Schwa CMX Stereo Microshifter A/B comparison

[Armistice]

So in all this talk of Black Friday sales etc. somehow I found myself in the plug-in rabbit hole and came across the Schwa CMX Stereo Microshifter plug from Stillwell Audio.

Somehow I ended up looking at "vocal doubler" type plugs and found this. I've had success with their stuff before (Event Horizon and a few others) and they do an uncrippled download and then nag you for a licence.

Nothing to lose, right?

So I downloaded the installer and installed the 64 bit .dill version - it's supposed to be Win 10 & 11 and I'm on 7 but it's a .dll, so how would it know? Fired up Reaper and there it was.

So I've applied it to a verse / chorus of the latest tune, Unravelling, to see what it would do. I haven't done anything other than select the "Silky vocal" preset (because that was the only one that seemed to relate to vocals) and while there I saw "Wide snare" so I chucked that on the snare drum as well.

Snippets below, with and without. Thoughts?

(@rayc - given you use Reaper ReaDelay vocal thickener preset a lot you might find this useful. Perhaps worth a download anyway... then we can hear Silky Vocal ray... ) https://www.stillwellaudio.com/plugins/cmx/

Without CMX - current mix:




With CMX on lead vocal and snare:

[rayc]

I've downloaded it...hopefully I can copy it to my non internet DAW comp.
You were pretty subtle in the use on vocals...you're already pretty silky.
I'm becoming more & more disheartened with Vocal Thickener as it's stereoness is far too obvious and it gives that cloudy reverby thickness that Bubba would get so riled up about.

[Armistice]

I've downloaded it...hopefully I can copy it to my non internet DAW comp.
You were pretty subtle in the use on vocals...you're already pretty silky.
I'm becoming more & more disheartened with Vocal Thickener as it's stereoness is far too obvious and it gives that cloudy reverby thickness that Bubba would get so riled up about.

Yeah, I tried that Vocal Thickener setting and didn't like it at all.

Just get the download file and move it to your non-internet recording PC on a USB (same as I had to do) and run the downloader and install only the 64 (or 32) bit .dll version to wherever your other plug ins are and restart Reaper. Should work fine.

They block you with a stupid little video game to give you time to decide to buy a licence but that quickly goes away... sounds weird but you'll see what I mean when you install it.

The default setting is way too much, but the Silky Vocal preset, once you start playing with the Wet/Dry and the two other rocker type switches sounds nice and not too OTT.

[Armistice]

Also, it does seem to reduce the volume a little as you apply it so you may need to bump it up a bit to make up...

[vomitHatSteve]

Also, it does seem to reduce the volume a little as you apply it so you may need to bump it up a bit to make up...

Yeah, I noticed that pretty prominently.
It did make your voice thicker tho.

[Armistice]

Also, it does seem to reduce the volume a little as you apply it so you may need to bump it up a bit to make up...

Yeah, I noticed that pretty prominently.
It did make your voice thicker tho.

Please... "thiccer"

[vomitHatSteve]

Yeah, I noticed that pretty prominently.
It did make your voice thicker tho.

Please... "thiccer"

Honestly, the thickness seems like it's more in the upper mids. "thiccness" implies your voice now has a booty. Perhaps, I should have described your voice as more "busty"

[JD01]

Just had a proper A/B of these Armi. You've got it pretty subtle, but I think it sounds good. Wouldn't mind hearing it just on the vocal and not in the mix if you have a minute. You could probably push it quite a bit harder before it becomes obvious.

The ReaDelay vocal fattener is fine, but the preset is way to obvious. When you load it up, from memory its set to about -7db wet. Just turn this down to -10 or 11 (whatever you think works) and its not so bad.

[rayc]

I used the crippled version for a test...it's not a great mode for a demo as the results are awful - particularly the panning.

[Armistice]

I used the crippled version for a test...it's not a great mode for a demo as the results are awful - particularly the panning.

How did you end up with a crippled version? The one I've got appears to be fully functional - it just has this annoying video game you have to navigate to get in.

I'm getting mixed results, depending upon the style of music and the style of voice - it's not working at all on the current tune. So it's not a killer app by any means.

@JD01 - sorry, been head down in the latest tune, which is proving extremely frustrating, vocally.

I'll get back to the last one and do that comparison for you shortly...

[rayc]

Downloaded to usb and installed on the downstairs comp. I didn't install it upstairs & register. It flashes a pause light often and most of the button based functions don't work.
That lead me to actually tweaking the REaper one and, with the stereo image extremely narrow, it works rather better.

[Armistice]

I didn't register either, just installed only the .dll file for 64 bits, and I've got the full version. You can narrow the stereo field easily enough on it.