homecrate vocal (Vocal Chain)
homecrate vocal is a complete vocal channel in one plugin. Instead of stacking a tuner, a compressor, a de-esser, a doubler, a delay and a reverb from six different developers, you load one AUv3 on your vocal track and everything is already wired in the right order.
It’s built for the moment after you’ve captured a take: the performance is good, but the vocal sits behind the track, a few notes drift, the s sounds spit, and it feels dry and small. This plugin is the path from that raw take to something that sits in the mix.
It’s one of homecrate’s own plugins, so it’s already installed — nothing to buy or download separately.
📘 This page is the short version — how to use homecrate vocal inside the DAW. Every parameter, its exact range and default, the signal path, and three full starting-point recipes live in the dedicated section: homecrate vocal documentation →
[SCREENSHOT: homecrate vocal full plugin face — tuner glass at top, MASTER and TUNE panels, SHAPE tab open below, EQ at the bottom]
Loading It
Open a plugin slot on your vocal track and pick homecrate: hc_vocal from the Effects tab of the browser. See Loading & Removing Plugins if you haven’t loaded a plugin before.
Put it after anything that shapes the raw input (a preamp emulation, say) and before anything that’s meant to treat the whole mix. On a normal vocal track, slot 1 is fine.
The Layout
The face scrolls vertically. Top to bottom:
| Area | What lives there |
|---|---|
| Header | The CORRECT latch — the master on/off for pitch correction |
| Tuner glass | Detected note → target note, the keybed, and KEY / SCALE / RANGE |
| MASTER | IN gain, the PRESETS menu, SAVE, and OUT gain |
| TUNE | SPEED, AMOUNT, TRANS, FORMANT, HUMAN |
| Tabs | SHAPE (gate, de-ess, comp, drive, plus the CHARACTER IR panel at its foot), ECHO (delay), SPACE (reverb, doubler) |
| EQ | Five fixed-frequency tone bands |
The three tabs are just pages of the same plugin — switching tabs never changes your sound, it only changes what you’re looking at. All three keep processing whichever one you’re looking at.
Every knob double-taps back to its default.
The panel order on screen is not the signal order. MASTER sits near the top but its OUT gain is the last thing in the chain, and the EQ panel sits at the very bottom but actually runs mid-chain — after the de-esser and before the compressor. See Where things actually sit.
Pitch Correction
This is the top half of the plugin, and it’s the part you’ll set first.
The tuner glass shows two notes: on the left, the note it hears you singing; on the right, the note it’s pulling you toward. Watching that pair while a take plays tells you instantly whether the plugin is helping or fighting the performance — if the target note jumps around on a held note, your scale or range setting is wrong.
[SCREENSHOT: Tuner glass close-up — detected note, arrow, target note, phosphor keybed below]
Choosing the target notes
There are two ways to tell the plugin which notes are allowed:
- KEY + SCALE menus — pick the key of your song and a scale (Chromatic, Major, Minor, Harmonic Minor, Melodic Minor, Dorian, Mixolydian, Major Pentatonic, Minor Pentatonic, Blues). This lights up the matching notes on the keybed.
- The keybed itself — tap individual notes to switch them on or off. This is the real source of truth; the KEY/SCALE menus are just quick presets that rewrite it.
If a chorus keeps sliding to a note that isn’t in the song, switch that note off on the keybed rather than reaching for a different scale.
RANGE
RANGE (Low / Mid / High) tells the pitch corrector how low a voice to expect. Set it to match the singer:
- Low — bass and baritone voices
- Mid — most singers, and the sensible default
- High — soprano, or a voice that keeps getting detected an octave too low
Getting this right matters more than any other pitch setting. A range that’s too low makes the detector chase octave errors on a bright voice; too high and it will lose the bottom of a deep one.
The TUNE panel
The pitch knobs live on their own TUNE panel, directly under MASTER:
| Control | Range | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| CORRECT (header) | on / off | on | Master latch for the whole pitch section |
| SPEED | 0–400 ms | 20 ms | How fast the voice glides to the target note. 0 = the hard-tune snap. |
| AMOUNT | 0–1 | 1.00 | How far toward the target note it pulls. 0 = untouched, 1 = fully snapped |
| TRANS | −12 to +12 st | 0 | Transposes the whole voice in semitones |
| FORMANT | −12 to +12 st | 0 | Shifts vocal character without shifting the sung pitch — down for bigger/darker, up for smaller/brighter |
| HUMAN | 0–1 | 0.00 | Adds slow random drift (up to ±15 cents) so a corrected vocal stops sounding frozen |
Two very different sounds live in SPEED. Anything from about 20–60 ms is transparent tuning — it fixes drift and you don’t hear it working. Set it to 0 and you get the instant, stepped, hard-tune effect, which is a production choice rather than a repair.
Two things about this panel are worth knowing before you dial it in:
- AMOUNT does not scale TRANS. Transposition always applies in full, even at AMOUNT 0 — which makes TRANS usable on its own as a clean pitch shifter with correction dialled out.
- FORMANT is not a “preserve formants” toggle. It’s an offset relative to the pitch the corrector is following. At 0 the vocal-tract envelope moves along with the correction, which is exactly right for the small shifts tuning involves, and why 0 sounds natural. If you use TRANS for a big shift, dial FORMANT the opposite way to claw the timbre back.
Note on latency. Pitch correction needs a look at the incoming signal before it can act, so turning CORRECT on adds a small fixed delay (the exact amount depends on the RANGE setting). homecrate compensates for it during playback and mixdown. If you’re monitoring yourself live while tracking and want the tightest possible feel, switch CORRECT off for the take and back on afterwards.
SHAPE — Gate, De-Ess, Compression, Drive
The SHAPE tab is the dynamics stage. It runs before the delay and reverb, which is what you want: you’re cleaning up and levelling the voice first, so the effects are fed something consistent.
| Control | Range | What it’s for |
|---|---|---|
| GATE | on / off | Mutes the signal below the threshold — kills headphone bleed, room noise and breath between lines. It also gates the pitch detector, so silence stops producing phantom notes. |
| THRESH | −80 to −20 dB | Where the gate opens. Set it just under the quietest note you want to keep. |
| DE-ESS | 0–1 | Ducks sibilance at the top of the voice, leaving the body of it alone. Raise it until the s sounds stop stabbing, then back off a touch. |
| COMP | 0–1 | One-knob compressor — threshold, ratio and makeup gain move together. Turn it up until the quiet lines sit as loud as the loud ones. |
| DRIVE | 0–1 | Gentle saturation. A little adds density and helps a thin voice cut; a lot gets gritty. |
[SCREENSHOT: SHAPE tab — GATE toggle, THRESH, DE-ESS, COMP, DRIVE knobs above the CHARACTER panel]
CHARACTER (impulse responses)
Below the knobs, the CHARACTER panel loads an impulse response — a captured space or piece of gear that the vocal is convolved through. Use it for telephone/radio effects, plate colour, or to place a vocal in a real captured room.
- The LCD shows the loaded IR, or NO IR LOADED.
- NORM normalises the IR’s level so switching IRs doesn’t jump your volume. Leave it on.
- MIX appears once an IR is loaded and blends the IR against the dry signal in parallel. It defaults to 1.00 — fully wet, so a freshly loaded IR is the whole sound until you pull MIX back. On a lead vocal, around 0.25 is usually where a telephone or plate sits best.
- The ✕ button unloads the IR.
🔒 Pro feature. Browsing the IR library and importing your own IRs requires Homecrate Pro. Without Pro the CHARACTER panel offers an upgrade prompt instead of the IR list.
ECHO — The Delay
The delay is the same engine as the one in homecrate amp, so if you know that one, you already know this.
| Control | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| TIME | 20–2000 ms | Delay time, used when SYNC is off |
| FEEDBACK | 0–1 | How many repeats |
| TONE | 0–1 | Damping inside the repeat loop — low is dark and tape-like, high is bright |
| MIX | 0–1 | Wet level. At 0 the delay is fully out of the signal path. |
| SYNC | on / off | Locks the delay to the project tempo |
| DIV | 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/4., 1/8., 1/4T, 1/8T | The note value used when SYNC is on |
| PONG | on / off | Cross-fed repeats that alternate left and right |
| TAPE | on / off | Tape mode — wobble, and pitch bends when the delay time changes |
| DUCK | on / off | Repeats pull back while you’re singing and bloom in the gaps |
| PLACEMENT | PRE-VERB / POST-VERB | Whether the delay feeds the reverb or sits after it |
| RUNAWAY | momentary | Hold (or automate) to send the delay into self-oscillation |
Two of these are worth calling out. DUCK is the setting that makes a heavy delay usable on a lead vocal — the repeats stay out of the way of the words and only show up in the spaces. And PLACEMENT changes the whole feel: pre-verb sends the repeats into the reverb so they smear into the space, while post-verb keeps them distinct and forward.
RUNAWAY is a performance control, not a setting. Draw it into an automation lane at the end of a phrase for a classic dub throw. See Working with Audio Clips for automation lanes.
SPACE — Reverb and Doubling
| Control | Range | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| WET | 0–1 | Reverb level |
| DECAY | 0–1 | How long the tail rings |
| SIZE | 0.5–2 | The size of the space |
| PREDLY | 0–100 ms | Gap before the reverb starts. Defaults to 20 ms, which keeps the words in front of the tail. |
| TONE | 0–1 | Dark to bright reverb colour |
| DOUBLE | 0–1 | Level of a micro-detuned copy of the voice |
| WIDTH | 0–1 | How far the doubler spreads across the stereo image |
PREDLY is the reverb control most worth learning. If a vocal is getting washed out, don’t reach for WET first — push pre-delay up to 30–50 ms so the reverb arrives after the consonant. The words stay crisp and you can keep the size.
DOUBLE / WIDTH is the fastest way to thicken a part without recording it twice. Small amounts on a lead vocal add body; large amounts with high WIDTH is the classic wide backing-vocal sound.
EQ
Five fixed bands, each ±12 dB:
| Band | Frequency | Typical use on a vocal |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 100 Hz | Cut to remove rumble and proximity boom |
| 300 | 300 Hz | Cut to clear boxiness, boost for warmth on a thin voice |
| 1K2 | 1.2 kHz | Nasal / honky range — usually a small cut |
| 3K5 | 3.5 kHz | Presence and intelligibility — small boosts push the vocal forward |
| 10K | 10 kHz | Air and sparkle |
The bands are moderately wide, so they behave like tone controls rather than surgical filters. ±3 dB does more than you’d expect.
Where things actually sit
The EQ panel is the bottom of the faceplate, but it is not the end of the chain. The real order is:
IN → gate → pitch → de-ess → EQ → comp → drive → IR → doubler → delay / reverb → OUTThe practical consequence: the EQ feeds the compressor. Boosting 3.5 kHz here makes COMP work harder on presence; cutting 100 Hz here stops rumble from triggering gain reduction. So set the EQ first, then set COMP — and re-check COMP any time you move a band.
The other thing this order buys you is that de-essing happens after pitch correction, which is the correct place for it, and that the gate runs before the pitch detector, so room noise can never produce a phantom note.
MASTER and Presets
IN sets the level going into the chain — set this first so the gate and compressor see a sensible signal. OUT trims the final level so switching the plugin on and off is a fair comparison.
The PRESETS menu loads any chain you’ve saved, and SAVE stores the current settings under a name. The delete list lives inside the same menu. Presets are separate from your project — a saved preset follows you into every project, while the exact settings on this instance are stored with the project itself.
Starting Points
These aren’t rules — they’re two known-good places to start dialling from.
Lead vocal (natural, upfront)
| Section | Setting |
|---|---|
| CORRECT | On, RANGE to match the singer |
| KEY / SCALE | Song key, Major or Minor |
| SPEED | 30–50 ms |
| AMOUNT | 0.6–0.8 |
| TRANS / FORMANT | 0 / 0 |
| HUMAN | 0.15–0.25 |
| GATE | On, THRESH just below the quietest word |
| DE-ESS | 0.3–0.5 |
| COMP | 0.4–0.6 |
| DRIVE | 0.1–0.2 |
| EQ | 100 Hz −3, 3K5 +2 |
| ECHO | SYNC on, 1/8 dotted, FEEDBACK 0.3, MIX 0.15, DUCK on, POST-VERB |
| SPACE | WET 0.2, DECAY 0.4, SIZE 1.0, PREDLY 30 ms, DOUBLE 0.15, WIDTH 0.4 |
The goal here is that switching the plugin off should make the vocal sound worse but not different.
Backing stack (wide, blended, behind the lead)
| Section | Setting |
|---|---|
| CORRECT | On, same key as the lead |
| SPEED | 5–15 ms (tighter — stacks need to agree with each other) |
| AMOUNT | 0.9–1.0 |
| HUMAN | 0 (drift smears a stack) |
| DE-ESS | 0.5–0.7 (stacked sibilance adds up fast) |
| COMP | 0.6–0.8 |
| EQ | 100 Hz −6, 300 Hz −2, 3K5 −1 (leave the presence range to the lead) |
| SPACE | DOUBLE 0.5–0.7, WIDTH 0.8–1.0, WET 0.3, PREDLY 10 ms |
| ECHO | MIX 0 or very low |
The two big differences from a lead: correct harder and faster so the stack locks to itself, and carve out the presence range so the backing sits behind the lead rather than competing with it.
Tips
- Set RANGE before you touch anything else. Almost every “the tuning sounds weird” problem is a range mismatch, not a retune-speed problem.
- Watch the detected → target readout on a chorus before you commit. If the target flickers, tighten the keybed instead of turning AMOUNT down.
- Reach for PREDLY before WET when a vocal is getting lost in reverb.
- Turn CORRECT off while tracking to keep monitoring latency at its lowest, then turn it back on to mix.
- Set EQ before COMP — the EQ feeds the compressor, so every band move changes how hard you’re hitting it.
- Pull CHARACTER MIX back after loading an IR. It starts at 1.00, which is the full effect and rarely what you want on a lead.
- Double-tap any knob to snap it back to its default.
- Save two presets — one lead, one backing — and load them as starting points on every song rather than dialling from scratch.
- If a corrected vocal sounds lifeless, add HUMAN before you reduce AMOUNT. It usually gets you the life back without letting the drift return.
- Need a vocal to duck under (or push against) another track? That’s a different tool — see homecrate dynEQ & Send.
- Everything on this page in full detail — exact ranges, defaults, the complete signal path, and three worked starting points — is in the homecrate vocal documentation.