10 StudioVerse Hacks That Make Music Production and Mixing Easier
Discover ten ways you can upgrade your music production and mixing workflow and get sonically inspired using Waves StudioVerse.
StudioVerse Audio Effects is an expansive system for music makers. Within a few clicks, you have instant access to thousands of mix ready presets made by countless producers from all over the world. If you’re stuck for mix inspiration or short on session time, StudioVerse can rescue you. In this article we show you ten things you may not have known were possible across StudioVerse that makes music creation easier, more fun and endlessly more creative:
In This Article
- Auditioning Whole Chains Then Tweaking and Refining After
- Learning Music Production Without Even Realizing It
- Grabbing a Preset from Anyone, Anywhere
- …No, Really – Literally “Grabbing a Preset”!
- Making Any Plugin Mid/Side
- Recording Into a Pro Effects Chain
- Taking More Control of a Sidechain
- Getting the Benefits of Plugins you Haven’t Mastered
- Whip up a Quick Master
- Checking out the Song Starters Category
1. Auditioning Whole Chains Then Tweaking and Refining After
One of the best things about StudioVerse is the ability to quickly flick between presets to compare sounds and find exactly what it is you are looking for.
Let’s say you’re searching in StudioVerse Audio Effects for an interesting vocal effect. You start by selecting the Vocals tag. You immediately get a list of chains to scroll through and when you see one that piques your interest – like “Crazy Good - Vox” by Nick Brophy – you can select it to hear what it sounds like across your track.
This sounds good, but what if you want to try another chain out? Next you find “Let’s Get It” by Mad Rez Studios, simply click this and instantly you get a different vocal effect going.
When switching between different presets, many complex things are happening behind the scenes such as different plugins loading and assigned macros changing over, but you need not worry about any of that unless you want to dive into the chains and adjust individual plugin settings or macro values. At some point you may even want to make someone else’s chain truly your own, in which case you can bypass plugins altogether, add new ones, change the macros… the possibilities are endless!
Finding Chains with AI Search
Tags are of course an easy way to discover new chains in StudioVerse,, but there’s an even simpler way using the AI Search. When creators share their chains with the StudioVerse library they are prompted to scan an Audio ID of the track type relating to the chain they just created. This massive growing pool of Audio ID is what enables StudioVerse Audio Effects to listen to your track types and make the best mix chain suggestions possible. Remember, using AI Search is a simple click of the button followed by a quick playback of the track you want to mix with StudioVerse. No need to type any obscure tags into the search. Simply click, play, search and audition.
2. Learning Music Production Without Even Realizing It
StudioVerse Audio Effects and StudioVerse Instruments offer a massive range of mix and instrument chains made by renowned producers and other creatives from all around the world. Outside of pure mixing and creativity, StudioVerse makes a fantastic learning tool.
Loading, for example, a snare effect from Chris Lord Alge or a drum buss chain by Teezio, you are able to dive into the chain and learn how each component contributes towards the overall effect or sound. You can even dive deeper into each individual plugin setting to see exactly how the smallest of settings work.
3. Grabbing a Preset from Anyone, Anywhere
You can upload your own effects and instrument chains to StudioVerse, and so can other users around the world. Because of this, StudioVerse has a collaborative nature, and a lot of production problems you could run up against may have already been solved by a heroic StudioVerse contributor. And yes, even engineers at Abbey Road Studios have contributed many chains as well that are well worth checking out!
4. …No, Really – Literally “Grabbing a Preset”!
Besides searching for chains with tags, or with the AI search within StudioVerse, you may not be aware that presets can also be discovered online. This is nothing revolutionary, however we have a cool feature in StudioVerse that bridges the humble web browser and the plugin itself. There may be a time when you find a link for a StudioVerse chain on the Waves website, or within a text description of a video tutorial… you may have even been emailed a chain from a friend. If you want to see what this chain sounds like you can literally drag and drop the link from your web browser or email straight onto an open instance of the StudioVerse plugin in your DAW. The chain will simply load up right there in front of you.
Try this for yourself by dragging this link for the CLA Vocal Strip onto StudioVerse.
5. Making Any Plugin Mid/Side
By loading a Parallel Split rack in StudioVerse Audio Effects and choosing one rack within this as Mid and the other Side, you can set up any plugin or combination of different plugins as a mid/side processor. Lots of plugins offer mid-side capabilities, but not all, that’s why this feature is so powerful. Also, StudioVerse supports third-party VST3 plugins so you can make any plugin from any developer mid-side. Below is a video describing the process in the former StudioRack plugin, which has transitioned into StudioVerse Audio Effects.
6. Recording Into a Pro Effects Chain
For years, guitarists have known the benefits of playing into an effects chain. For example, when recording a solo using reverb, or playing into a complex chain of delays and modulation effects, those effects change the performance itself, and the guitarist ends up playing differently than they would have if recording things ‘dry’.
It doesn’t just work with guitar – it works with any instrument and with vocals too. So with StudioVerse, it’s easy to get an instant chain of impressive effects, which means starting a song in an interesting, inspirational and unique way is quick and easy.
7. Taking More Control of a Sidechain
You can pull some advanced sidechaining moves using StudioVerse. By loading up a Parallel Split in a slot, add a compressor to one of the split columns and add an EQ to another. Turn the EQ’s output down completely so only the compressor’s output is heard.
But this doesn’t mean the EQ isn’t working – and with the compressor’s sidechain activated, you can use the EQ as the sidechain to modify the signal the compressor is reacting to.
At the simplest, this might mean adding a sidechain high-pass filter to a plugin that doesn’t have one thanks to StudioVerse. But you can go further and emphasize other frequencies, add a delay to the sidechain signal to change its timing, or other tricks.
8. Getting the Benefits of Plugins you Haven’t Mastered
Waves provide over 230 plugins, and it’s OK if you don’t have a categorical knowledge of every single one. But with StudioVerse, especially when you’re using chains that others have made, you get the benefits of their knowledge, even if you don’t share it.
Maybe a chain you download makes use of Waves F6. Even if you don’t know how to use F6, you’ll still get the benefits of dynamic EQ in smoothing out a signal and reducing harshness – whether you knew you needed it or not!
9. Whipping up a Quick Master
Sometimes you want to apply some basic, quick-and-dirty mastering to a song. Not for publication, necessarily, but to export and give others an idea of how the song will sound professionally, or even just to inspire yourself and keep on going.
You can use Waves Online Mastering to get your tracks mastered using powerful AI, but StudioVerse also gives you a way to get the job done. Search for a mastering chain to instantly give your music the polished sheen of a commercial track and adjust the shape of it with the macros. The results may not be as perfectly polished as what you would get from Waves Online Mastering but it may be usable, if not only as a placeholder mastering sound.
10. Checking out the Song Starters Category
If you’re stuck for inspiration, there’s a great place to go: check out the Song Starters category on the StudioVerse Browse page and try them out in your DAW to get some fresh ideas flowing. The Song Starters are for StudioVerse Instruments. When you find a sound and chain you like, simply drag the link from the chain profile across to an open instance of StudioVerse Instruments in your DAW.
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