sounds unnatural or harsh when mixed with other instruments, especially when those instruments (like the drum kit in On My Feet Again) have an open, ambient sound.

To address these issues, I choose a straightforward approach:
De-ess -> Gate -> EQ -> Compression -> Tape saturation -> Reverb
Of course, this chain isn’t suitable for treating all vocal tracks. But each effect here is appropriate, given the issues identified above.

The de-esser (Spitfish) is tuned to roughly 7Khz, at a medium depth, just enough to soften the worst of the sibilants.

In the quieter parts of this song, the noise gate action is pronounced, gating out my breathing. But in this sample, it doesn’t have much work to do. My inhalation sounds add urgency here, and I didn’t want to cut them out completely.

I used the equalizer primarily to address the dullness I mentioned. The main causes of the dark sound are the SM58’s frequency response, and the proximity effect – I sang with the mic almost touching my lips. So I rolled off the low frequencies, everything below roughly 130Hz, and gently boosted the top-end, above 3Khz:

To address the uneven dynamics, I started with the Classic Compressor’s vocal preset, set the threshold appropriately, and boosted the ratio just past 5:1. That’s fairly aggressive compression for a vocal track, but I think the “squashed” sound really suits the song.

Finally, the reverb. I placed this plugin on a bus (or “effect send” in some DAWs,) instead of directly on the vocal track, mostly out of habit. I find it more convenient to adjust the reverb level without having to open the plugin interface. Also, while it’s not relevant in this case, I often use the same reverb effect on several tracks (for example, vocals and acoustic guitar) to place the tracks in the same “space,” and using a bus lets me do this with only a single instance of the plugin.

So putting it all together, here’s the processed sample:

A vast improvement, and it didn’t cost me a penny! (And you can hear the final vocal in context here.)

The plugins I used to build the free vocal chain are my personal favorites, but we all work differently so they might not suit your style. (The Nyquist EQ, in particular, is less-than-intuitive if you’re used to traditional parametric equalizers.) Fortunately, there are hundreds of free plugins offered on the Internet. If you’d like to tweak this chain for your own uses, check out Audio Mastermind’s list of free VST plugins.

For more articles on recording vocals, and home recording in general,
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The first article Adding Effects to Vocal Tracks looks at compression and gating to clean up the vocal sound, with a good overview of various approaches to reverb.

Gates allow an audio signal to pass through them if the signal is above a specified threshold. When the signal is below the threshold, the gate closes, attenuating the signal partially or fully. Gates are utilized to allow the desired (louder) signal to pass through to the output while denying unwanted (softer) signals. They’re useful for eliminating unwanted noise on tracks (like headphone bleed or even the singer’s breathing), for creating cool effects like cutting off reverb tails, and many other applications.

The next article, Adding Ambient Effects to Vocal Tracks, delves more deeply into the use of reverb, delay, and chorus to add depth and character.

Putting your delay effects in stereo can really make your mixes sound wide and deep. You can pan your source track to one side and a delayed signal to the other side. Or you can put the source in the middle and pan delayed copies of the source to each side. For this to be effective, select different delay times for each side of the stereo field. A good technique for thickening a vocal part is tripling the original track by using single delays panned left and right with delay times of 16 ms and 32 ms

But there are some great free alternatives. I’ve listed them here in order of my preference, though several features are more important to me (midi output, velocity sensing,) than might be for others.

KTDrumTrigger [VST - Windows/Mac] – KTDrumTrigger generates MIDI events by watching its input for trigger levels. When the volume of the input goes above a threshold, KTDrumTrigger spits out a pre-defined midi note. A key feature, however, (and one that puts it in the same league as Drumagog) is its ability to sense the velocity of the input, and adjust the MIDI output velocty accordingly. And something not seen in Drumagog is KTDrumTrigger’s ability to monitor a single track for input triggers in up to 3 different frequency bands. This lets a single input track drive (say) a kick, snare, and hi-hat. (The demo on the linked site highlights this feature.) I reach for KTDrumTrigger before Drumagog when it’s specifically MIDI triggering that I need.

apTrigga [VST/AU - Windows/Mac] – It’s not completely free, though apulSoft offers a limited free shareware version. But apTrigga is effectively a Drumagog clone for a tenth of the price. While it lacks MIDI note generation, apTrigga does offer a novel “sequenced trigger” mode, something not possible with Drumagog. The plugin can load multiple layers (i.e. samples) and play each in turn on successive input triggers. This allows the creation of some interesting percussive effects. The multiple layers can also be used for dynamics processing, though, supporting up to 9 dynamic levels. While not as detailed as Drumagog’s 48 layers, this is still more than enough to simulate realistic drum dynamics.

Replacer [VST - Windows] – Replacer works with a single sample (or up to 4 samples in the the full version, available for a nominal donation,) and attempts to replicate the dynamics of the input signal. As with Drumagog, one would use this tool to replace a single drum track (i.e. kick, snare, or tom,) at a time. While it doesn’t support MIDI note generation or positional samples, Replacer’s interface is clean and simple, and above all the tool is easy to use when triggering electronic drums. (I.e. when dynamics aren’t important.)

DrumTrig [VST - Windows] – DrumTrig is Drumagog Lite (or perhaps Extra Light.) It makes no attempt to match the output volume to the input volume, and can only trigger a single sample per track (where Drumagog can fire up to 48 different samples, based on velocity and position.) But Drumtrig is free, and couldn’t be easier to use. Add it to the track to be replaced, drop a replacement sample on it, and you’re done.

Peak Freak [VST - Windows] – From the linked page: “PeakFreak is a plugin that converts audio input that falls into a certain frequency and amplitude range into midi notes of a certain length.” There’s not much more to it, but it’s free, and it’s purple.

Synodeia2 [VST - Windows] – Synodeia2 generates MIDI notes based on the pitch of its input. However, it can be “tricked” to work with drums. Lack of velocity sensing, though, means it’s best suited for electronic drums.