n-Track Software presents

- nVocal -

A VST plugin focused on vocals

n-Track nVocal is a semi modular processing VST plugin, designed to help you to get the best out of a vocal performance. It offers compression effects, modulators, delay, reverb and other useful components, along with a collection of useful presets to use as a starting place.

The Interface

Building an Effects chain

nVocal allows you to build a linear effects chain, and alter it easily at will. The incoming audio signal is processed from left to right after running through an input gain, and a channel combine/stereo selector. There is a final channel combine selector at the end of the effects chain.

The InputGain control allows for attenuation down to -∞, and boosts upto +6dB. The channel combine /stereo switches have 4 options – combined channels, just left, just right and stereo. Since all the internal components of nVocal are stereo processing units, the mono options can duplicate the same signal to both channels; or “combine” will sum both channels using an equal power law. These selectors are are fixed and cannot be moved. nVocal will only operate as a 2 channel/stereo effect, but using the correct channel-combine settings it can easily process any simple configuration of input or output connection.

To Insert an effect, click on one of the icons, and pick from the menu that shows. If an effect is already present in the slot clicked, the new effect will shift the existing effects chain to make room for itself. If all the slots are taken the insert menu will have all the items disabled apart from the last entry ‘--No FX--’.

Clicking an icon will present a similar menu, but selection of an effect will Replace the effect in that slot. Pressing the icon on an empty slot will not show the menu.

The menus that are used by Insert and Replace can be seen on the right. To aid recollection of which icon was pressed, the selection is highlighted in green for insert, and purple for replace as shown.

Effects that are available to be selected are black, unavailable effects are in pale blue and cannot be selected.

To remove an effect, select ‘--No FX--’ from the bottom of the menu. Any effects to the left will move to take up the space.

Rearranging the Effects Chain

Enclosing the insert and replace icons are the arrowed icons . These will swap the effect in a slot with the adjacent one.

The InputGain and channel combine switch are fixed and cannot be moved. Each of the 16 components can be used once, but can be arranged in any order in the 6 slots available.

The Effects

Balance

This allows for the careful balancing of the stereo sound, by attenuation of one of the channels at a time.

Pan

This gives a different kind of control over the stereo sound, allowing the positioning of the channels relative to each other.

Gain

A control similar to InputGain, to allow for addition gain staging within the effect chain as needed.

3Band

A configurable 3 band EQ. The bands are defined by two frequency split points, which give gentle 6dB/Octave slopes. This is not a surgical shaping tool, more a contouring effect to work naturally with vocals.

Rumble

A rumble filter to reduce or eliminate low frequency content that may be introduced by microphone handling, vibrations in a mic stand, fundamental mains hum, etc.

HiPass

A highpass filter for removing low frequency content. It has a wider range than the Rumble filter, useful for processing (for instance) backing vocals so that they don’t interfere with more prominent lead vocals, etc.

Presence

A filter to bring out gently higher tonal qualities of a voice.

Parametric

A control to allow for greater ‘surgical’ audio-sculpting; should be used sparingly on problem spots.

Gate

A standard audio gate.

Compressor

A peak compressor with standard controls. It can be switched between working with a mono side-chain controlling the gain reduction on both channels, or with independent per-channel gain reduction.

DeEsser

A fairly standard de-esser allowing for the side-chain to be listened to and tuned. It offers two modes of operation, the gain reduction can either be applied to just the side-chain signal (narrow band) or the whole signal (wide band). Wide band processing generally suits more upfront solo vocals, whereas narrow band may suit ensembles more. These are not ‘hard and fast’ rules, but approximate guidelines.

The speed control adjust both attack and release; attack from 2ms–50ms, and release from 100ms–500ms.

Modulation (1&2)

The two modulation controllers are identical, and offer vibrato, an ADT effect and a gentle single stage phasor.

Warmer

The warmer is a waveshaping control for adding ‘warmth’ to a signal.

Delay

A standard delay, with an options for ping-pong delays, free delay upto 2seconds and host-sync to quarter and eighth notes.

Reverb

An algorithmic reverb control with parameters for the early and late reflections. It can give impressions of spaces from large to small, and delicate to brash.

Notes about the Presets

The presets supplied with nVocal are suggested launching points, rather than 'hard-and-fast' programs to apply to achieve a particular result. Since every singer, environment and audio setup (microphone, preamp, etc) will be different, the vocal-processing needs will vary enormously, not to mention the tracks in which those vocals will sit. The presets provided in nVocal should hopefully provide some inspiration with what can be done.

Some presets are intended to be used as insert effects, some as send, others could be either.

Changing the Input channel combine switch on a preset can give slightly different results on the same signal, especially those with dynamic processing (compression or de-essing). This is due to the way the channels are combined or mirrored, and how it affects the signal peaks.

Lead Vocal types

Lead Vocal, Male Vocal, Female Vocal, Pop Vocal, Punk Vocal

These are suggested for use as insert effects on a lead voice. They are designed to give prominence to a line, but care should be exercised to ensure that the voice sits well with the surrounding track.

BV Types

BV (Pop),BV (Ballad)

These presets can be used as inserts or sends, and will provide a generic sound to suit a number of different styles, not just the ones mentioned in their name.

Send and Inserts

Rock Vocal (Insert), Rock Vocal (Send)

Pop Chorus (Insert), Pop Chorus (Send)

These are intended to be used together. On a track or group, set the buss send to be pre-effects, then on the track/group use the (Insert) preset, and one the buss use the (Send) preset. Experimentation is recommended to find the right sound for the piece of music.

General environments

Choir, Pub

These are simple starting places for getting a sense of a defined space or group.

Just send

Small Room (Send), Concert Hall (Send), Gated Cavern (Send)

These presets are designed to be used on a buss. The Gated Cavern is more a special effect than something to be used to define a space, and is included to give an idea of how the included effects could be used.

Misc

Bad Mic Correction, Concrete Jungle, Close Vocal

This final group of presets are further examples of how nVocal can be used to enhance a vocal line, or prepare a signal for further processing with other effects.

Help

At any point, clicking the help icon () will launch this reference.

Credits

The Infinity API provided by Paul Chana www.ExpDigital.co.uk