Gear Review: UAD "Topline Vocal Suite" Plugin for Mixing Vocals

The vocal track is the most important part of the mix when mixing music for almost every genre of music. Mixing vocals is not an easy task to get it perfect. Taking a look at an all in one vocal processor with Universal Audio's Topline Vocal Suite was an eye opening experience to say the least. I have tried dozens of these "all in one" type processors and always end up using a lot of additional gear to get the results that I am looking for. Most times I end up eliminating the vocal processor all together! Let's take a look at this vocal processor and see what we got!

Universal Audio has been and still is a very highly regarded company with tons of amazing outboard gear going all the way back to 1958 with its founder Bill Putnam Sr. I have used a lot of their outboard gear including perhaps their most famous LA-2 studio rack compressor, and they never disappoint.

Their plugin emulations of their gear are also very good too. The Topline Vocal Suite appears to be taking all that wonderful gear and emulating them into a very powerful plugin. I hear a lot of their wonderful gear placed smartly into a very easy to use well laid out plugin.

The sound is the most important part, after all that is the point. I am extremely impressed with every component in this processor. However, I found the reverb section to be very good, but not as good as the Softube Atlantis Dual Chambers reverb. To be fair, I have not found anything better than the Atlantis in my twenty plus years of mixing using chamber reverb audio plugins. I believe that UAD is using their own Capitol Chambers reverb, and also their own plates in this vocal suite and it works really well. But, for me I bypass their reverb and use my Softube Atlantis Dual Chambers plugin and the two together are simply magical.

My go to pitch correction plugin is Melodyne and I love the transparent sound it delivers. The Topline Vocal Suite does have pitch correction, however in my opinion that is not the strength of this plugin. It is good, but in my opinion Melodyne is much better. The strength is in the EQ, compressor and the saturation. The presets are well named and functional making it very easy to get great results in a short amount of time. However, some additional tweaking will be needed with-in the plugin, but not too much in most cases.

I can mix vocals using lots of other gear and get great results, but this is a huge time saver. Saving time on vocals allows me more time to focus on other aspects of the mix project. I really recommend giving it a try and see for yourselves before purchasing it. But, I believe that this bad boy will not disappoint.

I really believe that this vocal suite is very good, surprisingly good and whether you are just starting out as a mix engineer or a very seasoned professional it is a game changer. It is well worth the introductional price tag or on sale of around $150.00 USD, but. I feel the $399.00 list price is a bit too much.

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