PS-VC1 Professional Series Vocal Chain

Vocal Chain

Low End, High End, Compress, Reverb, Echo, Width. Six modules on one panel, in the order a vocal actually gets mixed — so the take that fought you all morning sits in the track in about ninety seconds.

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Compatible with AAX

Professional Series — Release 01

Seventy years of studio. One clean tool.

Since 2012 we have been taking apart the machines that made records sound the way they do — the tube amplifiers, the passive filter networks, the transformers — and rebuilding them component by component in software. Twenty-six plug-ins later, that work is still the heart of what we do.

Fourteen years of it teaches you something the schematics never say out loud: which moves in a classic channel genuinely earn their place on a vocal, and which are simply the decade the box was built in. Seventy years of studio practice, and only a handful of decisions that matter every time.

The PS-VC1 is those decisions and nothing else. Six modules, one signal path, built from scratch as a precise modern design rather than a model of any single unit — so the moves are the ones engineers have made since the fifties, and the tool is built for the way you work now.

The layout follows the chain. Preset, fader, bypass — the same three controls every time, so your hands learn the panel once. No menus, no nested pages, no hunting for the parameter you moved thirty seconds ago. What used to be six plug-in windows is one screen.

The signal path

Six modules, twenty-four presets

Four starting points per module, each one argued over until it earned its place. Nothing to build from scratch, nothing to name, nothing to save. Below is the actual panel — not an illustration of it.

The six module faders of the PS-VC1: Low End, High End and Compress across a plus/minus 15 dB range, Reverb, Echo and Width from 0 to 100

Low End, High End and Compress run ±15 dB. Reverb, Echo and Width are mix controls from 0 to 100. Each module bypasses on its own lamp.

Low End

20 Hz – 640 Hz

Rumble, proximity effect and low-mid buildup, handled before anything else touches the signal. Sub reaches down to 20 Hz, Mid runs up to 640 Hz for the vocal's fundamentals.

High End

1.2 kHz – 20 kHz

Sharp sits in a tight 5–6 kHz window for sibilance. Silk smooths, Edge brings presence, and Air opens the top all the way to 20 kHz.

Compress

Peak / Vintage detection

Four styles from transparent leveling to Limit, driven by peak or vintage detection. Auto makeup gain matches the level for you, so bypassing the module compares character instead of loudness.

Reverb

Room → Cathedral

A reverb algorithm written for this chain: small reflective rooms through to cathedral decay, designed to stay out of the CPU meter when you have forty of them open.

Echo

Slapback → Tempo sync

Tempo-synced or free-running. Fast for slapback thickness, Eight and Quarter for rhythmic repeats, Space for long ambient trails.

Width

All-Pass / Haas / Hilbert

Three different stereo algorithms across four amounts. Widen the vocal without gambling on what happens when the mix folds to mono.

Top to bottom

Six easy steps. One kick-ass vocal!

The panel is laid out in the order you already work in. Start at the top, finish at the bottom, and you are done — no routing to plan, no chain to rebuild for the next song.

Set the input

Bring the vocal to a healthy working level on the input meter before any processing. Check phase here if the take used more than one microphone.
Clean the low end

Remove rumble and proximity buildup first. The compressor reacts far more predictably once it is not reading energy you intend to throw away.
Compress

Pick a style, leave auto makeup gain engaged, and bypass the module repeatedly. Levels are matched, so you are judging character rather than volume.
Shape the top

Add presence and air, and tame any sibilance the compression has just brought forward.
Place the vocal

Reverb and Echo last, then Width to decide how far the voice spreads. Check it in mono if the mix is headed for club, broadcast or phone speakers.
Match the output

Trim the output so engaging and bypassing the plug-in produces no level jump — then make the call with the Power switch.

Both ends of the chain

Both ends, in plain sight

Two meters, two faders, and nothing left to guess at either end of the chain.

Input

Input gain from −30 to +15 dB, a phase invert for multi-mic sources, and a pan control that places the signal before any processing happens. The high-resolution LED meter is there so you set the level by eye rather than by hope.

Output

The same range on the way out, with a second LED meter after all processing. Power drops the whole chain while signal keeps flowing, so the A/B is instant and nothing in the session has to be re-patched.

Under the panel