UJAM Voxcraft

If you need your vocals to jump out of the mix in a modern pop or electronic fashion, there are presets for that.

You focus on the sound, while UJAM take care of the rest!

UJAM’s latest release expands upon their already impressive effects processing range. As the name suggests, Voxcraft is primarily intended for use with vocals, and it combines both conventional and creative processing options. Everything’s presented in a GUI that’s very much in line with UJAM’s ethos — fast results and a minimum of fuss.

Easy Does It

As shown in the screenshot, the Voxcraft GUI is divided into four horizontal sections. The top strip provides access to the preset system, as well as the familiar dice icon if you’re tempted to play potluck and see what settings the plug‑in might offer you. Pitch (shift), Formant, Unison and (pitch) Correction occupy the rest of the upper half and, on the left, this panel has its own Bypass and Mix controls. Unison thickens up the sound, while the pitch correction is of the automatic variety, and can be used chromatically or set to major, minor or pentatonic scales.

In the main part of the lower half of the GUI are six modules (Dynamics, Character, Filter, Delay, Reverb and Chop), each of which is given its own bypass button. Each of these modules offers six styles of processing, but operation is always the same: the large rotary control gives you ‘more’, while the secondary controls provide further options. But, in true UJAM style, there’s never any danger of parameter paralysis.

The bottom‑most strip provides an Auto Level facility, low‑ and high‑cut filters, a global Mix control, a very effective Doubling tool, Focus EQ (letting you adjust the overall tonal balance) and Super Glue, which provides some more extreme dynamics processing, should you really want to make sure your vocal doesn’t get lost in a busy mix. You also get global Input and Output controls. Voxcraft reported around 25ms of latency when I used it in Cubase; that’s obviously not an issue while mixing, but worth noting should you be planning to use the plug‑in in real‑time while tracking.

Make It Pop!

There are plenty of people who absolutely want full control over every parameter of their vocal processing and that is, of course, a perfectly valid choice. But UJAM always do a good job of simplifying tasks that can get complicated, and for those seeking tools where the hard work has been designed out of the way by some rather clever macro‑style controls, Voxcraft will undoubtedly hold significant appeal.

The neatly organised presets do a good job of demonstrating that the plug‑in can take care of more conventional treatments, simply by deploying the Dynamics, Filter, Delay and Reverb modules in a suitably subtle fashion. Add in some gentle saturation via the Character module, the lightest of automatic pitch correction and maybe a touch of Unison, and you can create an end result suitable for almost any musical genre.

But it can do more besides. If you need your vocals to jump out the mix in a modern pop or electronic fashion, there are presets for that — in fact, I’d go as far as to say that Voxcraft can bring the hype in abundance! The real highlights for me here are the Chop, Pitch and Formant options but the Character, Filter, Delay and Reverb all go well beyond the conventional and into the creative. Things can come really to life if you start to automate these more creative sections to create spot effects.

Voxcraft is a tool that can instantly make your vocals the centre of attention in any mix...  It’s an absolute joy to use too...

Your Jam?

UJAM’s Voxcraft is a tool that can instantly make your vocals the centre of attention in any mix. For modern pop/EDM in particular, the potential for creating vocal ear candy effects is obvious. It’s an absolute joy to use too, being super intuitive, and sounding great. It’s also inexpensive. What’s not to like? There’s a seven‑day free trial, so I reckon it’s well worth taking it for a spin.