Waves Vocal Bender vs Soundtoys Little AlterBoy Comparison & In-Depth Review

[@GourlieRecords]

MINI POLL: Vocal Bender or Little AlterBoy?

[@TheDonLemonSnickety]

Damn I ended up buying Vocal Bender like a week ago cuz of a sale (yea I know, waves stuff is always on sale), but even from the first high pitch comparison here I think Alterboy sounds more natural.

[@TheDonLemonSnickety]

I dunno…I usually buy my plugins in bundles like Native Ins’s Komplete etc…but the Soundtoys stuff just feels $$$ n I don’t see it on sale too often. A few fx from Soundtoys and some from FabFilter are really the only things on my main wish list that I haven’t forked out the cash for yet but really want. Clearly Alterboy has its unique abilities but while Pro-Q seems great for its visuals, I don’t even know if third party plugins these days are all that much better than the stuff inside Ableton Suite being used well. N w vocal fx I have Vocal Bender, OVOX, a bunch of compressors, EQs etc from Waves, a lot of stuff from Native, Izotope, n even Melodyne 5 (kinda never got around to learning that one yet)…so i gotta wonder if there’s any reason to drop more $ on something like alterboy. Oh n subscribing to like this crazy Antares bundle pack w Autotune n tons of other stuff Could there be anything I couldn’t replicate with the stuff I have in a nice chain preset that Alterboy does?

[@GourlieRecords]

@@TheDonLemonSnickety The core 2 things that Little Alter Boy has that Vocal Bender doesn't is a distortion knob (but it sounds like you have plenty of replacements for that) and being able to use a MIDI keyboard to adjust the pitch. Whether you think forking out the money for a keyboard pitch bend/vocoder effect is up to you. But I agree with you that most things can be achieved within Ableton itself and you can get A LOT of miles out of those stock plugins.

[@KordTaylor]

Excellent! And remember other plugs like those from Antares and SychroArts have formant control built in and give you a bit more control. Folks usually don’t know that they can get formant in these pitch-correction products.

[@vonthorne8387]

very good break down. Apreciate it

[@GourlieRecords]

My pleasure! 😊

[@cubenc.7869]

not even 30 seconds in and i’m spitting applesauce everywhere

[@GourlieRecords]

😝

[@SorayasFierceCookingShow]

Thanks

[@josharguinzoni8361]

helped me save $60

[@GourlieRecords]

🕺

[@nicholasbessette2001]

Waves vocal bender sounds really bad on talking dialogue. It will always try to go on a note resulting bad artifact. Had to buy Alter boy for dialogue post production !

[@DThompson55]

Great video! Loving my Little Alterboy. Have you noticed the modern doubler preset adds up to a 32 ms delay in the wet signal? I don't hear it on other settings, or I haven't played with it enough. But it's there. Also I love your tip about playing robot mode like a vocorder.

[@GourlieRecords]

I haven't noticed that, I usually don't mess with the presets too much. I do notice a delay though on my choir effect. Of course some of it will depend on your hardware specs and buffer rates.

[@cedricmi]

Vocal Bender is designed for real-time usage, it's zero latency, contrary to Little Alterboy. If you're missing MIDI manipulation, there's OVOX which is super powerful. Generally, Vocal Bender + Ovox is less expensive than Little Alterboy and way way ahead in capabilities.

[@GourlieRecords]

True!

[@mudi2000a]

Thank you for this useful video! I am currently looking into those plugins. By the way: With Bitwig Studio it is very easy to control Vocal Bender with Midi. You can use the key track modulator, set root note to C3, spread to 12 semitones. Then set Flatten Note to C3 and modulate with keytrack amount + 0.5. It probably needs to be on a hybrid track for that to work and input of the track set to Midi (that is how I tested it). No idea if something similar is possible with Ableton.

[@GourlieRecords]

Glad it helped! You can definitely use Ableton (or any DAW really) to modulate either of these plugins. It's just nice when working on the fly to have quick access to Vocal Bender's modulation section. Modulation settings are also saved into presets so they can be recalled instantly!

[@KnowleDJ]

Awesome video, I learned a lot. Thank you 🙏🏼

[@GourlieRecords]

My pleasure!! 😊

[@MiloCorazon]

this gets me so excited to make music thank you

[@essem4254]

Thanks for a helpful video! I've been looking at both plugins but I think I'm going to go for Alterboy.

[@toriblksongs]

I love the sound of alter boy compared to vocal bender. I think they both are great creative tools and it all will depend on the project.

[@GourlieRecords]

Completely agree!

[@Gargoynes]

Now i can be a daddy! (Plez help me..)

[@GourlieRecords]

🚔

[@essem4254]

Thanks for a helpful video! I've been looking at both plugins but I think I'm going to go for Alterboy.

[@GourlieRecords]

Glad I can help! There is truly no wrong decision.

[@SOLush]

I've always liked Little Alterboy but lately I've just been using the default formant shifting in Bitwig

[@GourlieRecords]

I gotta download a trial for Bitwig. There's no way I'll switch off Ableton but I'm curious to see everything it can do. They seem to be accumulating more of the market share!

[@AdamMundok]

Awesome Video! Thanks for doing such a great job and sharing your wisdom 🙌🏽🎶 Subbed!

[@GourlieRecords]

Thanks, Adam! Gladded you enjoyed it!

[@sssyntax]

Gonna butter your bread hahahaha

[@KordTaylor]

Great video. Thanks! ❤

[@EannaButler]

8:00 - I think it's better to set Midi Monitor to "In" (rather than the default "Auto") in the Midi Track, rather than record-arming the track.

[@GourlieRecords]

In a live demonstration like this maybe, but not on an actual track where I want it to trigger the recorded MIDI on playback. 😉

[@EannaButler]

@@GourlieRecords I dunno, for me it's easier to leave it on "In", then just play whatever Midi clips in that track if I want to send the Midi elsewhere. Always want to mix in arrangement with no tracks armed myself. Obviously, whatever works for yourself...

[@lmzn500]

this was really helpful!! I'm deliberating if I should get the vocal bender as well since I alr have LA and the LFO section is real cool!! and now im torn again HAHAHHA. But I did not know the midi trick for alterboy so thanks for that!! I'm def gonna try that out. also the vocal melody example you were giving was rly cool, the loop itself alr could pass off as a hook. anws thanks again for this vid!

[@GourlieRecords]

Glad to be of help!! 🤗

[@Super-id7bq]

Just bought Vocal Bender and asked for a refund 20 minutes later :D It adds in some awful digital sounding artefacts compared to the formant shifter that comes with Nectar (which sounds a lot smoother). It sounded like it was quantised to semitones which screwed up any sort of portamento.

[@monikanekic137]

Hey! I noticed that too... I'm glad I'm not the only one... I was recording si many times thinking the problem was im my audio...but vocal bender added some noise i dont Like and later was clipping on my speakers... Do you know any budget friendly formant shifter that does smoother Job?

[@LexMassive]

​@monikanekic137 do Kilohertz do a free pitch shift with formant? I have altarboy but KHz's free stuff is decent.

[@TheDonLemonSnickety]

Now I can sound Big and B…….bold! Yea that’s the word