Waves Vocal Rider - a waste of money?

[Salvatore Sorice]

I'm still a newbie on mixing but did use Waves Vocal Rider on a project and it seemed to work well. This Youtube short (by @BigZMusic - he has some good content) says that you can use Fabfilter ProC (or similar) to achieve the same result.

Opinions?

Youtube short - Vocal Rider is a waste of money

[mettelus]

His comment is accurate. The term "riding the fader" is another thing you might find interesting. Prior to compressors, engineers needed to manually adjust gain (real time) via faders alone. Compressors eased a lot of that need (and are one of the most used FX), but it is also important to understand compressors and their application. Rather than get a plugin the "does things for you," it is often far better to understand "common" tools and how to use them properly.

[Guest]

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Edited February 22 by Sock Monkey

[SVSX]

This is a very dumb video, because he is comparing the Fabfilter for 150 Dollars with a 30 Dollar plugin (no one is buying Waves plugins for regular pricetags). Aside from that you can write your automation and correct it pretty easy, so you have more control over your results. Nothing against Fabfilter, its an awesome tool, but calling Vocal Rider a useless waste of money ist straight up wrong.

[Misha]

Vocal rider was the first plugin I bought from Waves. It's a neat quick "slap on" plugin if you need just to level everything for a sketch.  I ditched Waves for two reasons. First, when they announced that it will be subscription only service, even after they swiftly reverted  their decision.  Just don't have the trust in the company and secondly, I found their licensing protection too intrusive.  

I think  Vocal rider falls into category of TrackSpacer, which serves a different purpose (auto EQ carving) but somewhat similar approach. Quick "fix".

Salvatore, I believe gain automation in Cakewalk is the way to go.  It is very intuitive and truth be told, one of several main reasons why for now I still use Cakewalk.

P.S. Main challenge for me personally when mixing are frequency clashes. While I do have most of Izotope plugins,  FabFilter is my To Go plugin set and had been for years.  Their new Q4 is a state of the art EQ plugin.  It  makes life much easier.  I don't believe that any EQ on the market comes remotely close in functions or design.

 

[Salvatore Sorice]

Thanks @SVSX and @Misha 

I’ve had good success with both Vocal Rider and Trackspacer so I’ll continue using them. Will have to work more with gain automation as well. So much to learn!

[Misha]

The root problem of automatic things like Vocal rider or Trackspacer is that is taking away the creative part of mixing. Only you, as artist know which parts should be louder or softer. Same goes for automation of creative plugins, reverb, delay, flanger, etc.   As a quick fix, they work wonders, but once you spend  2-3 hours with automation, you will likely see things differently.