Waves Vocal Rider (Native) Reviews

4.5/5.0 based on 10 customer reviews

Sweetwater Advice

Randy Akins

This is the coolest plug-in out there! Gone are the endless repetitions of riding the fader on a tricky vocal passage - this does it all for you. It can be automated as well!

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Customer Reviews

Rob Richards
from Raleigh, NC
January 16, 2013Music Background:
Musician, Producer, Engineer

Amazing

I used to stack compressors to even out my vocal levels, sometimes it would color the tone a little too much and it was easy to lose the dynamics if I wasn't careful. When I am not looking for that coloration in my vocal tone, I reach for the Vocal Rider, very transparent while maintaining the emotion of the performance. Simply an awesome product.

Brendon Bigelow
from Austin, TX
June 11, 2012Music Background:
Producer, Mix Engineer, Occasional Recording Engineer (Mostly retired from that), Professional Musician.

I've used it a lot and it works great

It seems like in the last 3 years or so, we're seeing the trend go slightly away from modeling vintage gear (We're still seeing a lot of that) in the interest of introducing new processors that do things we haven't seen before. I'm loving it! I mean... C'mon! Do we really need another compressor?

This thing works great. It's adjustable enough to make it work on anything I've done with it so far.

In some other reviews I've read some references to it's "Side-Chaining" capabilities. One reviewer even said "Make sure you have sidechaining or this plug in is useless"... I can tell you honestly that I have had no need for Side-Chaining with this plug. at all. I'm not sure what that guy is trying to do. But... He's obviously smarter than me. After all... I've only been working professionally in the recording industry for 21 years.

Another reviewer mentioned some Side-Chaining problem in SONAR. I'm really kind of stumped by all the Side-Chaining talk in these reviews.

Anyway... I don't know about SONAR but I'm using Pro Tools HD and this thing works great. It does what it's supposed to do. And... If you want to... You can use it before your favorite compressor to really make that compressor shine. Also... A gate after this thing will be the most transparent gate you've ever heard.

One really cool deep feature is that it will print an automation lane. So... If you want to edit what it's doing in a certain part of a tune, you can.

Bottom Line: It works great... It sounds great... It's easy to use... And... It saves time. Great Plug!

As for Side-Chainig... Beats me. But, then... I only do music for film and television. So... What do I know?

Terjaunia Sain
from Atlanta, GA
November 13, 2011Music Background:
DJ/Producer

Off The Chain

Man, the vocal rider makes mixing vcls super easy. Waves is the best in plug ins hands down.... Insain Boiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

MKI The King
from Memphis, TN
October 14, 2011Music Background:
Pro recorder

Tha Buizness!!!!

I love this plug in!!! It really corrects the issues related to inconsistency within the track without coloration. I personally recommend this for anyone doing vocal mixing because you will be surprise how much automation is needed.

William "Willy Fats" Mcknight
from Nashville, TN
December 19, 2010Music Background:
Producer, Engineer

The on slaught continues

And Waves fires another shot at big studio production. Logic 9 check, PTL 9 Check, Waves signature collections check, SSL collection Check is there any mix I can't make sound good not likely. But throw in this plug and it becomes all to easy. where is the work the time spent learning the craft, well its gone waves is single handedly killing it. There is alot of immitators to the thtown but for years waves has stood at the top and with plugs like this they will continue to stand at the top.

Buck Anderson
from Way south Louisiana
November 12, 2012Music Background:
Ol Pro

It gits'er dun!

It works in a hurry when you have a vocalist that does understand MIC Dynamics, it can't fix it all but way close. Have used it pretty hard on one guy that knows not how to turn his head a little or back up. So it if ya got the POWER run it on the front end big time.

dbtucson
from Tucson, Arizona
November 22, 2011Music Background:
composer, recording engineer, documentary maker

Waves Vocal Rider an essential

This plug-in does its job superbly, live or on tracks you've recorded.

from
May 24, 2011

Time saver

great product that saves you the time of riding the fader manually. Takes care of dynamics without adding anything to the sound.

Matt F
from San Diego
November 8, 2011Music Background:
Recording Engineer

Demo it First!!!!

Make sure your DAW has sidechain inputs for plug ins! Pro Tools does however DAW's like Samplitude and others do not. Make sure you have sidechaining or this plug in is useless. Works great though and recommend it for the time saving!

Ted K
from Tucson, AZ
July 9, 2011Music Background:
Home Studio Recording Engineer, Musician

Waves Vocal Rider

I bought Vocal Rider for my Windows 7 64 bit PC and have mixed feelings about the performance of the product. First the good. It does as advertised regarding evening out the vocal track without needing to introduce artifactts that typically come with compressing a signal. Big time saver. Two big dissapointments though. The sidechaining that was advertised is disabled if you use the plugin with Sonar. That may be a gripe against Sonar though, something about not embracing VST3 protocol. Secondly, since introducing Vocal RIder to my DAW environment I'm getting intermittent crashes of my DAW software. (I'm Running multiple Waves bundles in Ver. 7 VR in ver. 8 together which is supposed to work)