The Song Fight Bulletin Board

I'm looking to see if anyone knows of any freeware programs for vocal processing. I've tried a variety of setups, but i'm still getting the loudest, clearest sound from my $10 PC mic. So until I can get my hands on the Line 6 Tuneport I want so much, I'll have to stick with it. Does anyone know of any programs that'll do a nice reverb or chorus or other vocal effects either applying them after the track has been laid down or live? I've tried the Gverb filter in Audacity but I no likey.

I see a lot of free VST plugins. Are there any free VST platforms? I've never used Cubase or any of those so I don't know much about them.

AudioMulch is a shareware VST platform. It's got an explicit sound-routing scheme so you can see on the screen where your signal is going. I use it a lot. Registration is only $50, but all functions are activated in the free version.
-bill

kill_me_sarah wrote:I see a lot of free VST plugins. Are there any free VST platforms? I've never used Cubase or any of those so I don't know much about them.

kristal is free
http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

and supposedly audacity has some way to use VST's

-craig

starfinger wrote:kristal is free
http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

and supposedly audacity has some way to use VST's

-craig

i've found kristal to be quite useful for vox treatment; a touch of the built-in reverb (even less than their "small room" pre-set) is all i really need. kristal is cool in that it allows you to create and save new pre-sets, so i have one just for "vox reverb." the other tools it has (like the "telephone vox" EQ pre-set or the multidelay) work well for vox, too.

my main gripe with kristal is that i get wicked lag, so every take i have to realign the new track. hence the often messy nature of some of my songs.

audacity has an impressive set of effects built-in, but to use VSTs you need to download this file and place it in the same folder with the audacity .EXE, then place all your VSTs in the "Plug-in" folder for audacity (unlike kristal, which you can tell to look all over the place for your VSTs.)

nyjm wrote:

starfinger wrote:kristal is free
http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/

and supposedly audacity has some way to use VST's

-craig

i've found kristal to be quite useful for vox treatment; a touch of the built-in reverb (even less than their "small room" pre-set) is all i really need. kristal is cool in that it allows you to create and save new pre-sets, so i have one just for "vox reverb." the other tools it has (like the "telephone vox" EQ pre-set or the multidelay) work well for vox, too.

my main gripe with kristal is that i get wicked lag, so every take i have to realign the new track. hence the often messy nature of some of my songs.

audacity has an impressive set of effects built-in, but to use VSTs you need to download this file and place it in the same folder with the audacity .EXE, then place all your VSTs in the "Plug-in" folder for audacity (unlike kristal, which you can tell to look all over the place for your VSTs.)

I don't have a mixer yet, so my direct mic recording is coming out really quiet. Is there something in Krystal to amplify the sound, like there is in Audacity? I haven't found anything yet.

kvraudio.com has a search engine for plugins.

Here is a list of free dynamics and mastering VST plugins, any number of which could help you make things louder:

http://tinyurl.com/8xc43

I haven't really used any of these for this purpose, but the kjaerhus stuff is usually good.

-craig

An important thing to remember while using vsts is that you'll probably need good ASIO drivers for your soundcard so unless you have a high-end setup (any you're talking about freeware, so I'd imagine you don't) you're going to need a 3rd party ASIO driver. I use ASIO4ALL, it works great with dozens of consumer soundcards such as my SB Live! on my desktop, and actually works better than the Creative ASIO drivers with my Audigy2 ZS on the laptop. (you were complaining about lag in Kristal, I assume you mean while live monitoring?)

Definitely give it a try- http://www.asio4all.com

Sven wrote:I use ASIO4ALL, it works great with dozens of consumer soundcards such as my SB Live! on my desktop, and actually works better than the Creative ASIO drivers with my Audigy2 ZS on the laptop.

My dog could write a better driver than Creative.

And I don't even own a dog.

Albatross wrote:

Sven wrote:I use ASIO4ALL, it works great with dozens of consumer soundcards such as my SB Live! on my desktop, and actually works better than the Creative ASIO drivers with my Audigy2 ZS on the laptop.

My dog could write a better driver than Creative.

And I don't even own a dog.

Your dog (which you don't have) could probably build a better soundcard, too

kill_me_sarah wrote:I don't have a mixer yet, so my direct mic recording is coming out really quiet. Is there something in Krystal to amplify the sound, like there is in Audacity? I haven't found anything yet.

Kristalizer => Full Compression or Vocal Compression

I almost always put the full compression on my entire track in the master mix to the right. and vox are 90% of the time hit with the vocal compression along with either a dash of Kristal Reverb, or, as I just discovered today GlaceVerb. oooh, the possibilities, and their Vocal Present #1 is very nice.

additionally, make sure that your "recording" settings on your soundcard are at the proper level. these can be accessed either through the little speaker icon in your system tray or in "sounds and audio devices" in Setting. i usually keep mine really low, like 2.5 at the best; otherwise you're pretty much asking for clipping.

Sven wrote:An important thing to remember while using vsts is that you'll probably need good ASIO drivers for your soundcard so unless you have a high-end setup (any you're talking about freeware, so I'd imagine you don't) you're going to need a 3rd party ASIO driver.

Definitely give it a try- http://www.asio4all.com

you know, i downloaded that, installed it, tweaked and messed with it and it did squat for me. i don't know if i'm just incompetent with the driver or if it doesn't work with my soundcard. the computer, heck, even kristal recognizes that the ASIO driver is there and working, but no matter what i do i still get nasty lag.

so, a slightly complicated fix: record in Quartz Studio Free, which never has any lag, and then mix in Kristal (Audacity was driving me crazy this week, taking 4:00 to put one effect on :30 seconds of music.) i just recorded a sog today doing that and i sounds nice: no timing problems!

nyjm wrote:you know, i downloaded that, installed it, tweaked and messed with it and it did squat for me. i don't know if i'm just incompetent with the driver or if it doesn't work with my soundcard. the computer, heck, even kristal recognizes that the ASIO driver is there and working, but no matter what i do i still get nasty lag.

The secret (well, what worked for me) is the "ASIO Buffer Size" slider on the Offline Settings app. Open a program that uses ASIO live monitoring (I tweak my settings using Guitar Rig, it's very easy to tell how much latency there is when playing guitar), make sure it's set to use the ASIO4ALL driver, set it to 16 bit/48,000 (if there's a way to do that in the app you're using) and then open the ASIO4ALL controll panel. Start by clicking 'Load Defaults' to clear out any mistake settings you may have made. The only thing you really have to worry about is the Buffer Size setting. Start by setting the slider to 256 samples. Depending on how crappy your sound card is, you will either get instant results, or a scratchy, broken audio sound with clicks and pops. If the former, nudge the slider back (lower) until the audio starts breaking up. Then set it a few notches up. The trick is to get the lowest setting that gives you clear, undistorted audio. If 256 is too low from the start, bump it up to 512. Almost every consumer-level audio chipset should work fine at 512 samples, that being said, my stupid crap SB Live! card breaks up with anything less than 528 Considering the onboard audio on my daughter's computer (Intel 810 chipset) works fine at 256, this tells you what a PoS the Live! card was. If you have one of these cards, throw it away. I would myself, but, you know...

Not sure if that rambling mess helps you at all.

Sven wrote:

nyjm wrote:[ASIO4All doesn't work for me].

The secret (well, what worked for me) is the "ASIO Buffer Size" slider on the Offline Settings app. [and other helpful-sounding suggestions]

thanks. i've tweaked the ASIO interface like you said; we'll see how it turns out this weekend when i have time to record. i think a big thing is that i have no idea of what "buffer size" and "sample rate" mean. well, in a general way, of course. but comparatively (do i want 512 or 256? what's the difference? 16/48,000 or 32/41,000? what does that mean?)

anyway, thanks for the advice, i hope it works out. the latency with kristal is the only thing that bugs me.

- njm

It's pretty simple, really, the larger the buffer size, the more latency. The reason for this is because if you tell the driver to buffer 512 samples @ 48KHz, (48,000 samples per second, therefore 1 sample= 1/48,000th of a second) there will be 512/48,000 of a second delay, or in less ridiculous terms, 0.0107th of a second latency, or about 11ms rounded off. Using full duplex, this latency is on both the input and output, for a total latency of 22ms, which is still acceptable for recording, although people with very sensitive ears will tell you that it throws them off (22ms doesn't bother me at all, I play and sing sloppy anyway).

One thing I should mention, always *always* have your sample rate set to 48KHz, unless your sound card specifically doesn't work well with it. Most sound chipsets operate natively at 48K, and actually downsample audio to 44.1K. Not only do you get the benefit of better performance natively on the sound card, you lower the latency by several ms too.

You asked about 16 bit/32 bit, if you have the option of recording at 32 bit, do it. It's still only 16 bit (or 24 for newer sound cards) but there is some added dynamic range in the signal by the software for post production, etc. When all is said and done, it gets dithered back down to 16 bit when you mix down.

I played around with Kristal a bit, and there is a live monitoring thing in there where you can use effects in realtime, try plugging a guitar in, use that, and put a simple effect like chorus or reverb on it. Then use the ASIO4ALL control panel (BTW, they just released v.2.6, grab it for sure, it seems to work better than even 2.5 for me) and mess with the buffer size until there is almost no detectable latency between plucking a note and hearing the effected note. If you can't get to that at all, your soundcard is probably incompatible with it.