Waves Silk Vocal

Take your vocals from raw to pro, in no time. With 2000 analysis bands, Silk Vocal targets problematic resonances and balances your vocal tracks. Tell the plugin where to focus, the smart engine will do the work

Mixing vocals is challenging, and every vocal is different. Resonant frequencies, boominess, harshness & sibilance prevent vocals from sitting in the mix, and removing them sensitively requires time, precision and accurate monitoring.

Accelerate your vocal mixing. Start working with Silk.

Employing innovative technology, Silk automatically detects resonances across 2000 analysis bands. Its smart vocal engine decides where and when processing should occur— you decide how much. Try it, see how fast you mix vocals.

A New Approach to Mixing Vocals

Imagine having up to 2000 analysis bands listening to your vocal in real time, and only processing when necessary. The guesswork of mixing is prevented, and your vocal can be trusted to translate across listening devices. Silk is like power-steering your way to the finish line of the mix. Intelligently speed past the technicalities and you’ll be less fatigued when you make creative mix decisions.

Low

This knob tightens the boomy, muddy and inflated low end that vocals often have due to proximity effect & room issues when recording. Using Silk’s smart processing for this purpose – rather than a regular or dynamic EQ – will ensure the natural warmth of the vocal stays intact.

Mid

The midrange is the most critical area in the vocal to get right in mixing. Simply turn the knob for smart processing to take place. You’ll hear a reduction in harshness and bite without losing the voice’s character. You can adjust the mid-range processing with the assistance of two automatable handles that let you focus the frequency range for much more accurate processing.

High

Some vocal recordings contain Sibilance, which are those distracting ‘s’, ‘sh’ or ‘t’ sounds jumping out aggressively. Other times, you’re dealing with a smeared and overly resonant treble sound in the super-high frequencies. Toggle between Sibilance and High processing to see which gives you the smoothest & most balanced top end. Tip: Use solo and delta to hear what’s being reduced.

Dynamics

The dynamics section features the most musical single-dial compression possible. Once you’ve tonally balanced your vocals with the smart EQ, a few dB of compression helps to keep them tight, upfront and consistent. The link handle applies output gain compensation to the compression, which prevents the addition of unwanted level.

Auto Makeup Gain

The default setting of the plugin is with auto makeup gain on, which means the smart EQ reduction is continuously and adaptively compensated with a level increase. You have the option of turning this off and setting your own levels.

Advanced Settings

HPF is a high-pass filter at 60 Hz, which filters out sub frequencies from the vocal. Speed adjusts the envelope of the smart EQ processing. It is a fixed attack-release ratio, and depending on the vocal you may choose faster or slower processing. Precision adjusts the sharpness of the Q in each of the processing bands. Choose lower values for more surgical processing, and higher values for smoother results. Gate can be used in a traditional manner to eliminate unwanted noises between vocal passages. Mix knob allows you to blend the entire Silk processing between 0% and 100%.

Silk Vocal Live

When you purchase Silk Vocal you also get Silk Vocal Live – a real time version of the same plugin. It operates like the original but utilizes minimum phase curves rather than linear phase and thus, it has a much lower latency. This means you can record with Silk Vocal Live, monitoring exactly how the plugin sounds on your voice in real time. Of course, this version will also benefit live engineers, and is SoundGrid compatible.