VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Mark Szabo]

[Benjamin Stovall]

Well, I'm a little late to the discussion as I just joined, but I really like the FabFilter plugins. I recommend giving their Pro-C plugin a whirl. It comes in AU, VST, VST 3, AAX and RTAS formats for Mac OS X and Windows, has super fast attack times, support for x64-bit and side-chaining. Better still, you can download a free trial.

I really dig their plugins. The interfaces are phenomenal too, which is a big plus. I also use their Pro-L (Limiter) and Pro-Q (EQ) plug-ins quite a lot.

You'll find the compression plugin here:
http://www.fabfilter.com/products/pro-c.php

[Dayo]

Fast attack times on v/o often sound just plain awful to my ears, making for clacky, clunky consonants and a sound that's often smaller than life.

Mike Sommer turned me on to the long, lazy attack of an La2a and I've never looked back.

Just my 2p
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Colin Day - UK Voiceover
www.thurstonday.co.uk

[Benjamin Stovall]

That's a good point Dayo! I find that a combination is sometimes necessary to get the results I want in various scenarios. As it relates to compression, there was a short discussion on that very topic over on the Gearlutz forum. I think they mainly focus on instruments but there are a few interesting comments specifically related to vocals as well. Someone might find it of benefit:

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/492752-sharing-knowledge-about-compression-fast-attack-release-time-vs-slow.html

[DanG]

Hi, if you want to run all your 32 bit plugins in the 64 bit enviorment you will need this, http://jstuff.wordpress.com/jbridge/ I just bought it last week $20 and I have all my 32 bit plugins including all my Waves plugins working in 64 bit(brand new computer). I like to work in 64 bit since I can use all my ram, 8 gigs and not be stuck on just 4 gigs of ram that 32 bit provides and I can run all 4 cores on 64 bit. It works with Cubase. I run Studio One Pro V2 and its seemless intergration with S1 Pro. 64 bit runs so much faster and smoother. I never have to work in the 32 bit enviorment again. I could not be happier with my purchase of JBridge.

[jordanreynolds]

I felt like this thread was new and relevant enough to reply on. I wanted to see what compressor plugins other VO talent were using out there and found this!

A few people in the thread suggested using the LA2A and 1176 plugin emulations out there.

IK Multimedia has emulation versions of both of these compressors and they are actually very credible to the audio community. They've won awards and are used by many top end engineers. They are called the White 2A and the Black 76.

They are having this INSANE deal right now where you buy their T-Racks Deluxe package of plugins (9 or so great sounding plugins) and you get the White 2A and the Black 76 for FREE. It's only $199 for new customers or $99 for existing. And guess what, IK even suggested this, you can buy one of the dozens of $5 iphone/ipad as and then qualify for the Crossgrade price of $99! (This is what I did). Just create a free IK multimedia account, buy an IOS a, open the a, and register it using your IK account credentials. The T-Racks deluxe is usually $400 and the Black/White plugins are usually $99 each. That's $600 worth of high quality plugins for $99. It's insane.

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/Main.html?deluxepromo/index.php

This Promo ENDS TODAY!!

The T-Racks Deluxe package has 9 great plugins and the White 2A and the Black 76 sound so gooey and smooth. I love them. I've been A/B'ing them for hours the past few days to see what kind of VO reads they are optimal for.

With my voice I found that the White 2A is best for slower, warmer, sensual reads. The Black 76 is best for promo, higher pitched, aggressive in your face reads. And I'm still going to use my trusty Waves Renaissance Compressor plugin for the most clear/transparent compression.

Anyways, no I do not have any affiliation with IK Multimedia. Nor is that link I gave you give me any credits or anything. I just LOVE these new plugins I got for such a crazy price.

Oh and they have 64-bit support .

For those who are already using these (or other LA2A / 1176 plugins) what kind of compression are you usually applying? i.e. 3db of gain reduction, LA2A on narrative reads, etc).
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http://jordanreynolds.com

[Frank F]

Love T-racks for mastering, it is not VST however.

I like the DirectX plugs in Sony products, Wave Hammer is great, again sadly, it is not VST. That said, write your own VST, it is not as difficult as it sounds and you can use DirectX plugs or whatever in a wraparound container configuration.

OK, sorry for the promo, I hope this is going to be for Mastering, not recording VO. Sometimes a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of limiting may be required with some strong voices, but overall, clean audio is best to work with in Post.

Frank F
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Be thankful for the bad things in life. They opened your eyes to the good things you weren't paying attention to before. email: thevoice@usa.com

[captain54]

I swear by the Waves RennVox. Its the best UREI 1176 emulator I've ever heard and is insanely easy to adjust and tweak. Also includes a Gate..

You can purchase the single plug from Waves for $49.

[sounddguy]

I like my 1176 universal plug in. I use it between the mic pre and the computer input. Of course it cost in the four figure range rather than 3. <G>

Does anyone have the hard ware version, and if so, have you done any
mods to it? Especially from Alactronics, Inc.

[jordanreynolds]

[cyclometh]

Hey, this thread is still going, cool. I got some updates from Waves via email, it looks like they now support 64-bit on their plugins. Haven't gone to check it out yet.

The reason I was looking for these plugins was to be able to make my editing process faster by sidechaining in a room tone track to allow me to just clip out things I didn't want. Turned out there were better ways to do it, but it was still an interesting experiment.
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Corey "Vox Man" Snow
http://voxman.net

[jordanreynolds]

[captain54]

[jordanreynolds]

Oh wow, really?? I could have sworn I heard a difference between the two and that's without using the gate feature. I'm not trying to be argumentative but do have a source that states Rencomp and RenVox use the exact same algorithm? I'm just awfully curious now.
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http://jordanreynolds.com

[cyclometh]

The original impetus behind this concept was I wanted to simplify my editing process for audiobook tracks. I do rolling recording and then edit the tracks, removing noises, flubs, page sounds, that sort of thing.

The process generally involves keeping a second or so of "room tone" (I record a few seconds with an open mic and no sound at the end of each track), cropping the offending pieces out and placing the room tone in- even at -65db the sound is better than silence; that's too jarring.

What I wanted was a way to avoid having to paste in the room tone but just be able to pipe it in. So I was looking at a compressor with a sidechain; feed it with the audio from the main track, when it dropped out (silence due to the audio being cut out), pipe in the room tone from another track. I use Cubase but any setup which supports sidechaining could in theory handle it.

What I found was that there really wasn't any combination of VSTs I could test that would get me a natural sound. The better way to do it turned out to be using Cubase's multiple lanes per track feature (used for loop recording) and just put the room tone on a subtrack of the vocal. Then cut out offending pieces, and size the gap, no pasting because it automatically picks up the next lane in the track when there's no audio on the top lane.

Anyway, that was my solution. It involves more copying and pasting than the original concept, but is simpler to do for all of that.
_________________
Corey "Vox Man" Snow
http://voxman.net