Why CLA Vocals is so good?

[jankhner]

I have tried so many vocal mixing plugins and I've tried to mix my vocals with separate plug-ins for EQ, compressor, reverb, and delay, but i almost always get the best results with the CLA Vocals! I usually use the presets and then I make little changes to them. I am wondering about this because if i'd know the answer it could help me to to become better at mixing vocals (and I'd rather use other than the Waves plugins).

[lfm]

Try the help button in the plugin and read it!
- you can probably read cross over frequency for eq section and other faders what they do
- and if the compressor is built on CLA-2A maybe?
- things like that

Every Waves plugin has a questionmark in panel. One of the strong points for Waves.
- others are A/B testing
- and saving own presets in plugin own menu and no need to look on disk for that

I bought everything of interest from Waves 10 years ago and still working in Windows 11.
- no WUP since then
- best support in the business and reply within hours

Do I sound like a fanboi, so be it.....but I fully understand your wish to understand why it works....

[andymcbain]

It doesn’t say so in the manual, but I heard that each fader on CLA Vocals corresponds to a parallel (aux) fx chain. Here’s one example for adding top end to a vocal -



The same principle can apply to compression, distortion etc.

You could maybe use plugindoctor to see what the various settings on CLA vocals are doing to the signal and try and recreate them.

I agree though, CLA Vocals is a great plugin and sometimes it just works. Annoyingly great in fact!

[Starbright]

Honestly I find CLA Vocals overhyped: it's nice but I prefer other options like Vocal Menace (which is free).
Not that I hate the CLA stuff (I love his console and reverbs) but I think it's missing a big feature: ducker on the delay and verb.
In terms of probably best vocal mixing in my opinion is Nectar and Ssl Vocalstrip. But nectar is amazing for beginners.