Monte Katzenberger: How to use Waves Processors to Create Dazzling Vocal Audio Effects

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For the instruction manual, "How to use Waves Processors to create Dazzling Vocal Effects", complete with tables and graphics, click the links here:

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=HOW TO USE WAVES PROCESSORS TO CREATE DAZZLING VOCAL AUDIO EFFECTS=
Waves processors and the Waves logo are trademarks of Waves Audio Ltd. Copyright © 2011 Waves Audio Ltd. All rights reserved.

==CAUTION!!!== Be sure to exercise good posture while working at a computer for prolonged periods of time. Frequent stretching is necessary to prevent body structural problems such as arthritis or stenosis from occurring.
Refrain from listening to loud music for prolonged periods of time. If you take your headphones off and your ears are ringing it’s too loud. As an audio engineer your ears are priceless. Listening to loud music for prolonged periods of time causes permanent damage to your hearing.
Do not work in a dimly lit room. This causes your eyes to dilate and allows more of the computer monitor’s radiation to burn your eyes resulting in headaches, nausea, etc.
Author takes no responsibility for any damages caused to yourself or others as a result of reading this instruction manual. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

== == CONTENTS
== About Waves
Before you Begin
This manual is intended to provide you with an understanding of how to use Waves processors to obtain audio effects found in popular music today. Although it is recommended that you use Waves processors in conjunction with this manual, the effects(or plug-ins) that you will learn are standard and available by other manufacturers. Some of this information is also applicable to other DSP plug-ins manufacturer's software.
You can use Waves audio processors in conjunction with any standard multitracking program. If you are having problems getting your Waves plug-ins to show up inside your multitracking program, consult the user’s manual for your multitracking program.
GETTING STARTED
Open a session with a vocal track with your multitracking program.
The words plug-ins, inserts and effects are used interchangeably.

Parametric EQ
This is the standard Waves© equalizer.

Equalization is the first effect that you put on any track. It comes in 4 flavors: EQ2, EQ4, EQ6 and EQ8. EQ2 has two bands. EQ8 has 8 bands. The screenshot above is EQ8.
In the studio, equalization is used to raise or lower amplitude of certain frequencies to bring out the life of the instrument or remove unwanted audio artifacts such as low frequency rumble or any number of unwanted sounds.
Controls:
• Bypass
• Save
• Load
• On/Off
• Type
• Gain
• Frequency
• Q (bandwidth)
Add EQ8 Waves plug-in into your inserts for a vocal track.
Remove any unnecessary low end. Most of the time you can’t even hear this low end, but when you have 30 tracks playing simultaneously the effect can be cumulative. The solution is to strip every track of any unwanted low end. You will not need to do this for bass guitar or certain drums such as kick or toms. However, just because you don’t want to remove the low end completely on some tracks doesn’t mean that they won’t require low end adjustment. HIGH PASS/LOW PASS FILTER
Low end can be stripped from any track using a bell filter or a high pass filter. I prefer a high pass filter. For band 1, click on the “Type” control and switch to “High Pass”. Now click and drag from inside the “Freq” box and change the value to 125Hz. A low pass filter works similarly with respect to high frequencies instead of low.
Say there’s still a bit too much low end in the vocal track as it sounds a bit muffled. Now use a bell filter to tidy up the low end a bit. A common mistake here is to add high frequencies. You actually want to remove frequencies to fix this problem. A few frequencies may still need boosting, and a little boosting is okay, but keep in mind whenever you boost a frequency you introduce noise. Always try and remove frequencies first before adding them. BELL FILTER
A bell filter is what is used for the majority of equalization. Notice the “Type” box already shows a bell filter by default. For band 2, change the gain from 0 to -5. Now change the frequency of band 2 to about 180. Now you may want to adjust the “Q” a bit to widen the range of frequencies band 2 affects. Change the “Q” from 7 to 5 and see what happens in the graphical representation. Play around with these settings until you don’t hear any unwanted low frequencies. Every microphone has a unique frequency response, and every singer is different. You will need to make adjustments until it sounds good to you.
Apply the bell filter to any other frequencies in need of adjustment. The microphone I like best for male vocals, the Pacific Pro Audio LD1, doesn’t pick up high frequencies as well as I would like it to. What I do to fix this is bring down the frequencies that don’t need boosting and boost the highs a few decibels(dB):
Compression/Limiting
A compressor levels out the peaks and valleys in a waveform. It lowers the amplitude of any waveform above a certain amplitude. This allows you to make quiet parts audible without making the loud parts louder. Without compression pops and clicks in a funk bassline would be quite painful at nominal levels. A little compression can also spare you hours of volume automation work on a vocal track.
DeEsser
I like to follow EQ on a vocal track with a form of compression called a DeEsser:
The letter “S” always sounds much louder than anyone wants it to when pronounced into a microphone. An accepted way to deal with this is to cut the amplitude of the “S” frequencies when those frequencies rise above a certain amplitude. This enables you to leave those frequencies present in between esses as opposed to removing them altogether throughout the whole track with equalization.
Controls:
• Bypass
• Save
• Load
• Frequency
• Threshold
Add Waves DeEsser plug-in to the inserts for your vocal track. Place it immediately following the EQ8.
Play a 4 – 10 second clip of some vocals with esses on repeat. Your esses should appear a bit too loud. If they don’t I suppose it is possible that a DeEsser isn’t necessary, but for main vocals I always use a DeEsser.
Bring the threshold to about -36. Threshold is the point of loudness at which the “S” frequencies begin to drop. The lower the threshold, the more “S” frequencies get removed.
Notice the attenuation meter. Attenuation is what is removed. Every time an “S” goes through the DeEsser the attenuation meter will show how much of the “S” is removed.
With your esses still on looped playback, move the frequency somewhere between 7,000 and 12,000 Hz. Move the frequency around and watch the attenuation meter. Find the frequency value that shows the most attenuation. This is your “S” center frequency.
Now you can increase or decrease the threshold until the esses sound natural. C1 Compressor
There are over a dozen compressors in the Waves Mercury Bundle©. Many of them, such as Renaissance Vox, have had controls removed for easier functionality. The C1 compressor has no such functionality removed:

Controls:
• Bypass
• Save
• Load
• Makeup
• Threshold
• Ratio
• Attack
• Release
You may not need any compression at all if there’s just one other instrument such as a piano or guitar involved and the singer is consistent enough. It isn’t until multiple instruments being played simultaneously before quiet parts of the vocals get drowned out.
For vocals, set the ratio to 4.00:1. “Ratio” relates two values about the threshold: input level above the threshold, and output level above the threshold. A ratio of 4:1 means that if an input signal is 4dB above the threshold, the output signal will be 1 dB above the threshold, effectively reducing the peaks in a waveform. Consider this: Threshold = -20dB
Input signal = -12dB
Output signal = -18dB Another way of looking at ratio is to consider a 4:1 ratio as something that removes 75% of whatever goes above the threshold.
Next set your threshold to somewhere between -15 and -25. The lower your threshold the flatter your waveform will get.
If this were drums or bass you would want the value for “attack” to be considerably lower. For vocals the default value of 2.00 works.
Lastly, adjust your “Makeup”. Implementing the compression settings thus far has turned down the loudness level of your vocal track considerably. “Makeup” adds gain to compensate for the volume drop. Slide the “Makeup” fader up until your vocals sound natural in the mix. Delay
Delays come in a few varieties:
• Tap delays allow you to click a button to set the delay time. This is handy if you don’t know how many milliseconds of a delay that you need numerically but you do know how long of a delay you want.
• Time Adjustment or straight delays are useful to correct for latency. Latency is an unavoidable delay that happens as a result of processors taking time to process data before it can send it to your speakers. The more processor demanding an insert is the more latency it will introduce. It is often necessary to add a time adjustment delay on other tracks to keep them in perfect time with ones containing processor demanding effects. Your multitracking program will display latency for each track.
• Ping pong delays are stereo delays that alternate the signal between the left and the right. • Phase/Flange delays are very short delays which are used to purposefully create loss of audio attributed to two superimposing audio signals being slightly out of phase. Phase delays are the shortest and remove certain frequencies creating an odd effect. Flange delays are a little longer and also produce a phase like effect. DELAY TYPE DELAY TIME
Phase Delay
Flange Delay
Vocal Embellishment Delay 14.84ms
Long Delay



Your basic Waves delays come in short, medium and long. For most purposes the medium delay is appropriate:
The stereo Mod Delay II allows you to take a mono signal and assign a different amount of delay time to the left and the right. For this effect a stereo delay must be used.
Controls:
• Bypass
• Save
• Load
• Gain
• Mix
• Delay This delay is being added to vocals to add a small amount of difference between the left and the right. This has the effect of bringing out the vocals slightly without turning them up.
Note that adding this mono to stereo effect your track has switched from mono to stereo. You can now pan the left and the right separately. Pan the left to the center, and leave the right on the right. What this will accomplish is adding a slight delay to only the right side.
In the plug in window, turn the delay on the left channel down to zero. Next turn the delay on the right channel to 14.84ms. Now turn the gain for the right channel down to -21dB.
It may be difficult to notice the difference between delay and no delay because there is such a small amount being added. The key to appropriate use of effects is subtlety. You may not be able to tell there is any delay at all, however, upon listening you can often hear when it gets bypassed.
This delay does not necessarily belong in all vocal tracks. Use your ears to decide if this effect helps you achieve the sound you are trying for. Reverb
There are two Waves reverbs that I find useful, the IR1, and Renaissance Verb(RVerb). TrueVerb does not sound good to me, but that does not mean that it doesn’t have its uses. This is RVerb:
RVerb is a stereo plug in. If you insert it into a mono track it will change it into a stereo track. Make sure to pan appropriately.
Reverb is the most overused and abused audio effect. Originally intended to simulate a sound being played inside a hall or room, reverb is now used as an effect. Be very careful to avoid turning the reverb up very high. The key to good reverb usage is subtlety. A little goes a long way. Controls:
• Bypass
• Save
• Load
• Predelay
• Time
• Size
• Diffusion
• Decay
• Early ref.
• Reverb
• Wet/Dry
• Gain
Bring Size down to an appropriately sized room. I will bring it down to 1.00 much of the time.
Turn down the “Time” control if you want the reverb to cut out sooner.
Turn down “Wet/Dry” to somewhere between 5 and 10. If done right you won’t be able to tell there is any reverb on the vocals at all unless you solo the vocal track. CREATING EFFECT INSTANCES
Certain effects you do not want active all the time. There are some effects that can add incredible feeling to a project when used in the proper place. Effect instances are used in 90% of popular music to accentuate or create a feeling during a key point in a musical recording.
PRE-VERB
Pre-Verb is backwards reverb. Instead of the reverberation happening after the parent waveform it happens before.
Create two mono audio tracks. Name one Preverb L, the other Preverb R. Copy a single word or short phrase from the vocal track to both new audio tracks. Make sure to line up the audio in Preverb L to Preverb R exactly.
Reverse the audio in Preverb L and Preverb R. Every multitracking program does this differently. If there’s no “Reverse” in your plug-ins you will most likely find it in the edit menu.
After the audio is reversed, select the phrase on both Preverb L and Preverb R. Include about 5 seconds of empty space after your phrase in your selection as shown below:
Now process the audio with a stereo reverb. Using RVerb, drop “Wet/Dry” down to 50% then process the audio.

Next, reverse the audio again.

Notice that the processed waveforms are no longer lined up with the audio that originally generated them. You will have to slide the processed waveforms over until they line up with the original.
Make sure Preverb L is panned hard left, and Preverb R is panned hard right.
Adjust the volume level to just barely audible for Preverb L and Preverb R.
Use EQ8 to pull out the lows on Preverb L and Preverb R as well as make any other adjustments in equalization to the preverb tracks. Delay/Prelay
This instance is much easier to create than pre-verb. First, decide on a single word you wish to accentuate or bring out. Create a track named Delay and copy that word into it.

Now slide the waveform in the Delay track a smidge to the left.

You can also slide the waveform the other direction to change this instance from prelay to delay.
You may have to loop the audio and slide the waveform in the Delay track around a bit to find the optimum placement.
Lower the volume until it is barely audible so the effect is subtle.
Apply equalization. BULLHORN VOCALS
Many artists make use of distorted vocals. Most of the time it ends up sounding like someone singing into a bullhorn. The effect can be quite pleasing when done correctly.
Create a new track called Bullhorn Vox.
Add an EQ8 to the inserts on Bullhorn Vox.
Add a Sans Amp plug-in after the EQ8.
There are many pleasing combinations of equalization and the Sans Amp plug-in when creating bullhorn vocals. I recommend getting as close as you can get to the sound you are looking for with Sans Amp then fine tuning the sound with EQ8.