Waves Audio Vitamin Sonic Enhancer User Guide

WAVES

VITAMIN

SONIC ENHANCER

USER GUIDE

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Waves Vitamin User Guide

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION................................................................................. 3

1.1 Welcome ............................................................................................................. 3

1.2 Product Overview ................................................................................................ 3

1.3 Components ........................................................................................................ 4

CHAPTER 2: QUICK START ................................................................................... 5

CHAPTER 3: INTERFACE AND CONTROLS .......................................................... 6

3.1 Interface .............................................................................................................. 6

3.2 Controls ............................................................................................................... 7

CHAPTER 4: THE WAVESYSTEM .......................................................................... 9

4.1 The WaveSystem Toolbar ................................................................................... 9

4.2 Preset Handling ................................................................................................... 9

4.3 Interface Controls .............................................................................................. 12

4.4 Waves Preferences (Pro Tools 10 or below only) .............................................. 13

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Waves Vitamin User Guide

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Welcome

Thank you for choosing Waves. To get the most out of your Waves processor, please
take the time to read this manual.

We also suggest you become familiar with the resources available to you at

waves.com. There you will find an extensive Answer Base, the latest Tech Specs,

detailed Installation Guides, new Software Updates, and up-to-date information on

Activation and Registration.

1.2 Product Overview

Waves Vitamin is a multiband harmonic enhancer and tone-shaping plugin that can
make any track sound powerful and full of spark by mixing an enriched version with
the original signal.

Vitamin’s controls are intuitive and easy to use. Each band has a gain fader which
ranges from 0 to 48 dB. Input and output faders allow some gain staging – a
necessary feature given the non-linear and additive nature of the Vitamin process.
The input and output can be increased or padded by 18 dB. Padding the input control
is handy for making some headroom in order to add energy in one or more of the
bands. Input gain can be increased to reinforce a low signal, ensuring that the
dynamics and clipping work properly. Output gain is applied after the process and
provides linear gain for levelling.

The frequency range of each band can be determined using the four crossover
frequency controls, which are located above and between the five band gain faders.

Solo buttons are available for each band. These can be helpful when articulating the
band range: you can solo the band and then use the crossover frequencies to bind it
from below and above in context with the input audio. The resulting signal will reach
outside the determined range due to the added harmonics – but that’s exactly part of
the sonic magic of Vitamin.

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Waves Vitamin User Guide

Vitamin’s Stereo mode features another special spice: You can control the stereo
image width per band. For example, you can collapse the stereo width for the low
band (especially important when mastering for vinyl) and add some width in the high
band, leaving the mid-range tight and focused. This can work wonders on stem
mixes and help you make room for concentric lead vocals.

Note that the stereo width controls affect both the direct and the processed parts of
the signal.

1.3 Components

WaveShell technology enables us to split Waves into smaller plugins, which we call
components. Having a choice of components for a particular processor gives you
the flexibility to choose the configuration best suited to your material.

Waves Vitamin includes two components:

 Vitamin Mono
 Vitamin Stereo