These are two emulations of classic hardware compressor units, and while there are plenty of plugin manufactures that offer versions of these, I find that none capture the mojo and three-dimensionality of them as well as Universal Audio. Here are my top plugins for mixing vocals. That being said, a fair amount of work goes into the tonal sculpting, dynamics shaping and precise pitch shifting that makes today’s vocal performances sound so squeaky-clean. Beautiful, emotive vocal performances existed long before all of the latest and greatest plugins. Working in a well-treated room is important, too. Obviously, the ability to communicate emotions through lyrics kind of stacks the deck in the favor of the voice, but I digress.īefore I break into this roundup of my top plugins for mixing vocals, I want to be clear that there is absolutely no substitute for proper singing technique, correct microphone choice & placement, and using a high-quality signal chain including a microphone preamplifier is a necessity. No instrument matches the feeling, the vulnerability or the power of the voice. The human voice is at the center of most popular music productions.
