Scheps 73Īnother great plugin designed by the world-renowned Andrew Scheps, the Waves Scheps 73 is a 3-band EQ and mic preamp module modeled on the classic 1073 console. Forget about manually automating your vocals and just get Vocal Rider from Waves. Vocal Rider saves so much time and keeps you from getting frustrated with changing automation and sitting in front of the computer for hours trying to get it right. If I were to pinpoint a certain genre that this plugin would be best for, I’d say it is the best Waves plugin for rap vocals due to the frequent need of automation on rap vocals. Vocal Rider also works extremely well for live vocals, so if you do live mixing you can easily add it to your workflow. In the meantime, the rider slider detects the levels of your incoming audio and instantly changes the volume to match the volume that’s within your selected range. Once you have set that, if you need to boost the output volume, you do that with the output slider. The range slider is what you use to set the average level that your vocals need to be at in relation to the rest of the mix. One is the actual vocal rider slider, one is the output level, and the other is the range slider. Vocal Rider takes out the guesswork and does it all for you. That’s not something you want, but automation isn’t exactly fun either.

If you were to try to even it out with compression, for example, you’d get some coloration and quite possibly a heavily squashed signal. And it does all this without coloring the signal. Vocal Rider does exactly like the name sounds: it rides the volume level of the vocals to keep it even.

It is one of the most popular plugins from Waves, and understandably so. If you are like me and you absolutely hate automating vocal levels, you need Vocal Rider. Taking automation out of the production process You are missing out if you have not used this VST before it is a definite must-have Waves plugin. Everything is easy to use and the interface is very straightforward. The coloration options are very handy for adding some different character to audio depending on the genre you are making. I have used it on vocals, guitar, and even some drums, and it sounds amazing. Compared to other channel strips, this one makes audio sound extremely cohesive and it does not seem like anything sticks out in a way that’s sonically unpleasant. The Scheps Omni Channel really is a great channel strip plugin. Waves also provides some presets for the plugin if you need to focus on one module more than the others. DS2 is a de-esser that takes care of plosives as well as harsh frequencies, and the Gate module allows you to expand and gate the signal but also adjust the amount of noise reduction happening. The Compression module allows you to compress and expand your signal, and the EQ module has a 4 band EQ to sculpt your sound. With the Pre module, you can add in analog saturation to color your signal as well as filters. Scheps Omni Channel has six modules: Pre, Compression, EQ, DS2, Gate, and a slot for a Waves plugin of your choice. Andrew Scheps took the best of vintage channel strips and the best of modular strips, certain combinations, and turned them into one channel strip, the Scheps Omni Channel. This is not the case with Scheps Omni Channel. Modular channel strips do not limit you to a certain coloration, but they oftentimes do not mesh together in a cohesive way. Oftentimes channel strips are based on vintage mixers, but that can mean that you are limited to having all your songs being connected to a certain sonic color. It was made to work with Andrew’s combinations of EQ, compression, saturation, and more to create a great sounding signal chain without having to pull up a bunch of different plugins. The Scheps Omni Channel, designed by the award-winning mix engineer Andrew Scheps, is a top-rated, extremely flexible channel strip unlike ones you have used before. Keep reading to find out what the top 25 must-have Waves plugins are that are available in 2020. There are over 200 Waves plugins and a lot of them are essential in creating a solid mix. Waves is a popular plugin company, so all their plugins are great, but you may be wondering what the best Waves plugins are. When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn an affiliate commission. Consordinis articles are written by musicians who independently research, test, and recommend the best instruments and products.

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