VocRider – Free Vocal Rider VST Plugin By Terry West

VocRider is a freeware vocal rider VST plugin developed by Terry West, providing smooth leveling of vocal tracks in relation to the backing tracks and the rest of the mix.

The plugin was built on a concept similar to the vocal riding workflow in Cubase which was described in Sound On Sound magazine (here’s the actual article if you want to take a look), except that Terry West’s latest freeware creation will work in any VST plugin compatible DAW (as long as it’s a 32-bit Windows application and it supports basic side-chaining).

See also: Best Freeware Compressor VST Plugins!

The download pack includes a text document which explains how to set up VocRider in Cubase, however the setup process will be more or less complicated than that depending on which DAW you’re using. I was able to set everything up in 30 seconds (literally) in MuLab due to its modular nature. Anyways, the basic idea is simple. Hook up the vocal channel to the plugin’s left input and connect the side-chain signal (which will be used to ride the volume level of the vocals) to the right channel. That’s all there is to it!

To avoid any confusion, VocRider won’t automagically level the volume of your vocal tracks in Waves Vocal Rider fashion (in other words, it won’t level out your vocalist’s performance). What it will do however is to automatically control the level of your vocals so that they stay on top of other elements of the mix (which are sent to VocRider through the side-chain input). So, if you have a nicely compressed vocal track which gets masked in the mix by a guitar track or a backing vocal track, VocRider will make your life easier by adjusting the main vocal’s volume throughout the arrangement, so that it doesn’t get covered by those other tracks. Apart from this fundamental feature, the plugin (which was updated to v1.3 yesterday) also comes with a handy “de-harsher” module to smooth out the higher frequency content, a simple 2-band EQ and a main output volume control.

It seems that Terry West’s website is down at the moment, so I’m linking to the official KVR Audio forum thread in the downloads section below. You’ll be able to download the latest version of the plugin from there, as well as to get in touch with the developer if you have any questions and/or bug reports.

Download

VocRider is available for free download via KVR Audio (1.99 MB download size, ZIP archive, 32-bit VST plugin format for Windows, made with SynthEdit).