While chorus isn’t a necessity on your vocals, lead or otherwise, I like to blend some in to give it a little more size across the stereo field. This can make your vocal pop when used in the right spots and in the right. Using too much chorus on your vocal and it begins to dull and get washed out. With that in mind, let’s talk the best lead vocal chorus settings to dial in on your lead vocal.
Lead Vocal Chorus Settings
Chorus as as effect actively modulates your audio’s timing and pitch with an LFO or low frequency oscillator to trick the ear into thinking the affected audio/duplicates which are created and processed is/are unique.
This is one of many ways to make a vocal wider, if you use the proper lead vocal chorus settings.
For this overview, I’m using what is typically my chorus go-to in Arturia’s Jun-6 (named and modeled after the chorus parameter on Roland’s iconic Juno-6 synthesizer from the early 80’s):
I like using this plugin for chorus in my mixes, but it’s great for tutorials, as well, because of its extremely simple which largely just consists of the two parameters in chorus rate and chorus depth which you’ll find on virtually any chorus plugin you might be using.
Note that its two “Modes” dial in instant varieties of that classic “washy” lush sound that many think of with this effect, but if you want something a bit more subtle (like when using chorus on a lead vocal), we can tick the “Manual” button and adjust said two parameters.
Here are the parameters I like for achieving a relatively subtle and transparent width on my lead to get it setting just right:
Now I’ll share a quick word on why I like the settings where I do, and what each is doing to affect the sound.
Rate
The chorus rate parameter affects the speed of the transition between the transitions on the tunings from one end to the other:
Note that you can crank the chorus’ rate up to achieve a robotic, choppy sound as it’s speedily and abruptly jumping back and forth between tunings.
This obviously isn’t what we want when we’re using lead vocal chorus in this capacity.
I usually preach staying around .4Hz, but you can go as high as .9Hz or so without tipping your hand on the use of chorus here.
Depth
The other major parameter driving the sound is the chorus depth. This affects the range between the tunings and as such the intensity of the effect:
Just like with the rate, you can be aggressive with this parameter when you want a more obvious aesthetic effect which is jumping out of the mix.
And just like with the rate, when we’re using chorus on lead vocals, that’s not what we want.
While being conservative is key, keeping it below 2ms is generally the extent of how far you can go before a more sensitive ear might hear the vocal going out of tune by way of that chorus affected version.
Of course the transparency of this effect will most importantly be affected by the “Mix” parameter.
Mix
I didn’t address the “Phase” parameter, but setting this at 180/the max gives you the cleanest separation between your “dry” and chorus processed audio, so that’s what I recommend.
Speaking of dry vs the chorus processed/wet audio, your “Mix” parameter is just as important as the other two parameters for determining how visible that chorus influence is on our lead vocal.
It doesn’t matter how aggressively you set the rate and depth on your lead vocal chorus; you can max them both out to get a choppy, out of tune mess but no one will hear it if you’re too conservative with the mix blend which the “Mix” parameter controls.
As always, when you’re using chorus or any effect as a send via an Aux/Return track, you’d want to set the “Mix” parameter to 100%, then let the amount you blend in via that the dBs from that send dial effectively act as the Wet/Dry percentage.
Speaking of which, I actually typically use and recommend chorus as an Aux/Return track as mentioned in my overview of my complete vocal chain:
… but in this case, I’m treating the chorus on our lead vocals as an insert somewhere in the effects chain, likely near the end, post EQ and (most of the) compression.
With that in mind, I find that 20% is the perfect Mix percentage for a very effective blend of adding some stereo width to your lead vocal by way of that chorus effect without giving away that it’s in play.
That’s the sweet spot for me like so many effects in my mix to where something is felt rather than heard. This keeps the mix sounding cleaner and keeps it from sounding overproduced.
Speaking of which, I like the above settings for lead vocal chorus because they’re subtle but accomplish the goal of making that lead vocal take up a little more real estate in your stereo field.
I sometimes use another chorus plugin from Arturia in their Dimension-D because of its uncolored sound:
This is a great chorus plugin when you just want the width without bringing any color into it, though it is worth pointing out that if you bring up the advanced controls you can play with the tone slightly.
You can also adjust the width alongside the mix, so combining these two can help you more effectively land on the width and influence of an otherwise very transparent chorus on your lead vocal.
In the absence of the rate and depth controls, the Jun-6 makes for a better demonstration of the parameters I recommend copy and pasting into your chorus plugin of choice in your DAW whether its stock or otherwise.
Just bear in mind that your chorus plugin may have additional parameters which affect the color of that sound. If you want to add in some lushness by way of those parameters, just be careful that it doesn’t dirty up your vocal to its detriment.
Duplicate the chorus plugin you’re using and turn off those coloring parameters on the duplicate, then split test between the two instances to determine which best benefiting your lead vocal in the context of the full mix.
