The easiest way to describe it is that they take a vocal from 0 to 100 real quick! There’s plenty of literature out there as to how and why Pultecs sound the way they do (it’s all in the EQ curves and how boost/cut interact), so we’ll spare you the lecture. Straight away, one of the best UAD plugins for vocals is the Pultec collection. Now we can talk about some of the best UAD plugins for vocals to fit into your chain! Best UAD EQ for Vocals

You may wedge some saturation in there somewhere if your vocal benefits from it, and of course you’ll have reverbs and delays on sends to mix in to taste. Next, you could try following that up with corrective EQ, a touch of de-essing, a fast compressor to catch the sharpest peaks, some ‘sweetening’ EQ, and a slower compressor to glue everything together. Usually pitch correction will go as early in the chain as possible that way it’s receiving the dry signal and correcting the pitch just the way it comes into the DAW. There are still a few things to keep in mind, though. Like we mentioned earlier, where these effects go is ultimately up to you. In any chain of effects for vocals, UAD or otherwise, you’re going to find EQ compression de-essing perhaps realtime pitch correction software like Auto-Tune saturation and time-based effects like reverb and delay (usually on sends). Because of that, instead of listing out an exact vocal chain, we’ll instead talk about the most common effects for vocals with some loose hints as to placement.

Keep an open mind and take nothing we say as gospel, because every mix is its own beast with a million variables. Now there’s a lot open to interpretation here, and even a lot to debate in terms of which effects go where in a given vocal chain. Every interface also comes with a free plugin bundle called ‘Realtime Analog Classics.’ That alone will give you plenty of toys to try on your mixes, like Pultec EQ, 1176 and LA-2A compression, and more.įrom there, it’s a matter of experimenting to find the best UAD plugins for vocals moreover, which of those work for you and your style! UAD Vocal Chain Assuming you don’t already have an interface, going the Apollo route is a great choice.

Best uad plugins for hip hop