Waves Clarity VX: A Metal Producer’s Guide to Clean Vocals

Trying to make a screaming vocal cut through a wall of downtuned guitars and blast beats is a core challenge of metal production. But often, the biggest fight isn't with the mix—it's with the vocal track itself. Drum bleed, especially shimmering cymbals, can get baked into a great vocal performance, making it impossible to compress and EQ without turning your mix into a harsh, phasey mess.

This is where specialized tools come into play, and Waves Clarity VX has been turning a lot of heads. But in a world of endless plugins and "gear acquisition syndrome," is this another shiny object or a genuine problem-solver for metal mixers?

The short answer: it's a problem-solver. While the specific brand of EQ or compressor you use often comes down to workflow and preference, some plugins tackle a unique problem so effectively that they become essential. Waves Clarity VX fits squarely in that category.

What is Waves Clarity VX? A Quick Breakdown

At its core, Clarity VX is an AI-powered noise reduction plugin. It uses a neural network trained to differentiate between a human voice and everything else—background noise, room reflections, and yes, that notorious cymbal bleed.

More Than Just a Noise Gate

So, how is this different from a standard noise gate or expander?

• Gates are Dumb: A gate or expander works on a simple threshold. When the signal is loud enough (the vocalist is screaming), the gate opens. When it's quiet, the gate closes. The problem is, it can't tell the difference between a vocal and a loud snare hit. And worse, when the gate is open, all the bleed comes through with the vocal.
• Clarity is Smart: Clarity VX analyzes the audio in real-time and actively removes the non-vocal content, even when it's happening at the same time as the vocal. It’s not just turning the track down between phrases; it's surgically removing the cymbal wash from underneath the scream.

The best part? The interface is deceptively simple. For the most part, you're just turning one big knob until the noise is gone. It allows you to stay in your creative flow without getting bogged down in the complex parameters of traditional spectral repair tools.

Putting Clarity VX to Work in a Metal Mix

Okay, the tech is cool, but how does this apply to getting a punishing metal sound? Here are the most common scenarios where Clarity VX can be a total lifesaver.

Taming Cymbal Bleed in Aggressive Vocal Tracks

This is the big one. Imagine a vocalist giving the performance of their life, tracking in the same room as a drummer. The power is there, but the vocal mic is swimming in hi-hat and crash cymbals.

Before Clarity VX, your options were limited and frustrating. You could try to gate it aggressively, but you'd likely cut off the beginnings and ends of words. You could try some surgical multi-band expansion, but that gets complicated fast.

With Clarity VX, the workflow is simple:

1. Insert it as the first plugin on your vocal track.
2. Start turning up the main knob while the track plays.
3. Listen as the background wash of cymbals fades away, leaving you with a clean, isolated vocal performance.

Now that the bleed is gone, you can apply heavy-handed processing without fear. You can slam the vocal with your favorite compressor (like a Distressor or an 1176) to get that aggressive, in-your-face sound, and the compressor will only react to the voice, not the cymbals. This is a crucial step for anyone learning the art of metal compression.

Cleaning Up "Demo-Itis" and Room Noise

Let's be real: not everyone is tracking in a perfectly treated studio. A lot of killer metal is born in basements and bedrooms. That often means the vocal tracks come with some unwanted baggage—the hum of a computer fan, the rumble of an air conditioner, or just nasty room reflections.

Clarity VX excels at cleaning this up. It can remove that low-level noise floor, making your home-recorded vocals sound far more professional and polished. This gives you a cleaner slate before you even start thinking about EQ.

Isolating Dialogue and Gang Vocals

Got a track with spoken-word parts or gang chants recorded with a room mic? Clarity can help isolate the voices from the room's ambience, giving you more control over the final sound. You can process the dry voices and add your own reverb or delay, instead of being stuck with the natural sound of the room they were recorded in.

But Do you Really Need Another Plugin?

This is a fair question. Every day, a new plugin promises to be the magic bullet for your mixes. Most of the time, that’s just marketing hype.

The Specialist vs. The Generalist

When it comes to general-purpose tools like EQs and compressors, the brand rarely matters as much as your skill in using them. You can get a killer mix with the stock plugins in your DAW if you know what you’re doing. Whether you use Pro-Q 3 or the Logic Pro Channel EQ to carve out mud from a guitar track is a matter of workflow, not a make-or-break decision for the song.

However, Clarity VX is a specialist. It performs a very specific task that is incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to achieve with generalist tools. Just like Soothe2 is a go-to for taming harsh high-end frequencies in guitars, Clarity VX is becoming the go-to for cleaning bleed from vocal tracks—it’s one of the best noise reduction plugins available for this task. It's not just another flavor of EQ; it's a dedicated problem-solver. When trying to achieve maximum impact with your guitars, having a clean vocal to mix against makes all the difference when you're controlling the low-end of modern metal guitars.

The Real Secret: It's the Ear, Not the Gear

A tool like Waves Clarity VX can be a game-changer, but it doesn't make mixing decisions for you. The most important thing is still your creative judgment. You decide how much noise reduction is appropriate. You decide how to process the vocal after it’s been cleaned.

The top producers in the world aren’t great because they own every plugin. They’re great because they’ve spent thousands of hours honing their ears and their instincts. Pros like the instructors who teach on Nail The Mix could take a minimal set of stock plugins and still deliver a crushing mix because they have the fundamental skills. Their decisions are guided by taste and experience.

A plugin like Clarity VX is powerful because it removes a technical barrier, allowing you to focus on those creative decisions. It cleans up the canvas so you can start painting.

And if you want to see exactly how the pros paint? That’s where Nail The Mix comes in. Imagine watching producers like Jens Bogren, Will Putney, or Nolly Getgood tackle these exact problems in a real-world session. In the Nail The Mix sessions catalog, you get access to the multi-tracks from huge metal bands and watch the original producer mix the song from scratch, explaining every move they make. You don't just see the tools they use; you learn the why behind every plugin, every fader move, and every creative choice.