· 8 min read
The best vocal effects for underground rap
Underground rap is where vocal effects get weird. Here are the ones you hear all the time, what they do to a song, and how to make each one in FL Studio.
Mainstream vocals are mixed to be clean and upfront. Underground vocals are mixed to create a world: muffled intros, ghostly doubles, phone-speaker verses, adlibs that echo off into space. Here are the effects that do it.
1. The underwater vocal
What it is: the vocal sounds like it's coming from under water or through a wall: muffled, wobbly, dark.
When to use it: intros, bridges, the bar before a drop, or a whole song for a hazy mood.
How: a steep low-pass filter that sweeps down, plus a bit of pitch wobble and dark reverb. You can build it from a filter, a chorus and a reverb, or use SUBMERGE, our free one-knob version. Automate DEPTH so the vocal sinks and resurfaces.
2. The phone or radio vocal
What it is: a thin, band-limited vocal, like it's coming through a phone speaker.
How: cut everything below about 300–500 Hz and above about 3–4 kHz, then add a touch of distortion. Fruity Love Philter or Fruity Parametric EQ 2, both included with every FL Studio edition, can do it. Great on a hook intro or a verse that should feel distant.
3. Dark doubles and octave stacks
What it is: extra layers of the vocal, often pitched down an octave, that make it sound bigger and more haunted.
How: record real doubles, or duplicate the vocal and pitch-shift the copy down an octave and tuck it under. PHANTOM VOCALS does doubles, octave stacks and dark space from one knob.
4. Distortion
What it is: grit, crunch, blown-out energy.
How: distort a parallel copy and blend it under the clean vocal so the words stay clear. Full walkthrough in how to get distorted underground rap vocals, and free options in the best free distortion plugins for FL Studio.
5. Delay throws
What it is: one word or the end of a line echoing off into the beat.
How: send only that word to a delay. In FL Studio, automate the send level on the vocal track to the delay track for just that word. Fruity Delay 3 comes with every edition. APOLLO adds delay, reverb and width on one knob.
6. Huge, washed-out space
What it is: reverb so big the vocal floats.
How: keep the lead fairly dry and put the huge space on adlibs, backing vocals or a duplicate of the lead blended low. Free option: Valhalla Supermassive. One-knob option: APOLLO's Infinite space.
7. Reverse reverb swells
What it is: a ghostly swell that rises into a word.
How: in FL Studio, reverse a copy of the vocal clip, add a big reverb, render that to audio, reverse the rendered audio back, and line the swell up so it ends right as the word starts.
8. Tape stops and stutters
What it is: the vocal slows down and dies, or chops and repeats.
How: Kilohearts Essentials, free with an account, includes Tape Stop and Trance Gate. You can also chop and repeat slices in the Playlist by hand. More in how to create glitchy vocal effects.
Don't use them all at once
The point of effects is contrast. A song with every effect running all the time just sounds like noise. Pick one signature effect per section, and let the clean vocal carry the rest. Automate, and save your favorite chains as mixer track states so they're one click away next time (see FL Studio vocal presets).