Controlled Vocal Mayhem

Ugritone Vocal Channel Strip — Help & User Guide

Welcome

Charlie Bauerfeind's vocal chain in a box. Three and a half decades of vocal production for Helloween, Blind Guardian, Motörhead, Saxon, Van Canto and beyond — every gut call on compression, EQ, de-essing and saturation, distilled into seven modules and one signal path.

Drop it on the lead vocal. Load a preset. Adjust to taste. The vocal walks out of the speakers and stands in the room.

Quick Start

1. Insert Controlled Vocal Mayhem on your lead vocal channel (or vocal bus).
2. Press Easy in the top right corner.
3. Browse the Presets — they're organised by vocal style and source character.
4. Adjust Input Gain until the input meter peaks around -6 dB on the loudest passages.
5. Use Global Dry/Wet to taste — full wet is normal.

That's it.

Easy Mode vs. Full Mode

The Easy / Full toggle in the top right corner switches between two views:

• Easy Mode — Macro controls only. Load a preset, tweak input/output, get back to recording.
• Full Mode — Every module, every parameter, exposed. The view shown in the main screenshot.

Both modes use the same engine. Easy Mode just hides what you don't need to see right now.

Global Controls (Header Section)

These controls sit at the top of the plugin and act on the entire chain.

The Signal Chain

Seven modules in series. One linear path from input to output. Compression that keeps intelligibility intact without strangling the power. An EQ that sounds musical because it is musical. Two de-essing stages placed exactly where they need to be. A Spreader that pushes the vocal three-dimensional, not flat.

Input → Brutalizer → EQ → De-Esser 1 → Expander → De-Esser 2 → Limiter → Spreader → Output

The default order is the order Charlie reaches for in practice. Modules can be reordered, bypassed, or removed — nothing is locked.

Each module has a power button (top-left of its panel) to bypass it individually, and a Dry/Wet knob (top-right) for per-module parallel blending.

Module Reference

1. Brutalizer

Multi-band saturation and clipping. The first module in the chain — adds harmonics, controls peaks, and gives the vocal weight and presence without sounding compressed.

Style Buttons

• Nice — Gentler saturation curve. Adds even-order harmonics. Warmer, more analogue-sounding. Use on cleaner singing and choruses.
• Push — Aggressive saturation curve. Adds odd-order harmonics. Cuts through dense mixes. Use on screams, harsh vocals, anything that needs to bite.

2. EQ

Musical parametric EQ for vocal sculpting. Four fully parametric bands plus dedicated high-pass and low-pass filters with selectable slopes.

Typical vocal moves:

• HPF at 80–120 Hz / 24 dB/oct to remove rumble.
• Band 1: 200–400 Hz cut, narrow Q, to clear up muddiness.
• Band 2: 2–4 kHz boost, medium Q, for presence.
• Band 3: 8–12 kHz shelf or peak for air.
• LPF rarely used on vocals — leave off unless you need to tame harshness above 12–14 kHz.

3. De-Esser 1

First sibilance control stage. Placed before the Expander so harsh sibilants get tamed before any dynamic processing reacts to them.

4. Expander

Two-level expander with an integrated tilt-style colouring filter. Cleans up between phrases, controls breath noise, and adds tonal flavour to the residual signal.

Main Controls

Color Tilt Filter — a tilt-style EQ that pivots around a single frequency, boosting one side of the spectrum while cutting the other. Use it to add subtle tonal direction to the vocal without surgical EQ moves.

5. De-Esser 2

Second sibilance control stage. Placed after the Expander to catch anything the first stage missed — including sibilance that the Expander may have brought up by reducing the noise floor around it.

Controls are identical to De-Esser 1 (Hz, Q, Type, Reduction, Listen). The default Q is narrower (0.1 vs. 1.0) — tuned by default for surgical work on the harshest peaks rather than broad-stroke reduction.

6. Limiter

Multi-mode brickwall limiter. Final dynamic control before the stereo stage.

7. Spreader

Final stage. Widens the vocal into the stereo field — not via simple Haas tricks, but with a frequency-aware spread that keeps the low end centred and the vocal mono-compatible.

Presets

Presets cover the full chain including module on/off states and module order.

• Browsing: Click the Preset display, or use the arrow buttons to step.
• Saving: Click the disk icon to save your current state.
• Categories: Presets are organised by vocal style (clean, harsh, scream, choir, etc.) and by typical source character (close-mic'd condenser, dynamic, distant, etc.).

When you start from a preset and turn a knob, the preset name will indicate the modified state. Save under a new name to keep your variation.

Charlie's Tips

• Gain-stage first, process second. Get the input meter sensible before you touch anything else. Saturation, compression and limiting all behave differently at different input levels — the chain is designed around a healthy -12 to -6 dB peak input.
• Two gentle de-essers beat one aggressive one. Spread the work between De-Esser 1 (wider, broader) and De-Esser 2 (narrower, surgical). Less audible artefacts, more consistent control.
• Brutalizer is a tone tool, not a volume tool. If you want louder, use the Limiter. Brutalizer is for character.
• Use Listen mode on both de-essers. The fastest way to dial Hz and Q is to solo the detection band first, then commit.
• The Expander's Color Tilt Filter is subtle on purpose. A few degrees of tilt go a long way. If you can hear it overtly, you've gone too far.
• Check in mono. The Spreader makes vocals huge in stereo. It should not make them disappear in mono. If it does, lower Amount or raise Tone.
• Bypass per module, not the whole chain. Use each module's power button to A/B individual stages. You'll learn the chain faster.

Technical Specifications

Troubleshooting

The plugin doesn't load / shows an iLok error.
Make sure your iLok License Manager is up to date and your license is activated. The plugin requires iLok authorisation (USB key or iLok Cloud).

The vocal sounds distorted even at low input.
Brutalizer is likely engaged with high Push values. Bypass it temporarily (power button on the module) to confirm. Lower the Push knobs or switch to Nice mode.

The vocal loses presence in mono.
Lower the Spreader Amount, raise Tone to keep the low end centred, or check that your DAW isn't introducing additional stereo effects after the plugin.

Sibilance is still harsh after the de-essers.
Engage Listen on both de-essers in turn and sweep Hz to make sure each is targeting the right region. Often the harshest sibilance sits above 8 kHz — try setting De-Esser 2 to Shelf type to control everything above a chosen frequency rather than a single band.

Breath noise is too prominent.
Lower the Expander's Low Gain toward -24 dB to gate the noise floor between phrases more aggressively.

Latency is too high for tracking.
Reduce the Limiter Lookahead value. Lower lookahead = lower latency at the cost of transient catching. For tracking, 0–1 ms is usually fine; for mixing, 3–5 ms gives better results.

The EQ band doesn't seem to do anything.
Check the band's Type selector — if it's set to OFF, the band is fully bypassed (it doesn't matter what Frequency or Gain you've set).

I want to start over.
Load the preset "Init" (or the default preset) to reset every module to a neutral state.

© Ugritone. Designed by Charlie Bauerfeind.