Ay Fam
So I just bought some stuff from the Waves Summer Sale.
Now they give me 2 Plugins for free.
Anyone anything can recommend? I don't need anything specific, so point out what you think is worth it. (Was thinking bout taking CLA Guitar & a De-Esser or Stereo Imager tho)

waves.com/free-plugins-summer-flash-sale-2021

Thanks for the help!

Personally I would buy
1. Stereo Imager (widen sounds)
2. Soundshifter (pitch sounds to whatever you want)
3. CLA-76 compressor (very good compressor)

Honourable mentions would be Kramer tape and L2 limiter.

I use all of them, but if I had to choose 3 I would do it like this

Man I wish wave plug-ins worked with M1 chip iMacs

Those plugins are fire

Thanks for the insane quick response! 'Bout to compare them and cop me some. Not sure if I need the Stereo Imager since I already got Ozone and Wider and they're doing a pretty good job together. Soundshifter definitly sounds interesting!

If u work with vocals a lot I'd get the doubler

Metaflanger is very nice but probably unnecessary since most daws come with decent flangers

I like ultrapitch as well

Soundshifter is nice but depending on your saw may be unnecessary. U can always resale audio and change it's pitch or use another pitch shifting plugin

I have a lot of these. I'd go with:

F6
CLA-76

Doubler is good too but its easy enough to duplicate your tracks, then slightly alter the pitch by a few cents and then delay by 10-25ms

gotta try this

I create 4 stereo tracks, even though the vocal itself should be mono. Then I pan the first to the left, the second the the right and then repeat for the next 2 tracks

Track 1: +3 cents, delay 10ms
Track 2: -3 cents, delay 25ms
Track 3: -6 cents, delay 25ms
Track 4: +6 cents, delay 10ms

Make sure track 1 and 4 are up in pitch, and 2 and 3 are down in pitch, and similarly with the delay otherwise the left and right will not be even

Interesting

So the vocals should be mono? Like they're recorded in mono or you just slap a mono plugin on it/reduce stereo separation manually? I ask this because I noticed doing mid side Eqing or other stereo effects on my vocals doesn't seem to make much of an impact. Ig I could use the PAZ a***yzer to see how stereo they are but even then idk

Sorry I'm totally new to this currently working on some tracks if u know any good books/videos for learning this stuff that'd be amazing

Tbh I have tons of plugins but idk how to engineer that well. Kinda learning on the job which has been a struggle

Its all good, we all start from nothing just like with anything else!

The vocals should be recorded in mono from the start unless you're recording 2 or more people using the same mic at the same time.

A good beginner book is Mixing Secrets for the Small Studio. The author gets into room acoustics, studio monitors, a little bit of the recording process and production process, and of course the main focus is mixing.

amazon.com/Mixing-Secrets-Small-Studio-Presents/dp/1138556378

Wow ok this is very intriguing, so that's why you make separate tracks for panning. I think I could do a lot with that knowledge

Thanks for the book recommendation I'll check it out! One last question, I have these headphones (kinda quiet) that I use for mixing called mad dogs, do I really need studio monitors or is a nice pair of headphones fine? Don't rly have the room for a studio set up rn

You don't NEED studio monitors, you could use some open back headphones with a relatively flat frequency response for mixing. It also eliminates the need for buying room treatment.

I use the Sennheiser HD650s for mixing if I need to be quiet. But if you can't afford those, Sonarworks makes headphone calibration software called SoundID Reference which supports hundreds of headphone models and makes those headphones sound as flat as possible.

sonarworks.com/soundid-reference/resources/supported-headphones

I've heard the AKG K240s are great budget headphones and Sonarworks supports those.

Do you know about the haas effect

Nahh breh I'll look it up

Thanks so much fam, I think the mad dogs are pretty flat and they're open backed, good to hear that I might be able to get away with using headphones lol

Eventually went with CLA-76 and the Stereo Imager.
The CLA truly has a super dope compression, just played around with it. Good Oomph!

Dayum, gonna try this as well.
Didn't expect such a lively discussion and this many great tips!

@Ethic @KundaliniMeanie

Make sure you turn down the faders of the doubles if you do that doubling technique to blend them in with the lead vocal to your liking. They will sound awful if they're the same volume as the lead

Yeah thanks fam, noticed it. Also took out some of the higher frequencies.

By the way, while we're at it. Anyone can recommend some clean 808 Samples? Already got a good set that I'm using aside from some vst synths, but I feel like they just don't sound 'modern' enough lol. I'm especially lacking some sort of short attack/sustain 'bumpy' 808, not really sure if that's the right term.

Just found an example, the one in Motorboat: youtube.com/watch?v=_ulWkovtTTU