Waves | Tips & Tricks

Tips by Ross Hogarth

	Ross Hogarth Grammy-Winning Producer/Engineer Ziggy Marley, R.E.M., Jewel, Melissa Etheridge

	Vocal Widener Doubler really helps out on vocal tracks. I set the delay to 17 milliseconds on one side, 35 on the other. Then I pitch them 3 cents up on one side, maybe 4 down on the other. It widens the vocals but, at the same time, keeps them "dry." The sound is very similar to the AMS Harmonizer we used to use so often in the 80s.

	Compressing the Mix For me, the API 2500 is the ultimate mix buss compressor. In my opinion, it even beats out the SSL Compressor. Pull-out around 22Hz linear low band, just to clean out the very bottom out of the mix, so we don't get that bottom triggering the compressor and doing funny things. That bottom wouldn't even be there on tape, but it's there in the digital domain, and can often get in the way. The API 2500 is the cleanest way I've found to control that.

	Finding the Sweet Bass Spot I sometimes use distortion on bass. Depending on the situation, I'll use MaxxBass to dial in which frequencies to drive into the distortion or Renaissance Bass, which also works great. It helps you find the sweet spot and really makes the bass sing. It really is a case of "set it and forget it."

	Stomp Your Vocals I'm also chaining all sorts of GTR Stomps. They're very useful for vocal effects. Try using an octave divider to add a low octave on a high vocal, especially on background vocals, then maybe feed it through distortion and tuck it in low in the mix. It's easy to cocktail interesting effects using stomps. Enigma is also a great as a subtle vocal effect.

Tips by Charles Deenen

	Charles Deenen Sound Designer Need for Speed, Fast and Furious, and movie trailers

	Subharmonic Bass A lot of post-production people are missing a really good dbx120 emulation. Renaissance Bass can actually do it if you use 2 of them chained in parallel. You set one to a really low subharmonic, and the other to an octave above it. After that, low pass the whole signal and you end up with a really good subharmonic generator that works very similar to the dbx120. It works especially well on LFE channels, using it as a send from the channel instead of treating it as an inline process.

	Creating Whooshes In addition to using Doppler exclusively for Doppler effects, it can also be used for special FX as well. I like to combine several Doppler plugins in a row, some with a long tail, some with a shorter tail, along with volume variations and some pitching from MondoMod and filtering from Enigma. You can make a whole chain of really cool sounding "whooshes" just by having a whole bunch of sounds on the tracks and running them through all of those processors or in parallel, and just let it run. You can take 2 or 3 minutes of sound on a track and apply all these processors to it in real time. MondoMod takes care of the volume ups and downs to make the whooshes, Doppler creates the movement, and Enigma and MetaFlanger add the filtering/flanging effect.

	RenBass Clipping I use Renaissance Bass for low end harmonic clipping. A lot of people lower the input before Renaissance Bass so it doesn't clip internally. I actually like to use that to my advantage. I put something incredibly loud right before it and then use Renaissance Bass to boost the heck out of it. All of a sudden it'll start to clip internally, and then it can be used a sound design element. Renaissance Bass doesn't really do "digital distortion" per se; it does this low end "breaking up" thing which is really cool to use.

	Movement with MetaFlanger Anytime I need to make something move, a little subtle movement in it, I use MetaFlanger in tape mode. I add it in very, very lightly, and it really brings sound to life. You can also take a reverb as a send and then use MetaFlanger on the reverb to basically hide that it's a reverb, and use it to give movement to the sound. Some sounds start to sound thin when you apply a flanger to them.

90 Degrees of Separation

If you want to add life to a mono guitar or vocal track, run it through SuperTap. Pan the original signal 45 degrees to the left, and add a very short delay panned 45 degrees to the right. Add a little extra high-end boost on the delayed signal to help give it some additional character.

Get Down & Dirty

Ever thought of using noise-reduction processors to create distortion or other special effects? By overdriving or using extreme settings on plugins like X-Noise or Z-Noise, you can create alien voices, crackly radio messages, and unique resonant textures you can't get with regular distortion or overdrive processors.

Power of the Punch

Here's a great way to add energy to drum tracks as well as bass and guitar. First, duplicate your track. Open up the Renaissance Compressor or C1 Parametric Compander on the duplicate track, and apply very heavy compression with a Ratio of 10:1 and a -30dB Threshold. These settings should make the compressor "pump." Blend this track in with the original for a sound that cuts through any mix.

In Full Effect

From thunder claps to earth-shaking rumbles, from screeching tires to massive explosions, Renaissance Bass is a great tool for fattening up all sorts of sounds. Adjust the cutoff frequency to suit your sources—40-55 Hz fattens up lows, settings of 200 Hz and up help give space to higher pitched effects.

Bring Your Tracks to Life

Use Enigma to add spice and breathe life into tracks such as synth sequences. Adding small amounts of Enigma (around 5-10%), though hardly perceptible, creates a sense of movement, helping synthesized tracks sound more live. Enigma also creates interesting textures as a pre- or post-reverb insert.

Best of Both Worlds

Love the sound of TrueVerb's simulated space but want the smooth reverb tails of the Renaissance Reverb? Set up a chain with TrueVerb followed by Renaissance Reverb.

First, load up your favorite TrueVerb preset, or create your own, and make sure Renaissance Reverb is in bypass mode. Turn the reverb portion of the signal off by clicking the blue square at the bottom right-hand corner of the GUI. This disables True Verb's reverb tail section, leaving only the direct and early reflection signals.

Next, activate Renaissance Reverb by taking it out of bypass mode. Choose a preset or create a custom setting, and take the "Early Ref" slider all the way down to the "Off" position. By adjusting the Renaissance Reverb Wet/Dry sliders, you control the blend of TrueVerb's rooms with Renaissance Reverb tails for a killer one-two punch!

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