Hey there, occasionally, for a split second, vocal bender will create harsh, atonal sounds.
I watch the pitch wave in the PT tab, and in those moments, it seems to suddenly jump really low, then back up again. Is there a way around this?
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If I understand what you’re describing – it’s a common issue with every plugin I’ve tried which is based on pitch detection.
I believe the problem happens when there is a sound in the vocal that it doesn’t detect as a pitch. This might be any kind of non-pitched sound in a vocal. Possibly a “ch” or “t” or “sh” sound, but definitely if you’re doing any kind of extreme vocals where the sound is atonal or not a clear pitch. (Like a David Lee Roth scream or something.)
If you click the arrow on the lower right it will expand the UI. Look at the PT section. Try adjusting the “smooth” setting and see if that helps.
Alternatively you can try automating your primary Vocal Bender to MIX=0 when an issue like that happens. If doing so reveals an unwanted pitch you could automate a secondary Bender set to “flatten” mode, and then manually automated the pitch for just that section where it is having a problem.
That might be too time consuming and cumbersome if you’re dealing with a client that’s on the clock — but if it’s your own work it might be worth it.
I’ve had incredibly good results re-pitching layers of background vocals where I used flatten mode with pitch automation. I “saved a song” where a girl had recorded for me and her vocals were too thin for the track…
I used Vocal Bender in “flatten” mode to create a harmony which thickened it up nicely and it turned out to be incredibly cool.
In “flatten” mode it won’t have that issue so much because you’re FORCING a pitch instead of trying to detect a pitch from a source.
Good luck! It’s a great tool!
Make sure you’re aware of the M1/M2 LFO/Sequencers, and that you can apply them to Pitch and/or Formant with the hidden assignment buttons underneath! (There are 4 slots for pitch and 4 slots for formant.)
What Waves did is they made a really powerful tool appear simple on the surface, but you can do some wild effects when you use modulation on the parameters!
Also try Bender on NON-vocal sources!
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Hi @dekkereq and Welcome to Waves Forum 
@JunkyardSam has provided here few very valid points and his advises are worth following.
However in case the issue persists, I would advise contacting our Tech Support department for further investigation. They will be more than happy to get you up and running with your plugins.
Yeah, Sam has some good info here. Unfortunately, no matter how good this technology gets, it still has its limitations. Fortunately automation is our friend here.
Unfortunately, though, this won’t work quite so well live. In that instance it would be up to you to use your voice in such a way to manipulate pitch tuners to respond in a way that’s more desirable to you. It’s all about the “performance.”
Much in the same way where you can connect a mic to gritty sounding ring modulator, set the LFO to around 30 cycles per second, but it won’t necessarily make you sound like a Doctor Who Darlek. That’s only 50% of the sound. The other 50% came from the “performance” and how you the artist manipulates his voice to manipulate the ring modulator to get it sounding more desirable, more like a Darlek.
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