Waves MaxBass is really nice for warming up thin vocals.

The first thing to do is to notch out the "honk" frequencies. Every mix engineer should know how to this. The EQ built into the ProChannel is a great tool for this.
 
I usually make my notches about -3dB.
 
From a Sound On Sound article:
 
"The standard technique for identifying the offending frequency range is simply to set up a narrow-band EQ boost and sweep it across the frequencies until you find the spot where the nasal 'honk' is most pronounced. You can then place an EQ cut at this frequency, which is likely to be in the 800Hz to 1.5kHz range. Once you've found the right frequency, increase the Q to narrow the cut band until the honk just starts to come back, then reduce the Q slightly again so that you're making an EQ cut that's no wider than is really needed to get the job done. It's also a good idea not to use more cut depth than you actually need, as too much EQ is nearly always detrimental to the sound."
 
Next thing after that is to put a compressor on the track set to a 4:1 ratio, about 8-10 mS attack, 100mS release, set the threshold so that the overall gain reduction is about 3dB, set the makeup accordingly.
 
If you do both of those things and your vocal track still sounds harsh, then you can start with the fancier and more drastic efforts suggested above. Basic honk notching should be done for every vocal track, IMO, before any other processing. It really lets me crank a lead vocal up without it sounding obnoxious or stomping all over the other instruments.

The first plug you should use in your signal chain is a tube emulator. I've recently rediscovered Softtube, which I suspect doesn't come with Band (I can't say the name of program...it just doesn't roll of the tounge :)). If you can't access that, try the prochannel tube emulator. Then you want a soft musical type compressor and or EQ. If you have a waves pye compressor or LA 2A then either of these would do the job nicely - alternately and I'm not sure if Band comes with Cake's version of the LA 2A but this would suffice. There's also the 1176 prochannel plug...both are very musical, as they say. You won't get that 2nd or 3rd harmonic distortion with Cake's but the curves are pretty good - curves are what makes the original hardware musical. With a little help from the harmonic distortion...but again Cake's plugs will suffice.

Ben

revince 1 - not trying to be funny or offensive.  I have someone who can re-sing it for you with that Roberta Flack smoothness.
 
Just another option...

stickman393

mettelus
I would suggest Melda's MCharacter, which is the only thing I know of to surgically modify harmonics in real time. 

That's really impressive. I watched the demo video all the way through. I think this will be the closest thing to a magic fix for OP's issue.

 
I've got MCharacter, and if it's removing rasp that is needed (which it sounds like it is), then MCharacter probably won't help much. MCharacter is designed to add or remove harmonic content, rather than transients/artifacts. I've also found the results to be very artificial when used on vocals or acoustic sources, although it's a great tool to get synth type sounds out of these type of sources.
 

revnice1
mcleod: I'm too poor right now but I read about it and it sounds intriguing because some of the problem with the vocal is that she sang kinda hard, without the tenderness I'm looking for. Taking the breath factor out and playing with the rest could be the best solution.
Thanks!

I de-esser might go some way to hide the sound if you can find the right band and isolate it enough. It's likely to take away more than just the rasp though.
 
If you want, feel free to upload the vocal track as a WAV file somewhere and PM me the link. I've got both ASPIRE EVO and THROAT EVO, so I can try to remove the rasp for you.
 

I use the CA-2A levelling amp in the pro channel a lot, but I've found it very useful in the vocal chain just for removing harshness. In compress mode, pan the r32 pot all the way over to HF, and back off the default gain and peak reduction settings until your just catching the peaks. You will hear the difference if you pan the r32 pot around, but I find it opens up the bottoms a little and drops the high mids equally. Then I will attack it with EQ to find remaining offending frequencies and reduce them further. If it is still a problem, I would try a multiband compressor. Craig Anderton did an excellent article once on using multibands to split a track into multi tracks, treating each track with one band of the multiband compressor, then re-mixing each track back to a summed track. This way you could treat the track with most offending issues separately to the rest of the vocal. Lot of work, but if you don't have the luxury to re-do the vocals, this is a good option. Manny Marroquin also has a rather unique plug called the Triple D which has been very useful for difficult vocals. It's a simple, but effective approach.
 
There you go. Too many options   all the best.

revnice1
dcumpian: A dynamic EQ? How's that different to a regular EQ?

A dynamic EQ applies the EQ in a similar way that a compressor does. In this case, you can dial in the EQ to affect the signal more as the singer gets brassier. It is much easier to control than just a simple EQ.
 
Regards,
Dan