Vocal Rider adjusts vocal levels automatically to a target level – without drawing automation and without colouring the sound through compression.

Vocals need a consistent level, but manual automation is tedious and heavy compression colours the voice. Vocal Rider unobtrusively raises or lowers the gain, just as if you were making fast, precise fader moves, with up to 12 dB of gain or attenuation – ideal when mic technique varies. Feed a submix of the instruments into the sidechain and the target level shifts with the music, and Vocal Rider can write its gain changes to an automation track for further editing. Because it adds no latency, it is ideal for the stage too, and it suits podcasts and video narration as well as singing.

Features

• No need to draw automation curves manually
• No over-compression that suffocates the voice
• Suitable for studio and live mixing
• Ideal for vocals and voice in music, podcasts and video narration
• Real-time operation with no added latency
• Writes an automation track for easy fine-tuning

Technical details

• Operating systems: Windows, macOS
• Plug-in formats: VST3, Audio Unit (macOS only), AAX
• Architecture: 64 bit
• Licensing: licence key, machine-bound or USB flash drive (via Waves Central)

System requirements

• macOS 14 Sonoma, 15 Sequoia, 26 Tahoe or 27 Golden Gate (Apple silicon or Intel)
• Windows 10 64-bit (version 22H2) or Windows 11 (Intel or AMD, x64)
• 16 GB RAM
• 30 GB free disk space on the system drive

The licence is registered with the manufacturer at https://www.waves.com/downloads/central. You will receive your serial number and the download link by e-mail immediately after purchase.