Get Waves Silk Vocal Here: waves.alzt.net/y2xxy3 UPDATE 11/28/23: Silk Vocal no longer free - but it was free for 4 days when this video went live during Black Friday weekend. I warned you about this in the video, so hopefully you didn’t snooze and lose on this one but if you did, the price is still pretty low right now 👀
@@sergioguarino7013I don’t think that would be an issue unless I’m missing some context here. Whether it’s a mono or stereo track, result is the same give or take. If you’re referring to monitoring and setting this in mono, I still don’t think this would negatively affect as all you’re doing is listening from a different vantage point so to speak. In fact, mixing in mono may be an even better way to set this up. I generally reference in many scenarios, so I recommend dialling settings in and then checking in each situation to see if it causes any harm in any listening situation (mono, stereo, loud, quiet, different monitors, earbuds etc). Hope this helps
@@abasikuyikgabriel3093hit the link in the description. I think RU-vid is slowly but surely phasing out being able to click links in comments unfortunately but I always put the links in the video description
In solo, silk sounded more polished and appealing. But in context of the mix, your vocal chain sounded far more intelligible and more appealing over all. Just felt more natural and musical imo. Thanks for the demo
That’s actually exactly how I felt too, especially as I rewatch it now. Definitely a subjective thing though, like anything in music. With a few extra touches (maybe some more EQ, or a bit of tweaking even on Silk) I’m sure we could be close without using as many plugins. Thanks for watching! 🙏🏼
Great video! As a struggling independent musician with a full time job and a family anything that speeds up the mixing process is helpful. So far I’m very impressed with how well Silk Vocal is doing.
As an Artist who produces his beats and also engineers, I have a pretty trained ear and i can say that your vocal chain is better. I'm not talking in terms of sound, tone/Quality, in terms of the sound, Quality and tone both are amazing, silk did a good job keeping up with your vocal chain, both are undeniably professional and to the common human ear are both almost identical. Now let me explain what I mean when i say yours is better, yours has far more control in the sense that you can tweak a lot more things due to more plugins. I would say that silk going hand in had with other plugins is a gamechanger.
Totally agree. There is definitely a more “controlled” sound with my OG chain that Silk lacks - but if I threw in a few plugins AFTER Silk in this case, I’m sure it wouldn’t be too far off. Interested to keep tinkering with it 👀
Good video! You showed exactly the sweet spots and used it smoothly. Personally, I think that the silk vocals sound clearer and tidier than the vocal chain. The in your face character of the Silk compressor fits the song well. You have a new subscriber 👍🏻
Thank you my friend! Glad to have you on board. It could definitely go either way 😉 but overall, having something that can handle MOST of the business quickly like this is definitely handy 💪🏼
Definitely great use case for easy control of lows and low mids. I'll still have my HP filter and a bit of 200-300 reduction on my vocal chain, but adding silk onto that for low/low mid control, de-esser, and the mini R-Vox all in one plugin is definitely very useful, especially in the age of content creation where quick and easy is king.
Thank you for the video and all other videos. I said this before... Love the simplicity your videos are and the way you explain things. Your videos focus more on educating and helping than entertaining viewers with all kinds of clever video editing tricks. Also it still amazes me how little you do/adjust, settings wise, and still achieve an overall great result. I do not use the DAW you use or do a lot of hip-hop Rap genre styles, and still learn a lot. Thanks.
I appreciate that! I definitely try to keep it simple as a whole in my mixing. I find us mixers life to complicate stuff for no reason (but then again, I do still have some crazy 10 plugin chains on things at times hehe). As they say, it’s the ear not the gear. Glad I could shine a light on this and help you on your journey, even in a different DAW/genre environment 👊🏼
very good video breaking it down I think a lot of people are trying to bash this plugin cause its free I have replaced a lot of plugins in my chain with this and its killing it we need to take our time and study these tools to make the best of them this is still to new to say its useless and we cannot compare with soothe cause it totally free right now so just get it learn it and enjoy knocking off some plugin subscriptions
Totally. Unfortunately some people just always have something to complain about 😅 but for free? This is the closest soothe2 alternative I’ve seen. Not exactly the same but very versatile considering the price tag 🤪
automate the gate might be a good idea, If you paired up silk with something else for a bit more colour and saturation it it would be more fair. both sounds awesome in their own rights
EverythingOShauN handles his own recording and sends to me for mixing/mastering so I can’t say with 100% certainty - but I’m pretty sure they’re using a Neumann TLM 103 going into an Avalon with some very light compression (2:1 ratio, slow attack, med-fast release) and a tiny hint of EQ to reduce high end sibilance as I find the combo to be harsh at times. Again, this could be wrong but during past sessions I attended to help with - that’s what we applied. My OG chain also has a Buttload of compression applied in stages as you can tell also 😅
Why does the lyric "She's savage" sound like it was recorded with a completely different mic and processing chain? Was that a punch-in done on a different day? There also seems to be an audible pop in that area, which is the tell-tale sign of a sloppy punch-in.
In solo - I agree that it pops out a bit but in context, which is what matters most, we don’t really hear it. In fact, that punched-in emphasis may HELP it in context 🤔 The reality is, while we should always strive for top notch recordings, sometimes the reality isn’t the case. Sometimes the sloppy or messed up ones have a feel or vibe that the “proper” ones lack. In my case, I’m given records to mix and I do the best I can with what I’ve been given. Sometimes I go back to the artist and we find ways to fix issues before I do my thing, and others I just roll with the punches. The final product here hopefully exemplifies the latter - but I understand your point. Ironically out of all the comments and view on this video, it doesn’t seem like many seemed to notice or care so how important is this really? More food for thought 😉
For a one stop shop it'll get you just about there. I nabbed it for free because why not and can see myself using it as a problem solver followed by some additional processing focused more on enhancement. I feel like Silk will work well in the context of a dense mix where you need to really push the vocal to get it forward in the mix since that's when you can really run into problems with ugly resonances, as you said, similar to something like Soothe.
Yup! For sure. For free - you can’t go wrong. Worst case, it just sits dormant on the hard drive but best case it quickly gets you out of some scenarios. Thanks for sharing my friend !
I have to agree with colinclarkmusic. On my monitors your vocal chain matched the music better and seemed more natural despite Silk Vocal sounding clear and appealing. You do good work. 👍
Guess silk was just taming down more low mid frequencies from the vocal in dynamic eq, and maybe for de essing it just needed a shorter attack to make it sit more properly
I imagine they'll release a pro version of this with more features. Would be nice to have a meter for the gain reduction that's separate from the gate meter.
I'd say that SILK is a great tool for those who don't want to get into the mixing side of things and just want something that sounds decent. One thing that I'd recommend for anyone who uses it is to still add saturation, and maybe a tonal EQ and maybe a second compressor to give the vocal a little coloration. Overall I preferred your mix, I actually preformed a similar test and felt the same way AI is a good start but it can never match a humans creative approach and ears due to it's measurements being binary based.
100% agree with you! A little bit more treatment from elsewhere and you should be covered but it is interesting how much you can accomplish with this alone without getting TOO nitty gritty
Tonal EQ? Can I use one of the onboard EQ's in Logic in this way? I am trying to build a vox channel template that is as natural as possible for the initial quality of the raw vocal recording session. Trying to achieve a chain with as little plugins as possible initially which is why I am drawn to the Waves plugin. I want a foundational template I can go back to in my workflow that a vocalist will feel really comfortable performing too.
@@jcarhSill Vocal is a “smart plugin” so it’ll automatically handle certain issues you’d otherwise have to tackle manually. With that said, you should be able to achieve similar results using stock EQs and compressors (including the ones from Logic) but in a slower fashion since, again, you’ll have to tackle it manually. I personally like the manual control of other plugins, but I would turn to this to make rapid maneuvers to get me close without spending a long time trying to dial in a sound. Hope this helps!
Totally! I could see a lot of mid and higher end material, including leads and pads, benefitting from this. Despite the name, it’s definitely not just limited to vocals!
Really great on guitars, cymbals and snares as well! Works astonishingly well on bus’s when you disable the hi pass and go gentle and use it at 75% wet
I'm going to try this instead of soothe2 in mixing template as I get a lot of latency and drop using Soothe2. Maybe I need to to mix at 44.1 instead of 48. What's your suggestion?
Yeah, latency with soothe does seem to be a common issue. I’m not sure if there is a real-time workaround (curious if there’s a third party delay compensating plugin?🤔). What I usually do in latency scenarios, is try to dial the sound in (often in solo mode) and then commit it to audio and move it to the original starting place correct the latency issues. Basically i manually make up for the latency. It’s not always ideal since auditioning in context can be a bit off-putting - but it’s the next best thing I can think of. Also, I didn’t mention it in this video but Silk Vocal has a LIVE version of the same plugin which essentially is a lower latency version. I believe it came with the freebie yesterday so If you find the same thing happening with Silk, swap it out for the live version and see how you fare 🚀
I got this for the black friday deal. I still need to mess around and learn how to use it properly. I was thinking of buying RVox too, don't know if this can do the same thing.
this is basically a dumbed down version of soothe2 and Nectar 3, although i think Nectar 3 is the best starting plugin for your vocals followed by soothe to cut those annoying frequencies and then a compressor and you´re good to go
It sounds brighter, but that’s not necessarily a good thing. My answer is one plugin can’t replace the vocal chain at this point specially if the plugin is free and has cheap eq and compressor within it. But I can see myself using it creatively, maybe using one of its features in one mix at a time
Yeah that’s definitely the reality BUT it’s a fun exercise to explore every now and again. Follow Silk up with a few extra processes - maybe some more EQ, saturation etc - and I’m sure we can get pretty close with less work 😉
Ha! I imagine you’re referring to the track used here - which is MIXED by me but actually a song called “SAVAGE BY FENTY” by my friend EverythingOShauN who is indeed Nigerian 😉 all credit musically goes to him. I’m just here for the ride and happy to be part of it. Shoutout my Nigerian family! 🇳🇬 would love to see it one day soon!
@@kazbj9265oh you’ll know when it’s me hehe. In fact, my next video will showcase what I personally sound like (for better or worse) as I use a demo I’m working on to exemplify some cool AI stuff coming out. Definitely stay tuned for that dropping on Thursday 😉
I have a personal bias here because I am one of those lunatics who enjoy being more hands on with the details that sane people find tedious. Having said that, for general purposes the Silk plugin does seem to do the job, if you're going by the book to get the results that all of the industry pros are getting. Personally however, I have no desire to get the same results that everyone else is getting. The uniformity of those results are part of the reason that audio production end product, as heard in top 40, has not changed in decades and everything sounds the same as everything else. Of course there are certain standard techniques that are essential most of the time, in order to have vocals that don't sound like utter garbage; but beyond those things, I personally like to start with "standard" and then make my own adjustments to the various parameters of each tool, and even to the protocol of the chain itself... to HOPEFULLY end up with something at least somewhat unique and interesting... ideally something that brings out the respective unique qualities of the individual vocalist. For that, I need the old school plugin chain.
It’s dope but your vocal chain was still better overall. But for someone that’s new that doesn’t know how to go in an dial everything in manually it’s still really dope.
Yup! Exactly the point! Using the one plugin can get you 80-90% there and make the process simpler, especially if you’re someone still learning the craft. The next step is to take what I’ve shown you and practice with it yourself 😉 best of luck my friend!!
What do you mean exactly? Like what level should you mix and master your music to? If so, the answer is subjective. There is no hard and fast rule. I mix by ear and feeling and ultimately what sounds good. I have some general ball-park targets but I wouldn’t recommend mixing like a robot just trying to hit a number “just because”. Mix wise I just try to leave headroom - somewhere From-3db to -10db peak volume on the mix bus. Mastering wise - I try to get it between -10 and -5LUFS depending. It’s all situational though. Sometimes louder is better, sometimes more dynamic is better. As they say “use your ears” - hope this helps. 🙏🏼
bro your idea is very correct but RU-vid lufs -14, and my song lufs-10 to -6 lufs song very perfect level , but RU-vid upload my song volume level very low, what reason and solution tell me please clear my doubt😭
If you wanted the singer to sound like he does with Silk engaged, you could have done so quite easily, unless you just can't do it. Otho, Silk seems to make work faster. I'll find out soon.
For sure. Is Silk doing something totally unique and irreplaceable? Not quite. But I think it moreso helps you dial in a sound quickly which is convenient, or give access to some features for free that you’d otherwise pay a premium for (like soothe2). One of those things that will greatly depend on your scenario and preferences
If you weren't already a waves user or were already a Soothe2 user then this plugin doesn't have much appeal-I skipped it. I've never messed with Waves so why start now? The licensing baloney gets old. When the DAW does 80-90% of what you need by itself, you tend to favor free plugins or stuff that is just a simple VST3 without all the bloatware.
As someone with literally hundreds (if not thousands) of plugins at this point, I wholeheartedly agree with you. I generally float back to the same batch of tried and trusted tools myself. In fact I’m uninstalling plugins more than installing these days 😂 However, having new tools can really invigorate and inspire the process. For example, since making this video - I’ve been testing Silk out on a number of other sources (mostly diff instruments) and am really impressed with what it does (even when I shoot it out with Soothe and others). On the surface I would’ve probably written it off because I also have Soothe and other alternatives, but sometimes when I’m mixing I throw all preconceived notions to the wind and experiment. If it sucks, I just don’t use it and nobody knows anyway but surprisingly so far that hasn’t been the case with Silk. I’d say it was especially worth checking out simply because it was free (zero risk) but that’s just my 2 cents so I totally hear you.
Nvm that silk thing That song is nice can you please put autotune like young thug type or tpain type it Wil make it more better and let the drums play that's a banger it just need that extra dance trap vibe to it
You’re gunna have to tell the producer of the track that 😂 I “just” mixed it and enhanced what they gave me. Song is “SAVAGE BY FENTY” by EverythingOShauN produced by Xpress aka DJ XP 🙏🏼
speaking English...particularly in 'Murika is an option more people should exercise perhaps more folks would take you seriously or at least (unlike myself in this instance) watch the entire video...couldn't you find a more appealing vocalist for crying out loud?
Sounds like you missed the boat as it was free during Black Friday weekend unless I’m misunderstanding something (I mean it was whenever I looked at it and installed myself?) However now I see there is still a way to get it free right now BUT you do have to buy stuff like you’re saying. Either way, can’t say I didn’t warn ya early in the video about it only being free for Black Friday 2023 weekend 🤷🏻♂️
Yeah I agree that soothe overall is a bit more intuitive. But it’s also way more expensive than this 😉 for $0, this is worth checking out - ESPECIALLY if you don’t have Soothe2
@@ChadyBeatsI wish I could say the same! 😂 I feel like I abused it at first when I got it (bought it to solve a more specific issue in a mix i was working on at the time) and since then, it maybe gets action 1 in 20 mixes I do LOL. Sometimes it’s just too heavy handed for me and I’m a manual guy - love my automation, dynamic EQ and other stuff to let the track breathe / feel natural. (Or maybe I’m a control freak? 🤔) Soothe2 is still a useful tool though! Just gotta be sure to not overdo it, like anything in mixing
@@5piece I feel like Soothe always smooths things out too much, even on low settings. The end result always sounds dull to me. I put it on and usually end up taking it back off. It's okay for stuff to be a little harsh around the edges. Sometimes "harshness" is actually just aggression, bite, or excitement.
What you mean? The plugin was free over Black Friday 2023 weekend. I didn’t notice any expiry date? While Waves offers a subscription and update plan, from what I understand, this and all of their plugins are not subscription based UNLESS you choose to subscribe. There was a whole beef about this a few months ago when they first announced they were going subscription based only but then walked back on that after seeing our feedback. Despite that, you can still buy plugins outright. I personally have bought all of my Waves plugins and they don’t expire or require renewal (unless I do the update plan stuff which I don’t care about personally). Curious to know if I’m misunderstanding what you’re saying? Overall though I agree with the general sentiment about subscriptions. I also don’t like them. We got enough monthly bills over here, I don’t need another 😂
You're entitled to you opinion for sure. I don't mind it, and definitely find it useful in certain use cases. The good news is, if you don't like it - it cost $0 so you aren't in the hole here hehe ;)
LOL 😂 the reality is you can be a male and be better suited to using the female setting if your voice is high enough, and vice versa if you’re a female and voice is low enough. It’s all just words to describe an algorithm / process that will be applied. But I’m sure someone will be triggered by it still in 2023. I guess if Waves wanted to be super PC, they’d have to go with “alto, soprano, bass” and so on - like AutoTune.
It was free over Black Friday weekend, which is when this video went live. Literally mentioned it in the video intro so no surprises here if you missed out
Appreciate you! I agree, ESPECIALLY in context. I almost view my chain as more tamed or controlled in a way (I mean I did have like 3 compressors on there!). Silk was nice but still had some aggression that I think I’d need to implement another plugin to correct further like some EQ or MB comp. Some folks may prefer that aggression though - that subjective nature is what makes music fun (and comment sections a tragedy😂). Thanks for watching!
If you abuse the process knobs, then yes, absolutely it’ll kill the energy. The whole point of that function is to reduce frequency content and clean it up. I’m not sure how much you’ve messed with it so far, but notice how in the video I’m not going crazy with my final settings (although I pushed it on purpose at times to show you what to avoid). I’m using this much more lightly than I am aggressively (usually) In solo mode, these reductions generally doesn’t sound better (again, we’re losing stuff) but when put back into context, it tends to sound cleaner and more balanced with the elements. You also don’t need to use every function like I have - maybe just the HPF and one process knob is all you need. It’s also free for the weekend, so a lot of people are talking about it. I hear what you mean about that creating an illusion of it being overrated - but it’s free, hard to complain about that when competitors like Soothe are hundreds of dollars 😅
This plugin is what I needed. I can’t afford the money for a producer to help me get my sound ready for mixing. I needed something to get me 70% of the way and show me what my vocals would sound like. I’ve tried so many but this one good.. I appreciate you… always got an ear for advice
For sure. All the DIY artists out there will definitely benefit from the simplicity / automatic nature of this plugin. Takes time to “tune” your ears and do things manually - let alone learning the intricacies of mixing to get there! Silk is a convenient stepping stone to getting there 👊🏼
@@5piece if I could ask you just one question. What can I do to make my layers sound better together? I understand practice but I feel like I’m missing what frequency they’re all supposed to be at to complement each other. Anyways, appreciate you 🤙
60Hz (50Hz in Europe) is what your alternate current oscillates in your standard power outlet. With badly grounded equipment or using unbalanced cables can introduce a "hum" in a recording, hence the option to filter it out.
Of course, I mix my artist music and I downloaded this and it definitely has promise but I do have a question, is doesn't have reverb or delay so I take it the claim for an whole in one is with the exception of the reverb and delay and I don't think it has a widener feature.@@5piece
@@ShadowAl as much as silk is an “all in one” type of plugin - it literally doesn’t have every possible thing you’d need, so no FX or wideners. I find this is more of an “all in one” corrective type of plugin. For enhancement, including reverb, delay, widening, saturation and so on - you’ll need to add something else to your chain or via a bus/send. My goal in this video was to just try to keep it simple and use the plugin alone - but you can hear me bring in my third party FX and whatnot towards the end of the video when I put everything into context. Hope this helps 🙏🏼
@@5piece It helps a lot. It does what it is supposed to, I will build around it and add to the vocal chain aside from this. Thank you. Btw you're more than welcome to go to my page and listen to some music. Keep Flowing.
To each their own 🤷🏻♂️ I think it’s useful, especially if you don’t have alternatives like Soothe. Sound wise it’s fine so long as you don’t over do it. If you crank the process knobs to the max, however, it definitely isn’t gunna sound great because it is reducing frequency content afterall. As they say, it’s all about balance 😂
@@Ink0ne415yeah, it’s definitely not an exact carbon copy as I do think this has more features (although I’d argue soothe is more intuitive overall) but for free, you can’t really go wrong
I understand that Waves is hated, but honestly they have at least a dozen plugins I absolutely love. And there are a couple I would never want to mix without (R-Bass and MV2). The update plan stuff doesn't bother me because the plugins still work fine even if you never update them. So basically, they're a company that sells a bunch of plugins I really like for $30.
Ha! To each their own! I think Waves is great. Their plugins are very economical, and useful - especially compared to competition like FabFilter, oeksound and so on. I also find a lot of other people have/use their stuff which makes collaborating easier. Yeah - they’ve had some controversy between the update plans or the whole subscription fiasco that just passed (that don’t bother me directly but I understand the complaints) - but overall I think Waves makes great stuff for a great price that makes my life easier. I’m fortunate to have access to a lot of plugins (many for free because of this channel) but I voluntarily come back and use Waves for these reasons.