I’ve had the Waves MV2 sitting in my library for years, and never even knew what it did. OMG, if any of you have a few minutes to download that demo, its the most idiot proof instant gratification vocal plugin I think I’ve ever seen. It’s a little like the Voxformer, but it dials itself in automatically lol.
Yeah MV2 is pretty cool. Warren Huart of PLAP uses it everywhere - that’s where I first became aware of it a while ago. I was impressed enough to snap it up when I saw it on special.
Noveltech Vocal Enhancer is magic as well!!
I’d be curious to know what that’s doing behind the scenes
looks like it’s just two compressors. One parallel and one not. Both have zero attack time. Not sure what the ratio is.
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I guess they’re both soft knee compressors/limiters with zero attack time.
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I want JJP or Boz to make a plugin that makes your voice do that weird “laryngitis” thing that JJP demonstrated in the video. Surely, this is the next new fad after the T-Pain Auto-Tune effect. 
I’ll let him take that one…
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Surely if you’ve tracked vocals that you NEED to make come alive, you need to retrack the vocals.
OK, I know that’s not always possible. but any vocal that needs heavy treatment is, for me, no vocal at all.
I think, actually, that’s an attitude with some merit, but perhaps a little restrictive. We use technology all the time to re-frame the physical performances given, and sometimes processing isn’t about fixing something that wasn’t good enough to start with, but about placing it in the context of the production you envisage. And that might involve a sound that just can’t be physically performed.
I don’t really see that as any different to a guitarist technology, albeit 70 year old technology, to add distortion to their performance in order to make it more compelling. It doesn’t always signify a deficit on the part of the performer.
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I don’t see how that’s the case at all. Whenever I hear people say “oh, just tell him to sing better” or “I just tell the drummer to play right or get out.” The only thing that these really tell me is that this person has never recorded a band before, or they’ve done it so much that they can refuse to work with anyone who isn’t absolutely top talent.
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Why would compressing twice be heavy treatment? It’s pretty much just standard nowadays. Waves just provide what buyers need.
Sadly, @bozmillar , you completely miss the point,
No technology can make a dull lifeless vocal more exciting. It can clean up a messy vocal, it can time a mistimed vocal, it can give a vocal more power or “presence” , it can weed out nasty frequencies and it can tune a pitchy vocal. (And I’m happy for you to list all the other things that technology can do.
But technology cannot take a dull, lifeless vocal and make it “come alive” with emotion, power, expression dynamism. ONLY retracking will do that.
As to your suggestion that someone who says that [quote=“bozmillar, post:11, topic:1106”]
has never recorded a band before, or they’ve done it so much that they can refuse to work with anyone who isn’t absolutely top talent.
[/quote]
That is patently ridiculous.
.[quote=“Arber87, post:12, topic:1106”]
Why would compressing twice be heavy treatment?
[/quote]
Fair point. It is not. Apologies.
As the plugin maker suggests himself, it gives vocals attitude by bringing up the lower volume stuff like breaths, etc. It makes them more dramatic also by bringing them close up in the mix. But if i did not know what @bozmillar explained, i would probably think it was snake oil also.
PS: Critics are men who watch the battle from up on a hill and then shoot the survivors.
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I’d argue that unless we can objectively define what you mean by “dull” and “lifeless” there’s no way to make it “exciting”. Not even by retracking.
You ask me, all of Lorde’s vocals are dull and lifeless, lots of people would not agree.
Now, you want to do a specific thing with a recorded track, then you’ll have to do something to it.
The MV2 has been one of my “go to” plugins for a long time. It is easy to over due but when you get it right is does something nothing else does. On vocals, Guitars, Snares with brushes. Anything with low end detail that needs to be brought up in the mix.
Just popped it onto some vox I tracked last week, The difference IS noticeable.
You may be right, but I worry if you are recording and let dull lifeless vocals past. Think drone, on key but no emotion, no change of tonality.
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I would love to know whats going on under the hood of the MV2. Sometimes I wish the Low threshold slider had more adjustments. Nudge Nudge. Plugin request:)
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