Top 5 Waves Plugins For Vocals

1. CLA-2A Compressor

This compressor is modeled after the popular analog compressor, LA-2A. I typically use this with a second compressor, or use it twice in the chain. The controls on it are very simple, you just set the peak reduction and then set the gain. The attack and release time on the hardware was frequency and amplitude dependent, but the attack averaged around 10 ms and the release about 60ms to 50% release. While I can't speak for how accurate this plugin is to the original, it makes a great compressor on vocals and more.

Waves CLA-2A Compressor Plugin

2. Vitamin Sonic Enhancer

This plugin is called a sonic enhancer, but it functions similar to an exciter. To my understanding you select what frequencies you want to enhance and it mixes that in with your original sound. Its a useful tool to add crispness to a vocal part, and it also makes for a great filter effect.

Waves Vitamin Sonic Enhancer

3. L1 Limiter / L1 Ultramaximizer

Theirs not much to explain with this, its just an easy to use and good looking limiter. I use it on vocals and other tracks to set a hard limit to the volume output. The Ultramaximizer version of this is great for the master bus.

Waves L1 Limiter and Ultramaximizer

4. H-Delay

This is my favorite delay plugin. Its very easy to control, and has useful features such as ping-pong, panning, modulation, filtering, and an analog control. I use this on long vocal delays, vocal delay throws, guitar delays, and also as an infinite feedback effect.

Waves H-Delay

5. Waves Tune

Waves Tune can help turn a 3 hour vocal recording session into a 30 minute vocal recording session with 15 minutes of editing. Vocals today have to be flawless, and its not realistic to consistently hit perfect takes that are both dead center on pitch and perfect in tone. This gives you a relatively painless way to fix vocal mistakes in a seamless manner. Its not perfect, if the vocals are too far off there can be artifacts, and if the part has any vocal rasp the plugin might not pick up on it. But for most scenarios where you’re only off by a whole or fraction of a semitone in a couple spots, it’ll do the job. It also has a feature to add vibrato to vocals, which is sometimes the icing on the cake for a perfect vocal part.

Waves Tune

If you were on the fence about what plugins to buy, I hope this article helped. If you have these plugins, what do you think of them? What plugins did I leave out? Let me know in the comments.

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