Used for vocals on "Gum Body", as stated by mix engineer Jesse Ray Ernster in this June 12, 2020 MusicTech interview. An image of the settings for the "Lead Vox" channel can be found here.

BURNA’S VOCAL: “A big part of the job of a mixer is knowing when not to change things,” insists Ernster, “Burna’s vocal usually doesn’t require much work, and this song was no exception! His vocal stem arrived with all processing and effects printed into the track, and it sounded identical to the approved reference mix that he had grown accustomed to hearing, so my job was to enhance subtly, without changing the vibe too much!”

The first plug-in on the vocal chain was the Metric Halo Transient Control, with the sustain knob turned down to tame some of the effects and cut down room reverberation that had bled into the microphone, for a closer, more up-front vocal. Next, Ernster deployed the trusty bx_SSL E channel plug-in to boost 4.3khz and 13.5khz to help emphasize some of the consonants of Burna’s vocal, for better intelligibility.

Not one to believe in magic frequencies, Ernster’s technique is to “sweep around until the sound feels better to my ears.” Liking where the vocal was sitting against the track, but with certain phrases poking out unevenly, Ernster reached for a compressor. But his favourites – Rev E 1176, CLA-76 – all altered the ratio between vocals and effects too much, making the voice sound washed out. “I ended up rolling with a combo of clip-gain automation and some subtle compression on the Metric Halo Channel Strip. That glued the vocal into place without changing the character that we all loved from the reference mix.”

“After that, I used an instance of Soothe to tame a few whistley resonances that were poking through and causing harshness at 2.9khz and 5.3khz. The final step in the vocal processing sees the Acustica Amber3 (which emulates the Avalon AD2055) boosted at 25khz for some “silky air”. “I usually reach for the Crane Song Phoenix as a final touch to pull a bit of grit forward, and in this scenario, I used the Luster/Sapphire setting with a 68% mix. Finally, I used a FabFilter ProQ3 to cut 0.73dB at 490hz to dial back a resonance.”

VOCAL FX & DEPTH: “Lately, I’ve been focusing on depth within my mixes,” says Ernster. “It’s crucial to me that the singer is glued into a similar sonic environment as the rest of the arrangement.”

“I sent Burna’s vocal to a series of effects busses that I used to fuse the vocal into the metaphorical space of the song. On this song, I used a few different simple Waves H-Delay tracks set at 1/2, 1/4, 1/8th, 1/16th note, and a quick slap setting. All of these fed into reverb tracks with Revibe II, Valhalla VintageVerb (Dirty Plate), and Lexicon Medium Hall. I adjusted the blend of these multiple effects auxes until the blend felt glued, but also still similar enough to the reference mix – just better and deeper.”