Alterboy Is Ruining Your Vocals 

alterboy be a bad boy sometimes

Thanks Zen! Always looking out for the top quality.

Always the best advice on this channel. You are so good. Thanks man!

I constantly have phase issues in my production. One thing I was taught and I like this method, is to have a Send channel with just the Utility plugin set to Mono. Then start to crank up a mono signal into your stereo signal. until your phase issue is gone. You will end up having to rebalance the volume as this will make your vocal much louder, but you will have a nice balance of centre and width without cancelation. This will also keep all your effects like alter boy on your vocal, without having to remake an entire new channel sucking up CPU. Love ya!

Your channel is so good and followers are impressively knowledgeable that I even learn from the comments on your videos. I appreciate you exist Zen 🙌

bro thank u so much for this vid!!!!

Another amazing tip I don't start any project before I watch Zenworld thank you mate👍👍

Sick video as always. That video with Millean was Gold

Thank you sooo much Prof Zen and Millian for this tip🙌I never knew about this on alterboy. Zen vocals at the end sounds really good by the way

always on point, nice Zen

Why don't they just put a width slider on the plugin?? Formant shift has nothing to do with width. It's two different effects. I have wanted Little Alterboy for ages, but this has put me right off. Dayum. Helpful vid!

Such a great vid solved my issue instantly.

I started hearing this phasing in my vocal mixes too when I first started using alter boy a while back. I was able to use the same trick 👍🏽. Why would soundtoys even make the VST fuck up the stereo image? Lol. Anyways thanks for creating the video and spreading the knowledge!

I personally put it on a separate track and send the dry vocal to it. If I have several "backing vocals" I will bus them separate to the dry vocals. Then use M/S processing on these "Backing vocals" to push them out to the sides further, leaving the mids fairly clear of these and in turn creating space in the mids predominantly for the dry vocals. Route all these into one main vocals bus, to then process them all together with some light compression to help glue all these together.

I love you. This has saved me massively For those of you on logic you could do this with their gain utility as well

Brother I literally have a track that I’ve been sitting on with this issue on the vocals. It sounds clear and loud on my monitors but then on any other speakers my friends will tell me they can’t really hear what I’m saying too clearly, and I can hear what they mean. This hopefully will solve this issue for me

This phasing issue you speak of, this is a different problem related to their patch note from 2019 of "Fixed a bug in Little AlterBoy that could cause left and right channels to move slightly out of sync when used on a mono track in DAWs like Ableton and Cubase that process mono tracks in stereo.**"?? because I thought this issue was only with the old version and was fixed, I used to do this same trick to set it to only left or right as a fix but I ended up no longer using it until I can buy the full (updated) version, which I been waiting for a sale, however, if the phasing issue hasn't been fixed then idek now...

Nice video, I always leave 1 dry mono vocal, 1 left wet, 1 right wet and 1 wet mono. Then I group all of them and glue them together =p

Yes I get worried sounds when I use this plugin

yes i saw that by myself some times ago, and it's really really strange, sometimes there is a trouble and voice begin de be wtf, and sometimes it's good, i had to but a new alter boy on it and freeze it directly before the plug in begin to mess it up !

Hey man great video. Did you happen to release the song played in the video ? Sounded great

I use Vocal Bender because I'm broke as shit. But I imagine the same problem persists. Thanks for bringing this to light.

This is a problem knew with Alterboy since a long time (I think I got this tips from one of your all video some years ago, but I'm not sure), I don't understand why Soundtoys never implement a function to do this directly in the plugin

Hey bro, im really having this issue right now, your fix helped it 20 percent. Is there a way to make it 100%

is there a utility plug-in to buy? I use fl studio and I'm still desperate :(

saved me! Thanks

Hey bro, i see u updated the studio with the Sub37. Would be insane if u could do a bank for that one.. Toughts?

what is the Logic Pro equivalent of the utility tool?

That happens to me in a vocal I was processing a month ago after that I think twice before using this plugin

This was really helpful even for me hahaha. I was thinking of getting Little Alterboy until someone told me that it causes phase issues (which is vital in Drum and Bass). I have vocal bender but I'm not a fan of the way it jumps around sometimes creating artefacts.

I normally use utility and right click on the width and take off the stereo signals, I think that works too

I wonder if this is also fixable using a phase alignment VST, or if vocals are just too broad-spectrum in the frequency domain to be fixable in that way.

Your a wizard zen 🔥

Does anyone know how I can use the Gain Plugin in Logic to do that?

Does Ableton's built-in transpose function for samples also create this issue?

For me the best fixt o use MSED and adjust the stereo/mid checking the correlation meter, and put a compressor after to glue stuff together :) Of course not 100% working in every possible case, but it does it's job for me when i use some phase cancel intensive processing Psst. it was a secret :)

I have gotten better results with Ableton's inbuilt pitch shift( conplex pro). The pitch shift is more consistent than Alter Boy.

A good rule of thumb is to NEVER use the mono switch on Utility if you're trying to make a signal source mono, as it sums the mid and side signals and can cause phase issues. If you want to make a source mono, always do what Zen showed here, just solo the left channel. ONLY use that mono switch for checking mono compatibility or if you specifically want the side information in your mono source and are absolutely certain you won't have phase issues.

FL Studio workaround, someone?

I used logic for years and never had this issue. Switched to Ableton and now I have this issue on every mix it’s annoying

Hi ! What can i use in Fl studio ?

What about using just a compressor after the alterboy in the mixing chain?

Any alternatives for Logic Pro users?

..it only happens on stereo vocals with alterboy, you can use autotune artist formant with less phase problem..😀

Good job! I know that before :DD

Bro can you please help me with track bye giving a pro feedback. Please.....

How would you solve that problem in FL Studio? 🤔

Every mastering studio should have a JBL speaker

what can I do if I use fl?

I knew that shit sounded weird when I used it

I always use little boy 😭

Zen you are the best Ninja ever.....peep peep for you

I gave up with Alterboy and switched to MAutoPitch, no phase issue at all and free

I get that with melda autotune

Is it a robot speaking?

i was so disappointed when i bought this plugin. i thought i can transform vocals like a boss from now on but the vocals are just thin and weak and not mono compatible after using this effect

The wide effect sounds so good on Little Alter Boy

i waited two hours for nothing!!! 😂😂😂

unsubbed just to sub again! Thanks for everything!

I watches this via my IPHONE PROVES THE POINT TRY IT

The unique plugin i am regret to have bought... I don't know each mode sounds worst , transpose or that other .... Even to pitch down i still prefering the tradicional transpose from Ableton. 🥹