NORTHFX / VOCAL DYNAMICS

NEWTIDE 1.0: your vocal chain in one plugin ↓

TIDE

VOCAL DYNAMICS · VERSION 1.0 · WINDOWS VST3

Every word upfront. Every breath in its place.

A vocal that sits in front of the beat takes a fader ride on every line, a compressor that does not pump, a de-esser and breaths turned down. TIDE does all of it in one plugin, and it listens like an engineer: in lines, words and syllables, not in milliseconds. Its release follows the singer's tempo, breaths are never pulled up, and a shouted line stays louder than a whispered one.

UPFRONT

Line ride, syllable smoothing and compression in one knob. From natural to in your face.

Closer / further

Move the singer towards the mic or away from it: proximity, air, softness and room.

Ride with the beat

The vocal stays a set amount above the beat, from the quiet verse to the loud hook.

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See how it works ↓

Windows 10 / 11 · 64-bit VST3 · Contact NORTHFX for pricing and delivery.

NORTHFX TIDE vocal dynamics: every word upfront, every breath in its place

HOW TIDE LISTENS

Lines, words, syllables.Not milliseconds.

A normal compressor only sees level. TIDE knows what the singer is doing at every moment: singing a vowel, starting a consonant, breathing, popping a P, hissing an S or resting. Each of them gets its own treatment.

Sung syllablesBreathsS sounds

Ride the line.
Like an engineer on the fader, TIDE brings every line to the right level. It listens only to sung sound, so pauses, breaths and noise never move the ride.
Smooth the syllables.
Within the line, single syllables that jump out or drop away are evened out. In MIX mode a short lookahead has each move ready before the syllable starts.
Compress in tempo.
TIDE measures how fast the singer is and sets the release from it. A ballad gets a slow release, a fast flow a fast one. No pumping, in any tempo.

ONE PLUGIN, THE WHOLE CHAIN

Every detail has its own control.

BREATHS

Breaths are held at the gain of the last syllable, so compression never lifts them. Then you set their level, from natural to almost gone.

DE-ESS

A de-esser that knows the compression. It first removes what the leveling added to each S, then takes off the amount you set.

BITE

More or less attack on t, k, p and ch. Clearer lyrics, or a smoother, softer vocal.

PLOSIVES

P and B pops below 150 Hz are pulled down only while they happen. The rest of the low end stays untouched.

TONE LOCK

Heavy compression changes the tone. TONE LOCK keeps the band balance of the input, at any setting.

KEEP EXPRESSION

Separates intent from unevenness. A whispered bridge stays quiet, the shouted hook stays loud.

Closer or further away

DISTANCE does what a microphone does when the singer moves. Closer: warmth that follows the pitch of the voice, less room, more detail in the consonants. Further: lighter low end, softer transients, early reflections and a short room. The level is compensated, so you hear the distance, not a volume change.

Ride with the beat

A vocal that is right in the verse can disappear in the hook. TIDE reads the beat from NORTHSTAR LISTEN on your beat tracks, or from its sidechain input, and keeps the vocal a set amount above it for the whole song. With NORTHSTAR, it uses the vocal balance of your genre target.

Every word on a timeline

While the song plays, every word and breath appears on the WORDS timeline. Drag a word up or down to ride it by hand, select a whole phrase and move it at once. Offsets land exactly on the word, and RIDE AUTOMATION writes the ride to your DAW.

ROLES AND CHARACTER

Lead, double, ad-lib, backing.

ROLE sets distance, compression and colour for the part the track plays, on top of your own settings. CHARACTER chooses how the compressor moves and how it colours.

CLEAN

Transparent. Medium attack, almost no saturation.

OPTO

Smooth and slow, with a gentle two-stage release.

FET

Fast and forward. Under 1 ms attack, odd harmonics.

VARI-MU

Soft and warm. A ratio that grows with the level.

THE INTERFACE

See what TIDE does.

FLOW shows the last twelve seconds: the input, TIDE's gain and the result. Breaths are marked in sand, S sounds in blue, and the meters show what each stage is doing right now.

The singer and the microphone show the distance at a glance. LISTEN compares with the original at the same loudness, or plays only the difference.

A lead vocal riding with the beat: FLOW, UPFRONT and DISTANCE, the WORDS timeline and DETAIL.

Technical specifications

TIDE 1.0 compatibility and processing
Format	VST3 (64-bit)
System	Windows 10 / 11, x64
Channels	Mono or stereo, optional sidechain input for the beat
Latency	MIX: 10 ms lookahead, compensated by your DAW. TRACK: zero, for recording
Detection	K-weighted levels, pitch and voicing, syllable tempo, breaths, consonants, plosives and S sounds
Compressor	Soft knee, about 1.5:1 to 5:1, release from the syllable tempo, four characters, lookahead peak catcher
Beat source	NORTHSTAR LISTEN tracks or the sidechain input
Sample rates	44.1 to 192 kHz
Interface	1240 × 810, scalable 60–150%
Content	21 automatable parameters · English manual (PDF)