Vocal effects are among the core elements of modern music production.

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Naturally, this makes it a significant part of the music plugin landscape, so there are tons of tools to sift through before you find ones that are worthwhile.

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To help save you the trouble, we’ve rounded up 10 of the best vocal effects plugins so that you can lock down the right ones for your setup.

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Let’s get straight to it.

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Why are vocal effects and vocal processing so important?

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Vocals are the centerpiece of countless styles of music, and a vocal track can easily make or break a song depending on how it’s recorded, processed, and mixed.

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Vocals rarely sound mix-ready straight out of recording, and the end goal is almost always to give vocals a strong sense of presence while ensuring that they sit well in the mix.

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Any weak points in a vocal effects chain can undermine both your workflow and the end product, so whether you do your own vocals or collaborate with one or more vocalists, the stakes can be high.

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So, we highly recommend taking this plugin category seriously, as the right choices will consistently make your life easier down the road.

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What kinds of vocal effects plugins are there?

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The most important vocal processing is usually done with vocal effects like EQ, dynamics (i.e. compressors and limiters), pitch and timing correction, doubling, and spatial effects like reverb and chorus.

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However, depending on your recording setup, you may need vocal effects that help you clean up your vocal takes, including noise reduction and reverb reduction.

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We’ve included plugins in all of these categories to make sure the essentials are covered. So without further ado, let’s take a look at some of your best options.

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1. LANDR Vocal Plugin Bundle

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Some vocal effects plugins are designed for a specific job, while others fit a more comprehensive range of features into an easy-to-use package.

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LANDR Vocal Plugin Bundle falls under the latter category.

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It’s designed to give you all of the most essential vocal processing tools in one bundle and with a simple set of controls that can get you professional results fast.

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The bundle includes VoxTune (real-time automatic vocal tuning), VoxChain (EQ, dynamics, saturation, and stereo width), VoxVerb (vocal-optimized reverb), and VoxDeEss (easy reduction of harsh “S” sounds).

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If you’re aiming for a solid balance between ease of use and comprehensiveness, this bundle is a fantastic option.

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It comes included with Standard and Pro level subscriptions of LANDR Studio.

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2. Synchro Arts Vocal Plugins

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Synchro Arts has been a household name in vocal production for decades now, and their offering is as powerful as it's ever been.

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Our three flagship products are VocAlign (vocal time alignment), RePitch (detailed editing of timing, pitch, and vibrato), and Revoice Pro (comprehensive vocal tuning, alignment, and layering).

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The main strength of these tools is their ability to quickly deliver transparent results that make vocals sound highly professional without adding artifacts.

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They also eliminate painstaking manual tasks by automating certain vocal processing needs and doing much of the hard work for you.

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So if you want your vocals to sound pitch-perfect and beautifully-timed yet still organic and alive, you should consider making at least one Synchro Arts tool part of your vocal processing arsenal.

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3. Soundtoys Little AlterBoy & MicroShift

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Speaking of household names, Soundtoys is one of the most highly-regarded plugin developers out there, particularly well-known for their Decapitator saturator and Crystallizer pitch-shifting granular delay.

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However, since the company was founded by two developers from the team that created the famous Eventide H3000, pitch shifting is a key part of their expertise.

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This makes their two main vocal effects plugins — Little Alterboy and MicroShift — well worth checking out.

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These are specialized, simplified tools, with Little Alterboy focusing mainly on vocal pitch and formant shifting while MicroShift enriches your vocals with stunning stereo width and presence.

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The controls are simple, the algorithms are clearly very carefully refined, and the results are great. Definitely worth checking out.

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4. iZotope Vocalsynth 2

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Vocal effects don't have to focus exclusively on pitch shifting and mixdown duties. Sometimes you want more creative effects that turn the human voice into a synth-like instrument.

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This is the focus of iZotope’s Vocalsynth 2. Musicians who like to express their ideas vocally will be particularly inspired by this one.

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It contains an extensive chain of effects and tools that allow you to expand your vocals into polyphonic harmonies, achieve classic vocoder and talkbox-style sounds, keep your vocals tuned in real time, and more.

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It can also give non-vocal sound sources a vocal-like character. Altogether, this plugin can turn a wide variety of inputs into expressive, vocal-inspired instruments that are playable via MIDI.

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It's a unique and powerful toolset that could help to define a unique and futuristic sound for your tracks.

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5. Eventide H3000 Factory Mk II

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Speaking of more creative vocal processing, it’s hard to think of a processing tool more iconic and legendary than the Eventide H3000 Ultra-Harmonizer.

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The original hardware rackmount effects processor was a studio mainstay in the 1990s, known particularly for its pitch shifting and delay algorithms. However, it’s now a highly sought-after vintage piece that goes for thousands on the used market.

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So Eventide now offers a plugin version that models the character of the hardware unit and contains hundreds of presets, many of which are designed specifically for vocals.

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If you’re interested in exploring more creative and experimental vocal processing techniques, this is an easy way to get iconic results without having to go into debt for the hardware version.

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6. Waves Vocal Rider

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One of the trickier aspects of recording and mixing vocals can be unpredictable or inconsistent volume.

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This can be for a number of reasons, whether it’s the natural fluctuations of the singer’s voice or different mic distances between takes and sessions.

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Waves Vocal Rider is a vocal processing plugin that specializes in solving this issue, as it maintains consistent loudness for a vocal track automatically, without painstaking manual adjustments.

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Vocal effects plugins like compressors and limiters can help with this, but a specialized tool like Vocal Rider does the job with a lot less hassle.

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Consistency and volume control are essential when it comes to getting professional vocal tracks, so this could very well be a worthwhile addition to your chain.

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7. LANDR ReHance

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The quality of a vocal performance isn’t the only factor that determines how usable it is in your track. There’s also the quality of the recording itself.

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Not everyone has access to professional-level recording studio setups with clean acoustics and full isolation, so it’s pretty common for background noise and unwanted reverberation to get into home vocal recordings.

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LANDR ReHance offers a fast and easy way to deal with these issues so that you can focus on the vocal processing that really counts.

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Powered by InSoundz, it uses a sophisticated machine learning algorithm to automatically remove unwanted background noise, bleed from other instruments, recording artifacts, reverberation, and plosives so that only the clean vocal performance is left.

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We’ve found it to be a huge time-saver, and it's one of many other excellent vocal plugins included in LANDR Studio.

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8. Valhalla VintageVerb

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It’s pretty impressive how much a good reverb can do for a vocal track. Whether you want to create large, evocative spaces or add subtle dimension and ambience to a performance, the potential is inspiring.

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As far as reverbs go, it’s hard to go wrong with Valhalla, a developer that has made some of the most widely-used reverb plugins in modern music.

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VintageVerb is probably their most beloved plugin, a stunningly versatile reverb that punches well above its generously low price.

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You can use VintageVerb on just about any sound source and get great results, and vocals are no exception. In fact, its detailed level of control over the character of the reverb makes it particularly vocal-friendly.

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In our opinion, adding VintageVerb to your vocal effects toolkit is a no-brainer.

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9. TAL-Chorus-LX

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Who doesn’t love a free plugin that’s dead simple and delivers the results you want with no fuss?

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TAL, one of the best indie plugin developers in the game, developed this plugin as a reproduction of the chorus that’s built into the Roland Juno 60 synthesizer.

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While it was, of course, originally designed to add stereo width to the Juno 60 synth voice, this version also happens to make a great vocal effects plugin.

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This chorus is known for its simple, elegant design and warm, full-bodied sound. It’s therefore no surprise that producers would want to reach for it to get instant width and ambience for vocal takes.

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Since this one doesn’t cost a thing, we highly recommend downloading it and throwing it on your vocals to see if you like what you hear.

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10. oeksound Soothe2

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Aside from artifacts in the recording and fluctuations in volume, another common problem area in vocal recordings is unwanted resonances.

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These can interfere with the clarity of the vocal itself, not to mention the clarity of your overall mix. The last thing you want is a muddy, boxy, or harsh vocal.

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Soothe2 is an impressive tool designed to tame unwanted resonances automatically in real time, making it a rather smart tool that can take a significant amount of work out of the equation.

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This can potentially be a game changer as a vocal effects plugin, helping keep things smooth and pleasant so that the performance can really do its thing.

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However, it’s one of the most expensive plugins on this list, so if you think it’s worth having, you should be using it for far more than vocals. Certainly worth considering.

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Make your vocals shine

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As you can see, the plugin world is full of vocal processing and vocal effects tools that can take your vocals from dirty to clean, from dry to dimensional, and from basic to next-level.

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As tempting as it is to stock up and throw everything you can at your vocals, keep in mind that more advanced and expensive plugins don’t necessarily guarantee a good result.

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It’s ultimately the performance that matters the most, and when you’ve got the essentials covered — especially audio cleanup, EQ, dynamics, pitch processing, and reverb — you’ll be able to support that performance with great sound.

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The legendary Synchro Arts vocal plugins and the tools included with LANDR Studio are carefully built and tailored to make this easier than ever, so we highly recommend checking out what’s included if you want a comprehensive, pro-level tool set without breaking the bank!