Awesome video thanks for your wisdom and knowledge 🙏
I also agree with you about de-essers. I normally the dbx 902 because of this.

You are the goat

Amazing video!  Thank you so much for sharing all this wisdom

Fellow Georgian. For any small artist doing gigs my secret weapon is the pod x3 live. It’s an amazing vocal processor. Multiple preamp models, compression, parametric eq. Even a volume pedal which really comes in handy. It’s an older unit but for $200 used, it outperforms many thousand dollar units. Start getting hiss? Just smash the volume pedal.

Plus its hardware, makes stereo easy, you can even run an in ear rig from it if you’re playing solo. The reverbs and preamps are outstanding and will really level up your live game. Especially running straight to pa.

For a subtle correction the flamma corrector pedal on about 30% works great as well.

For solo or small groups type shows, if you’re new to equipment I recommend going strictly hardware. It will save some headaches.

I don’t know any large livestream churches that don’t tune. It’s absolutely essential, even for the best singers. The compression of livestreams really ruins vocals. Especially YouTube.

Not an expert like you are. But if you’re a local artist you won’t regret a pod x3 live. Get it dialed and run your mic through it wherever you go. Can even run two separate signal paths. (2 vocal, 1 vocal and guitar etc)

And it has a deesser that I don’t use. Line 6 really scaled back the functionality on newer processors because the older ones did so much.

Plus if you break a $200 processor not a huge deal. I always have 2 for backup

Loved it,

Great video Dave! Awesome to get to see what other engineers are doing. My vocal chain right now starts with HPF on the console, then a blue stripe 1176, with the same attack and release you showed on yours, into an R-Vox just doing a small amount of compression, but using it’s gate function. Then I do my EQ with an F6, even though I rarely use the dynamic-ness it offers on vocals. After that I typically go into a C6 using a slightly modified Zito vocal preset that’s been working great. Once I’ve done that I’ll typically do a R-Deesser, and then into a LA-2A just barely doing 1-2db of compression just to kind of cap things off. I do put the Waves Tune at the end typically. Your comments on that did make sense, but I’m wanting it to be after any gating I’m doing, and in my mind I want to send the fully processed vocal into it so that it’s only tuning the actual sound of the finished vocal. Idk, I’ve tried swapping it in the past and was slightly happier with it at the end so that’s where it lives now, but it very well could be hurting me at times.

Awesome content! Do you do any Group/bus processing on your vocals asa whole?

Hey Dave, you tuned our 2005 EAW boxes at Anona Church a couple years back. We finally got to upgrade this year with some LAcoustics. With all the new "truth" in our system, we are fighting a lot more vocal harshness and really getting to learn our way around dynamic EQ and multiband compression. I'd love to hear your thoughts on using that to tame vocals.

Thanks for sharing your plugin chain its been really helpful. I have a question tho, do you use vocal rider? where in the chain would you place it?

Dope video dude 👌
im planning to start doing live shows soon I'm get me a P.A system and a usb mixer either the yamaha Mg10xu or the mackie ProFX10v3 i got ableton suite11 in my laptop and i want to be able to use my vocal pre set chain as im performing live. Should that do it or im need more equipment? I do alternative hip hop so the beat is also gonna be coming out of ableton

How can I insert vst into the main LR bus on the mixer from Live professor 2?

PSE into Sibilance Live into Emo D5 intoF6 into J37

Great video!  Hi, I’m Saikat, and I’m struggling with optimizing gain structure for live vocals, especially when working with singers who have varying vocal dynamics. Singers with strong throat pressure project well, but those with lower throat pressure struggle to be heard.

For singers with high throat pressure, my PFL meter shows peak levels between -30 dB and -12 dB.
[Microphone: Shure QLXD-4 | Preamp Gain: 25 dB | AF Output Level: 0 dB]
However, for singers with lower throat pressure, peak levels drop to between -40 dB and -30 dB.

When I increase the preamp gain from 25 dB to 28 dB, feedback becomes an issue.

What techniques can I use on the Digico S31 console and Waves SuperRack to boost the volume of quieter singers from -30 dB to -12 dB without introducing feedback?

Currently I just wiped my superrack show.  😂  so it’s just Dlive processing, and it’s work cuz it doesn’t have all the tools I’m used too.  😂  Before I wiped it, It was waves tune, to ssE chan, with compressor set to 3:1 and I would drive the pre till I got the first amber light to dance a bit.  I like the ssl cuz of the auto makeup gain.  I set the eq to pre dynamics, and scooped the mud a bit, then it would go to f6, where I set the range to -18 and fastest attack time and would just set the threshold to pull what I deem unnecessary out based on how hard they are singing.  From there I would go to bluey 1176.  I was told that 10 and 2 o’clock is the secret sauce in those compressors so I play with the attack and release.  And just let it be aggressive, then cla2a and at their most aggressive it’s just 3 to 6 db of gr.  Then l1 to turn it back down so if waves goes out it’s level matched.  And I use l1 to catch anything that gets through.    So yeah that’s really hard to recreate in Dlive 😂

Great video and chain! I’m curious, with a lead vocal chain like the one you’re using that’s got the dynamics under control. Do you bother ringing out the mic from the FOH mains?

Why would you not place the tuning after the PSE? You just explained that background noise can make it weird sometimes.

What interface do you use to go into your laptop?

You should try waves NS 1 instead of gates.... Way better.

Where does a newbie singer start??? Everything seems to start at such a high and unintelligible language. How can I start at a simpler basic ENTRY LEVEL?

If you have to use that many plug ins in your vocal chain then there's severe problems with your source signal. PSE, dynamic eq, compressor, desser  you're using what? 8 ?