It is on sale again!

Well worth it at twice the price!
 
 

This is great! I am currently mixing a session of college students bands.  All with vocals.  Even though the vocal performances are pretty decent, one of the things that teenagers don't do real well is keep very consistent levels.  I find once I do dome editing, apply a compressor over the vocal buss, once you apply this it seems to just take care of the final details.  Keeps the vocal real nice and even.  Great too that you can use it as just a plugin over a vocal buss but also in side chain mode too where the music is being fed in as a reference.  Plus at $29 instead of $249 what can you say.  I have got 24 Waves plugs now and they are all just excellent.

Jeff Evans
This is great! I am currently mixing a session of college students bands.  All with vocals.  Even though the vocal performances are pretty decent, one of the things that teenagers don't do real well is keep very consistent levels.  I find once I do dome editing, apply a compressor over the vocal buss, once you apply this it seems to just take care of the final details.  Keeps the vocal real nice and even.  Great too that you can use it as just a plugin over a vocal buss but also in side chain mode too where the music is being fed in as a reference.  Plus at $29 instead of $249 what can you say.  I have got 24 Waves plugs now and they are all just excellent.

Are to telling us that the Vocal Rider can be used without a sidechain to simply level a vocal track?
If this is true it would be great. I have a singer that is all over the place with volume. I compress in the normal method but still have to apply volume automation to bring up the quiet words and phrases.
 
 

Yes you can certainly use it to just level a vocal track.  The output level will be striving for the target volume set.  In side chain mode it factors in what the music is doing.  They want you to create a buss that has all the instruments on it only. i.e. no vocals.  Then you can send that to the side chain inputs of the vocal rider/s.  If there is more than one vocal you can insert a vocal rider on each.  Or send the vocals to a vocal buss and vocal rider that overall. With and without side chain involvement.
 
It almost does such a good job that it sounds like no compressors are needed.  I tend to edit vocals a bit first by cutting them up into smaller clips and tweaking them individually. Read about that approach here:
 
http://blog.presonus.com/index.php/2018/03/16/friday-tip-week-gain-better-vocals/#disqus_thread
 
This is a Craig Anderton Studio One blog.  And this is much easier in Studio One because the waveforms change height as you edit individual clip events.  Something Sonar does not do unfortunately.
 
I find this works as a starting point followed by a compressor doing light duties and then vocal rider for a final tweak. Vocal Rider is great for preventing the ends of words and phrases from getting lost in general. 

Jeff Evans
This is great! I am currently mixing a session of college students bands.  All with vocals.  Even though the vocal performances are pretty decent, one of the things that teenagers don't do real well is keep very consistent levels.  I find once I do dome editing, apply a compressor over the vocal buss, once you apply this it seems to just take care of the final details.  Keeps the vocal real nice and even.  Great too that you can use it as just a plugin over a vocal buss but also in side chain mode too where the music is being fed in as a reference.  Plus at $29 instead of $249 what can you say.  I have got 24 Waves plugs now and they are all just excellent.

Dead-gum it!!  I was hoping you'd say it was dreadful.  I don't need any more plugins.  Except this one, apparently.  Reaching for the CC.

Vocal Rider is excellent. I have been using it for a few days now.  Firstly I think some prep is required on a vocal track that varies a lot in level. e.g. a young singer that is good but does not have a lot of control over very consistent levels. e.g. some of these teens I have recorded.  I like to cut the vocal track into smaller sections and vary some of the gains of individual phrases and level them up as per Craig's article on the Presonus blog.  I finish that off with a compressor doing light conditioning.  Then follow it all with vocal rider.  It just seems to level everything one step further.  Its great for bringing up the ends of words and phrases etc.  It is interesting to watch too. 
 
Be prepared to fiddle with the settings though and you will need to tweak it a bit.  e.g. the target level, the min and max ranges and also the sensitivity.  If the sensitivity is too high it will bring up any spill in between vocals.  But once set right it will ignore the spill and just ride the actual vocals.
 
On a pro track that has been well recorded it works even better.  So much so you will feel like you don't even need a compressor on the track.  It is quite smart.  It is a plug you will use a lot once you get it I can almost guarantee it. 
I have not even side chained it yet either just been using on tracks. 

Both vocal Rider and bass rider are excellent plugins. I use bass rider on every mix. Vocal Rider I only use when the main vocal fluctuates a lot and I can't control it with compression to my liking.