Made in the underground

Underground vocal plugins

Underground vocals don't sound like radio vocals. They're wetter, darker, more distorted and more experimental. These plugins are built for that sound, and each one is a single big knob.

Why one-knob plugins

Most independent rappers record and mix themselves. Nobody wants to spend an hour building a 12-plugin chain before they can write the next verse. Every POLOPRESETS plugin puts the important moves behind one main control and ships with presets made for rap vocals, so you can load it, pick a preset and keep recording.

All of them are VST3 for Windows 64-bit and work in FL Studio and any DAW that loads VST3 plugins.

The lineup

SUBMERGE: underwater vocals (free)

One DEPTH knob muffles the vocal, adds a slow wobble and a dark watery tail. It's made for intros, bridges and beat switches. Automate DEPTH and the vocal sinks and resurfaces on cue.

SUBMERGEFree. One knob sinks your vocal underwater: muffled, wobbly, drowned in purple. Crank it for the intro, drop it when the beat switches.
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APOLLO: reverb, delay and width on one knob

APOLLO puts reverb, delay and stereo width behind one SPACE knob, with spaces from Room to Infinite and presets like Main Stage. It's the fast way to get a wide, finished vocal without building an FX chain.

APOLLOReverb, delay and width on one knob. Turn up SPACE and your vocal lifts off, from a tight room to a full stadium to infinite.
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UNDERGROUND DE-ESSER: tame harsh S's

Hit LEARN, rap a few bars and Smart Learn sets the detection band and threshold for your voice. Split-band processing pulls the harsh S's down while the rest of the vocal stays bright. It's worth having before any distortion or bright reverb, because those make sibilance worse.

UNDERGROUND DE-ESSERThe de-esser that learns your voice. Hit LEARN, rap a few bars and it finds your harsh S's and tames them, without killing the air in your vocal.
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PHANTOM VOCALS: dark doubles and possessed stacks

One PHANTOM INTENSITY knob blooms the vocal into ghost doubles, octave stacks and a cathedral of space. Load a preset like Possessed or Ghost Choir, turn it up and record.

PHANTOM VOCALSYour voice, haunted. Stack it, choir it and drown it in the void. One knob takes you from subtle to straight possessed.
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A simple underground vocal chain

  1. Clean up: high-pass the rumble and cut any boxy frequencies with an EQ.
  2. De-ess: UNDERGROUND DE-ESSER, before anything that adds brightness or distortion.
  3. Character: distortion or saturation if the song wants grit (see how to get distorted rap vocals).
  4. Doubles: PHANTOM VOCALS on the lead or on a duplicate track.
  5. Space: APOLLO last, so the reverb and delay sit on the finished sound.
  6. Moments: SUBMERGE automated for intros and switches.

For deeper walkthroughs, see the best vocal effects for underground rap and how to make aggressive rage vocals.