using vocal rider for leveling(not sidechaining)

I am demoing waves vocal rider and although I know I can't get it to sidechain in sonar, I am just trying to get it to do some word by word level automation for me. It will write the automation but it deosn't seem to respond fast enough to write the automation for each word in a phrase. It only reacts to entire phrases and writes a general automation curve for the whole phrase. I have fooled with the fast reaction time settings and sesitivity settings but no luck. Any ideas?

leveling is a external process, no plug in can do the job right!

http://www.summitaudio.com/tla50.html

and there are others too !!!

bz2838


I've had really good results with vocal rider, but it must be the last plug inserted on a paticular track in order to work properly

so you have been able to get it to react fast enough to draw automation for individual words in phrases?

There is more than one vocal rider plugin. Here is another:

http://www.automaticmixing.com/?page_id=2

Here is a review of it in May Sound On Sound:

http://www.soundonsound.c...rticles/wave-rider.htm

I think he said it works better than the Waves product.

Oooops sorry but its MAC and RTAS only. Sorry about that . Well that rules that out I suppose but maybe they might bring out a VST version hopefully. Or if you really want it I suppose one could always use their Mac and Pro Tools setups instead.

For me I still find the best way to sort this type of thing out is to comp the vocal track and turn that into a single clip. Then open that up inside an editor such as Adobe Audition. If you have got real VU meters you can set them up so they are just peaking 0 dbu when the vocals are at the right level. Then just go in and edit phrases up and down in gain as required so you end up with a nice new vocal track that is all even. Then save that with a new name, drag into the session and you are done. Very little compression required and certainly no automation required either.

Jeff Evans


There is more than one vocal rider plugin. Here is another:

http://www.automaticmixing.com/?page_id=2

Here is a review of it in May Sound On Sound:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may11/articles/wave-rider.htm

I think he said it works better than the Waves product.

Oooops sorry but its MAC and RTAS only. Sorry about that . Well that rules that out I suppose but maybe they might bring out a VST version hopefully. Or if you really want it I suppose one could always use their Mac and Pro Tools setups instead.

For me I still find the best way to sort this type of thing out is to comp the vocal track and turn that into a single clip. Then open that up inside an editor such as Adobe Audition. If you have got real VU meters you can set them up so they are just peaking 0 dbu when the vocals are at the right level. Then just go in and edit phrases up and down in gain as required so you end up with a nice new vocal track that is all even. Then save that with a new name, drag into the session and you are done. Very little compression required and certainly no automation required either.

Hi Jeff. I was intrigued by your ref to using Audition rather than automation. I looked at their manual for what might be the tool or method you meant. Could you expand on that a little please?
Thanks
Wayne
 

Hi mixsit  I was not referring to any magic automatic process or anything like that. It was reference to using an editor program to do some preliminary manual editing before dropping the track back into your session. I have been a long believer of having a second editing software package to be able to do a lot of more detailed work on tracks etc.

The vocals are mainly an rms part of the sound so the height of the wave is a good representation of volume levels. Take a phrase that is a good decent level and calibrate your VU's so they are just peaking 0 db. A phrase nearby might be lower in height. A quick check while the lower phrase is playing on the VU's will show how far short it was eg -3 db. Many programs have calibrated scales and grids everywhere and you can just see how far short or louder it is. These editing programs allow you to select parts of the audio track fast and I have got many typical functions placed on keyboard shortcuts making editing even faster. So I grab that phrase and add 3db to it manually. It responds instantly and then you can move on. Some phrases might hit + 4 db over the ref level so you pull them down - 4db etc.

I find when you even things out and do some prelim work on all of your multi tracks everything sounds much better in the mix. Now, you don''t even need a compressor or any automation either and you have got a vocal track that sits perfeclty in the mix and stays there. Compressors now are just icing on the cake and you can set them for gentle work too and they sound better doing it. Things sound bigger when the ratios are lower.

I only mainly edit volume things like around on material that sounds better when the parts are very even like in pop production. But I would not be altering true and wide dynamic performances just for the sake of it, I tend to leave those well alone. eg jazz drum track.