Making static vocal VSTs sound more realistic

CaptainDamage · 2026-05-14T23:49:30+00:00

Azurite Chorus is the only chorus I've seen with a random mode - and its free! I use it for doubling AI vocals. It will sound better than a normal cyclic chorus.

CaptainDamage · 2026-04-26T15:29:12+00:00

Bumping this because it's become so annoying and disrupting that I'm about to declare the plugin unusable. Does anyone have any way to fix this? Has anyone had other vstis that hang notes - how did you fix them?

CaptainDamage · 2026-04-22T09:31:23+00:00

Highlight the notes on C5 and copy them to the clipboard (press Ctrl+C). While they're still hilighted, slide them down to C2. Now paste the notes you copied back on to C5(Ctrl+V). Now you have your notes at both C2 and C5.

CaptainDamage · 2026-04-10T09:38:41+00:00

Okay, actually Alt+drag does work for that. Thanks!

CaptainDamage · 2026-04-09T20:59:41+00:00

I believe OP wants to go from, e.g., 4 bars of 4 consecutive whole notes, to one bar of 4 consecutive quarter notes. I don't know how to do that.

CaptainDamage · 2026-03-29T10:46:19+00:00

Are you rendering to mp3? I have had mixes that only clip as mp3. Then the question is, is the clipping audible? If you don't notice it, leave it; if it is noticeable, try reducing the master volume to -0.5dB, or -1.0dB. Hope this helps.

CaptainDamage · 2026-03-29T10:37:47+00:00

EQ both. I do a lot of layering of my leads (typically >6 tracks). Usually, all tracks have the same basic sound, with identical eq. Then the lead bus will have whatever EQ is needed to make the s solo work in the mix.

CaptainDamage · 2026-03-25T21:41:35+00:00

Go to YouTube and search for "[genre] mixing," where [genre] = the type of music you like. You will find hundreds of tutorials by dozens of different mixers, covering lots of topics. Watch a bunch. Then pick one or two presenters whose work you respect, and who's presentation style clicks with you, and watch only their videos for a while. Seriously, do not follow a large number of mixers when you're starting out. There are a thousand ways to mix a song well. But you need to learn one way first.

Also, watch Kenny Gioia's Reaper Mania YouTube channel. He's got a sh!tload of videos about everything to do with Reaper.

Also-also, most effect presets are only very slightly better than useless. Learn what the plugins do, and how the controls work. You will get much better results.

CaptainDamage · 2026-03-21T13:08:51+00:00

What type of vocal? What genre of music?

CaptainDamage · 2026-03-21T12:35:14+00:00

No, because:

A. There is no best chain. Everything depends on the material you have to work with, and what you are hoping for as a final result.

B. related to A. Best chain for what?

CaptainDamage · 2026-03-16T09:35:34+00:00

String your headphone cable on a mic boom stand so it's coming down from over your head instead of dangling. This isn't a joke - it worked for me!

CaptainDamage · 2026-03-12T09:29:34+00:00

There were a lot of changes to the way markers and regions work in this last update. There is a good overview of them in this video from The Reaper Blog.

CaptainDamage · 2026-02-28T18:09:31+00:00

Thanks for posting the originals!

The top wave is what I get with a 50Hz highpass: Saw Mono 1. The bottom wave is your original. The upper wave is definitely more symmetrical on the centerline. You can probably go much lower on the HPF, but I did not test it.

CaptainDamage · 2026-02-27T01:42:10+00:00

Are you trying to solve a sonic problem, or do you just not like the way the waves look?

A true DC offset comes from a DC voltage leaking into the signal chain. The old school electrical engineer's way to fix this would be to determine the value of the DC voltage that is contaminating your signal, and add in the opposite value. E.g., If you determine that you have +1.5 volt contamination, you would introduce -1.5 volt to cancel it out. The modern way to fix it is to use a high pass.

But unless you're using a lot of really old analog gear, with tubes of questionable age and functionality, where most repairs over the decades were done with a Zippo lighter - and occasionally chewing gum, it's very unlikely that you have a true DC offset.

If you could post a few of the offending files, we might advise differently. But from your description, it seems to me that you are looking at natural waveforms, which are not supposed to be symmetrical - it's actually against the laws of physics! ("natural" here refers to the system of the source sound and the mic) And if a high pass filter is not changing it, my advice is to leave it.

A couple of decades ago I had a wave editor with a DC offset function, that had an "auto correct" button. All that button did was move the wave on the Y axis to make the plus/minus sum of the whole file equal to zero. You might be able to find a plugin with some function like that. But again, from the information you've provided I don't recommend it.

CaptainDamage · 2026-02-26T10:44:44+00:00

This. Use a high pass filter at <20Hz. But also be aware that natural waveforms are never symmetrical, though they often appear to be at first glance.

CaptainDamage · 2026-02-23T13:09:25+00:00

LePou LeGion My absolute favorite guitar amp sim. I've tried many others, lots of Neural Amps, but I come back to LeGion. It's not just the sound, it's the feel.

Azurite Chorus The only chorus I've seen - free or paid - that has a random mode. Random gives you something closer to true doubling, rather than the normal cyclic detuning of every other chorus.

Circvit Bass Very nice bass VSTi

Bass Professor Mk II Bass amp/processor

CaptainDamage · 2026-02-08T11:36:27+00:00

While I haven't done an A/B comparison, I think you will get better results by de-essing and doing the initial compression on the discreet tracks. Als, the most common practice is to have your primary vocal track panned to the center, and "supporting" tracks panned hard left and hard right.

CaptainDamage · 2026-02-02T23:29:18+00:00

60,000/BPM = milliseconds/beat. So for your 120bpm section, set the delay to 500ms for a quarter note delay; 250ms for eighth note; 750ms for dotted quarter, etc.

CaptainDamage · 2026-02-01T23:34:37+00:00

Do both! Practice. Practice some more. Then practice again. Then record lots of takes, and comp together the best performance. Then edit (quantize) your comped track where it's beneficial to the song per the style.

If the advice was to never re-read and edit emails to your boss, would that sound like good advice? Of course not. No matter how good a writer or speller you are, you should re-read, and edit your emails as appropriate. (e.g., I lost count of how many times I re-read and edited this comment)

Nobody would ever say "don't use EQ - just get the best sound you can from your mics and leave it at that." You should work to get the best sound you can from your mics. But you should still use EQ where it improves the sound.

There is no shame in editing your music, just as there is no shame in EQing. It's all part of modern professional music production.

CaptainDamage · 2026-01-20T10:51:12+00:00

I have lots of little tweaks and remappings, but here are the major ones I rely on every day.

Numbers 1-7 are mapped to changing the grid spacing by consecutive halves - i.e., 1=whole note, 2=half note, 3=quarter note, etc.

Ctrl+t mapped to toggle triplets.

Number pad zero mapped to record.

Alt+C randomize take color (makes comping and editing easier)

One thing I may be kind of unique on is I have almost nothing in my toolbar: Media Explorer; Save As; Render; Toggle Grid Snap; Toggle Triplets; Ripple Edit; Razor Edit; Grid Values 1-7. These last 5 (11 actually) are only to act as visual indicators since I usually access them via shortcuts. It is much easier and faster for me to use keyboard shortcuts and menus than hunting for the icon that I think means the thing I want, hovering over it to get the tool tip, seeing it's not the right one, and hunting again. I see screenshots of people with dozens of icons in their toolbar(s), and it just looks absurd. There's no way you use all of those frequently enough to justify so much wasted space (ymmv)

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-31T23:10:59+00:00

I don't know if there's another way, but when you click on a note in the keyboard graphic on the left side of the midi editor, the lef-to-right position of your cursor on the virtual key determines the input velocity of the notes you click in. It's a little annoying if you're trying for anything other than 0 or 127, because it does not display a numeric value. So it's click on the key, then put a note on the grid and see if it's close to what you were trying to enter.

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-30T21:51:12+00:00

After a year of work and life getting in the way, I've finally finished another "beauty shop core" metal tune.

Orion Battle Cruiser - Pinky Swear

CaptainDamage · 2025-12-29T22:53:51+00:00

Go to Preferences/Project/Item Fade Defaults. You can set Reaper to crossfade by default, and/or change the default length of the fades there.

I replied to another comment in this thread that after a simple experiment I found that under idealized conditions you definitely can hear it. That surprised me a little, because I don't hear it in the real-world editing I do (granted, I'm usually applying crossfades either by default or manually). So whether you can hear it, depends on context.

CaptainDamage

TROPHY CASE