Smooth Talking

Capturing that perfect vocal take is difficult, but knowing how to process vocals can be even trickier. The first step in the chain is often compression, but with so many different types of compressors to choose from which is the perfect solution for your vocals? W.A Production has created Vocal Compressor to solve that problem, featuring a compression chain that’s transparent, balanced and adds a subtle flavour, colour and grit to make vocals sit perfectly in a mix.

The 3-stage compression passes your audio through 3 distinct types of compressors to tame troublesome peaks, balance dynamics and add flavourful saturation. Throw in gating & colour controls alongside options for parallel compression and you’ve got an all-in-one compression tool that suits vocals perfectly but will also work well on synths, bass, leads and other audio.

Peaks

The first step in the signal chain; the Peaks compressor removes amplitude spikes from the signal to make it sound smoother. It aggressively clamps down on the rogue dynamics of your vocal, preparing the signal for the next stage. You’ll only need to push down the threshold by a few dB to hear the effect in action and at it’s transparent best.

Balance

This is a parallel compressor that leaves loud transients intact whilst making the softer parts of your audio louder. This results in a reduction of overall dynamic range to make the vocal sit better in the mix. Use the Mix and Makeup dials to set the balance between the lightly compressed Peaks output and the heavily compressed Balance processing of the same signal. Don’t hold back on the gain reduction as this compressor needs a threshold of around 20dB to work. Keep pushing that threshold down until things sound good.  

Flavour

This compressor has an integrated tape saturation curve to add harmonics, grit and flavour to the audio. Start subtly and then adjust the threshold until you can hear the bite of your vocal, so it clearly rides over the top of your track.

Gate & Colour

Remove unwanted and distracting pops, clicks and noise with the Gate dial. With the Colour slider, dial in a frequency curve that’s specifically tailored to vocal processing, making your vocal performance sound as professional as possible.

Bypass, Output & Master Mix

The bypass control is smoothed to be as click and pop free as possible for unhindered A/B testing when combined with the Output dial. Choose to mix the compressed signal with your original raw audio via the central Master Mix ratio control, allowing you to dial down the compression ratio for parallel effects.

Visual Feedback

The live visuals of the interface meters show exactly what’s happening to the signal as it travels through each compressor in real-time. This allows for accurate monitoring at every step of the chain.

Presets

With many included presets, it’s easy to find the perfect starting point for your own compression adventures. Categorised into distinct themes, these presets can be used on all sorts of audio, not just vocals. They include everything from subtle shaping to more full-on saturated compression effects.

W. A. Production are real-life producers making creative plugins to help you achieve studio quality processing quickly and easily. Enjoy!

Features

• Easy to use compression designed especially for vocals
• 3 compression stages
• Peaks, Balance and Flavour
• Noise Gate ratio
• Frequency shaping via Colour slider
• Pop & click free bypass
• Responsive & CPU friendly
• Factory presets
• Full PDF Manual & Tutorial video
• Resizable user interface