Waves Vocal Rider...

[Jay M]

I don't want this to be a Waves ad, but I think that many of you have Pastors with a very wide dynamic range which makes CDs and MP3s a challenge to master.

A friend of mine bought Vocal Rider a few weeks ago and has been raving about it. So during Waves' big Thanksgiving sale I decided to demo it.

I've only used a a few times now, but my initial opinion is WOW! One of my pastors is all over the place, dynamically, when he preaches. It would take me nearly an hour to even it out to make it suitable for distribution.

I set the Vocal Rider at it's maximum effectiveness where it can make up to a 24db change. The results were stunning, it did a great job of evening out the levels without compression artifacts or making background noise too obvious.

Here's a very detailed review, far more detailed than I could ever write:
http://www.waves.com/Objects/pdf/rev...-july-2010.pdf

During the sale it was only $99 for the native version I bought a personal copy, and one for work. I use it in Wavelab along with a compressor, limiter, EQ and Noise reduction.

Because of Vocal Rider I'll be able to go to bed an hour earlier on Sunday nights (I master a bunch of Sermons on Sunday nights)

My list of essential Mastering tools as of today:
-Wavelab - Audio editor
-Waves Broadcast and Production Bundle for EQ, Compression, and Limiting (on sale now for $799)
-Ozone RX2 noise reduction
-Waves Vocal Rider
And of course, and good sound card and monitors to hear what I'm doing.

~Jay

[Arlin]

I'm curious, have you every tried or compared Waves Vocal Rider to The Levelator (which is free)?

[Jay M]

I have not, that looks pretty cool though. For the way I work I do prefer VST plugins. Do you know if they make a plugin version?

~Jay

[Arlin]

I don't think it is available as a VST plugin, but then I don't use VST..

[Jay M]

I've been using Vocal Rider a lot since I first posted this, and I still really like it, it's a huge time saver.

This month it's on sale for $99.

~Jay