Vocal Bender is a highly underrated plugin.
The design is brilliant in that it is a simple plugin at first glance… But there’s immense power if you expand the modulation options down below.
For anyone who hasn’t read the manual, click the arrow in the lower right. Then choose M1, M2, AM, or PT – whatever – and drag and drop it onto either of the two knobs.
You’ll see the modulation drop into a slot.
Here’s the trick part you wouldn’t know at first glance: click and drag up on the slot to dial up the amount you want the modulation to affect the pitch or formant. This is separate from the “Level.”
You have to drag that up for the modulation to function…
And once it does, you realize what a powerful tool this is for warping samples to obscure their origin, or any other amount of processing you can think of. It’s useful for more than vocals!
Another bonus discovery – if you click the folder you have some drawn modulation shapes, but don’t miss out that the folder scrolls. Half the patterns available are out of view, you have to scroll to see them.
So… This is a much more powerful tool than someone might think at first glance. (This is a good example of why it’s a great idea to read the manual with all Waves products.)