Body Builder Plugin: Making Lifeless Vocals and Instruments Sound Full and Thick
Body Builder Plugin: Making Lifeless Vocals and Instruments Sound Full and Thick
Body Builder is a plugin I've just built, and honestly, when you put it on things you're not going to want to take it off. It takes lifeless sounds and beefs them up, making them sound really full. It brings out the subtleties of a vocal, guitar, or drums. Place it on your mix bus or use it in mastering to get a much fuller, thicker sound without ruining dynamics. This is one of those plugins that feels like a cheat code.
What Body Builder Does
Body Builder is literally two knobs. The first knob on the left does the body of the track, moving from thin to fat. It brings out subtleties and makes a really nice solid sound without changing dynamics. The second knob on the right is the builder section, a peak controller. As you bring it down, it starts taking peaks off without crushing the sound to death. You get a really big sounding track or vocal without affecting dynamics and feel.
The plugin has three style options depending on the type of music you're doing. You can select different styles and hear the changes across the whole plugin. There's a low cut and high cut so you can dial in which areas get the body and builder treatment. If you want to focus the plugin on mids only, you can. If you want to focus on the upper mids and highs, you can. Finally, there's a mix knob. You can blend it in and out, so if you do heavy bodybuilding, you can blend it back out a bit for a lighter effect, almost like parallel compression.
Using Body Builder on Vocals
Select the vocal area you want to enhance using the low and high cuts. I'll put it around 150Hz on the low cut and 7K on the high cut, but adjust based on the vocal. The style setting gives you three different flavors. Listen through them as the vocal plays to hear subtle differences.
What it does is bring up a lot of the subtleties in the vocal, making it sound bigger and more powerful without changing dynamics too much or putting massive levels on. The vocal instantly feels thicker, richer, more present. You're not just turning up a fader. You're adding dimension.
Using Body Builder on Your Mix Bus
For mix bus use, don't push it so hard that you're smashing levels to zero. You want a fuller, thicker mix while controlling peaks at the top end. Set both knobs at zero on the low end by using the low cut around 150Hz. Now as you add body, you're adding it only to the frequencies above that point. You're not fattening the sub-bass where you don't need it.
You can do the same on the highs with the high cut if you don't like the top end getting too much treatment. Since there's a mix knob, if you put loads of body on and it sounds too thick or too fat, blend some of it out. It's essentially parallel processing. Go really fat with it and then blend back to the exact sound you want.
Using Body Builder in Mastering
This is where Body Builder really shines. It has an auto gain feature that auto-gains to zero. This means as we control peaks on the builder side, we can get the level super loud. Grab the peaks and bring them down. You'll see on the meter exactly how much you're taking off. Change the style depending on your music type. In the body section, get it as fat as you want, then blend with the mix knob if needed.
You can focus just on mids by having the high cut around 8K and the low cut around 300Hz. You're not touching extreme highs and lows, just building the center body. The mids are what give perceived loudness, so getting nice thickness in the sound from the body side and really building the sound and level from the peak controlling side gets you louder without making things sound crushed.
Why This Plugin Exists
Most plugins do one thing. Body Builder does something unique. It adds fatness without adding obvious coloration. It controls peaks without crushing dynamics. It works on individual tracks, mix buses, and masters. It's simple to use but powerful in results. If you're mixing, you'll find yourself reaching for it on almost every vocal and instrument. If you're mastering, it's another tool in your chain to get louder, fuller results.