Burnish Vocal Chain
by Vitric Audio · Vocal Tool · All-in-one lead vocal chain
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Burnish is a complete lead-vocal chain from Vitric Audio with eight stages, from tuning and cleanup through compression, color, doubling and space to a loudness rider and limiter.
It can analyse a reference recording and is on sale for $79 (regular $250) as VST3, AU and AAX for macOS and Windows.
Best for: Vocals. Genres: Pop, Hip-Hop & Trap, R&B & Soul, Rock & Indie.
Keywords: vocals, lead vocals, AAX, airy, classic, clean, dark, FET, opto, perpetual licence, subscription, tape, tube.
What it does
Burnish is an eight-stage lead-vocal channel strip that can analyse a reference recording and propose starting settings for every stage. The developer frames it as fixing "eight decisions made in the dark", and says it never promises an identical sound to the reference.
- Tune: Classic hard-tune at 0.1 ms latency, or a formant-preserving Natural mode with a Throat control that leaves sibilants unshifted.
- Clean: adaptive de-harsh and split-band de-essing.
- Shape: a 5-band EQ built on Bevel EQ's filter maths.
- Compress and Color: FET into Opto compression taken from Caliper Compressor, then tape, tube and present color plus air, drawn from Caliper and Iron Summing.
- Double and Space: a detune-decorrelated doubler that folds down to mono with less than 3 dB change, and a ducked delay and reverb from Colonnade Delay and Halo Reverb.
- Ride/Limit: a BS.1770 loudness rider holding level within ±0.5 LU, followed by a safety limiter.
Around the stages:
- Reference analysis: runs fully offline on your machine and reads a 40-band tonal curve, dynamics density, sibilance, space and tuning style, with a confidence label per stage and a Match Amount from 0 to 150%.
- Latency modes: Track mode at 0.1 ms for recording, and Mix mode at 12.5 ms when the Natural tuner is in use.
- Presets: 66 factory chains and 12 Learn chains that isolate single stages; mono or stereo in, stereo out.
The current version is 1.0.3. Launch-sale pricing has applied. Licenses are perpetual, one-time purchases, with a free, full-function 3-day trial (no card needed) and a 14-day money-back guarantee; all eleven Vitric plugins are also available through the Vitric Complete subscription. Audio is muted when a trial expires.
Source: Vitric Audio product page
When to use it
Burnish is a pick for getting a whole lead-vocal chain, tuning included, from one plugin set by a reference track. Compared with Nectar 4, its closest rival, it adds a built-in hard and natural tuner and local reference matching, but it has no track record yet. Unlike a chain of specialists such as Pro-DS for de-essing and Vocal Rider for level, every stage here is a simplified version, so you trade depth per stage for speed. Its Track mode at 0.1 ms latency also lets you hear the chain while tracking.
- Best for: lead vocals in pop, hip-hop and R&B where you want a finished chain fast, set from a reference.
- Genres: pop, hip-hop, R&B and rock.
- Look elsewhere if: you prefer building a chain from dedicated tools or need a proven tuner; Auto-Tune Pro 11, Pro-DS and Vocal Rider each go deeper on one job.
Where to buy
- Vitric Audio: $79 (regular $250)
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More from Vitric Audio
- Colonnade by Vitric Audio · Delay · Free
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- Caliper Compressor by Vitric Audio · Compressor · $39
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