Waves Maserati VX1 Vocal Enhancer

Tony Maserati's music mostly focuses on things like vocals, and this plugin is a great plugin to show off how he approaches things. The plugin itself has knobs for sensitivity, bass, compress, treble, output, fx, delay, delay mix, decay and vrb tone. The plugin also has different button settings for contour 1, contour 2 and contour 3. I've never read the manual, so I can't comment as to how well it's written. However, the plugin itself is laid out in a fairly easy to use manner, so there shouldn't be any real need to read it. If in doubt, start moving the knobs. To use this, simply enable it on your vocal buss, and you're good to go.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

Waves is really one of the best companies out there when it comes to implementing solid plugins with no real fuss. These plugins are always rock solid and super stable; this plugin is really no different. I've never experienced a single crash or hiccup while using this plugin. The plugin is also cross platform compatible, so Windows and OS X users alike can use these without any problems. There is one issue that I always gripe about, however. These plugins are 32 bit for OS X. Right now, I'm using a 64 bit DAW, and for me to utilize these plugins, it needs to launch a special bridge application. I'm not a huge fan of the way my DAW utilizes these, so I'm hoping they update these in the future. I've been using the Waves Mercury bundle for the past six or so months, and it's been a very enlightening experience to say the least.

OVERALL OPINION

For power metal vocals, this has helped quite a bit. It's also helped out with some rock mixes that I do in my spare time. However, I'm mainly a death metal guitarist, and using this on screams and growls isn't exactly the best thing in the world. It's style dependent, but it should work for most people.

The Waves Ltd. Maserati VX1 Vocal Enhancer is a plug-in that is a part of the Waves Ltd. Maserati Collection of plug-ins, designed by Waves and famed producer/engineer Tony Maserati. This one in particular is designed as a one stop shop for vocal processing. I installed the plug-in along with the full bundle of Waves plug-ins, so there wasn't anything specific about getting this one up and running. The plug-in shares a similar looking interface to the other plug-ins in this collection, which is pretty easy on the eyes and easy to use overall. It also does share a lot of the same sorts of parameters as the other plug-ins, so if you've used one or two of these Maserati plug-ins, you should feel comfortable across the board. The VX1 Vocal Enhancer consists of knobs for sensitivity, bass and treble, compression, and output level. It also has three different contour modes to choose from, and a further series of parameters with delay. I haven't had a need to look at the manual, so I can't say anything about it's make up.

SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE

I'm currently running the Waves Ltd. Maserati VX1 Vocal Enhancer plug-in in Pro Tools LE 8. I've got a Mac Book Pro lap top that has a 2.2 Ghz Intel Core 2 Duo processor and 4 GB of RAM, while I'm running Pro Tools with a Digi 002R audio interface. This has been enough for me to run this plug-in comfortably, but I haven't had a need to run more than one or two of them at a time as it is a vocal processor so I'm not needing to run it on every track. It's hard to say how well a plug-in will run on any given system, but chances are that if you've got or are looking to get this plug-in, you've already got an adequate system to work with.

OVERALL OPINION

When I'm looking to get a quick vocal sound, the Waves Ltd. Maserati VX1 Vocal Enhancer is the perfect way to get the job done quick and easy. For true mixing and printing I like to use individual processors as it gives you more control in the end. Don't get me wrong, this is fine to use in a real mix and I have done so before, but most of the time I'll use it for getting a quick sound. The sound of the plug-in is definitely worth printing with, as it sounds great. Of course being that this is an all in one vocal processor, you're getting a lot here in a small space so you can really only scratch the surface of the processing in here. You can only get this in the full Maserati Collection bundle of plug-ins, which is definitely a bundle worth checking out if you're at all interested in this one...