I have to say, the new vocal chain is great. It gets better sounds than I do, and I’ve been doing it for almost fifty years. I just realized how lousy my vocal sounds have been. Good job Steinberg, you’re making me look good.
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Some of the modules are really useful for dialogue too.
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I’m enjoying it as well.
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It’s fine but I can easily get the same results by combining separate plug-ins, the old fashioned way, a chain of gates, compressors, eq, de-esser etc.
What’s makes it so special? The presets?
Other “free” plugins? That do all that? Provided as part of the DAW?
I have a huge collection of vocal chain plugins gathered over the years - all have pretty much the same combination of EQ/De-Ess/Compression/Exciter, and for sure the Cubase plugin doesn’t add much to experienced users’ arsenal. But, it is another flavour to try when other attempts to get a good vocal fail.
No doubt it is there for Cubase marketing efforts to atttract new customers, and I don’t think we can gripe about that.
However, I often get poor, over-compressed, clipped or too low vocal recordings to work with - what are the best vocal restoration plugins around, in the views of the forumistas on here?
The presets are interesting and vary wildly which is great. My normal vocal chain is hardware-oriented - RND 5043, RND 5033 then to a Manley ElOp and back to the box. When I add the new steinberg vocal chain after the hardware, the result (at least for girl lead vox) is really gorgeous. TBH I have not used any other vox -specific plugins so maybe the steinberg one is just average, but to me its the cherry on top
It’s not “special.” It’s not meant to be “special” IMO.
HOWEVER, it’s actually pretty good, usable in a lot of common situations, practical, convenient, saves time so you don’t have to deal with other plugins if you don’t want to, gets good results with less effort than some other approaches/chains/etc., is great for beginners, can also be handy for pros, it’s another flavor in your toolbox, and comes bundled with C13. What’s not to like?
Is it going to change the world? No, of course not!
But there is no downside to this plugin, considering it’s bundled in C13 (unless you consider it a waste of Steinberg resources to include it, and if you think the C13 upgrade price is a rip off).
Is it my first choice? No, of course not, I have hundreds of third party plugins and I’ve been doing pro audio for many many years. But is it handy to have around? Sure, you bet it is. I like that it’s available out of the box so if I just have time to install one app on my laptop, I have this ready to go out of the box with C13. For me, it’s a welcome addition.
Plus it will likely generate some sales and push the competition, which is good for all of us as DAW users.
Is it for you? Who knows, you might never use it, but it might come in handy one day when you need something quick and dirty, and it actually sounds pretty good and has plenty of tools to sculpt your tracks. Steinberg gets a nice thumbs up 
for including it.
I am not attacking anyone for liking this plugin, BTW. I was just curious what people find so attractive. I work on a ‘dialled in’ desktop. I tried it out myself and with the usual amount of tweaking I had good results, but nothing spectacular.
A non tech friend butchered his vocal with Vocal Chain. For him, it’s just too much and not very intuitive.
But clearly the plugin has fans. Great.
I use Izotope RX to rescue poor recordings. Great tool.
Yeah, I have the RX Elements package but have always been reluctant to shell out the extra for the full package as it seems to be mostly focussed on post-production features that I don’t really need.
Have you found the Spectral Recovery feature to be worth the additional outlay?
What about Wavelab … very expensive but looks to have more features than RX ?
I tried it once just to see what’s all about, haven’t needed it yet.
But Mouth Declick, normal declick etc. get used all the time.
Wavelab is a great stereo master editing platform. Don’t really need it. I normally mix and master in one go in Cubase(or Logic)
I have DSP Quattro for stereo editing, sequencing and PQ code stuff.
Also have a look at Acon Digital for audio repairs.
I like it but I feel like it’s still in a pretty raw/unfinished shape.
For a complex plugin not having undo/redo buttons is frustrating.
So is not being able to reset EQ and dynamic filters or mute/solo bands. Having to click each band one by one and reposition it to zero is infuriating (there may be some shortcut I don’t know?) Severely limits usability.
“Studio” 4-band EQs are VERY limited. On a less than perfectly recorded vocals I’d like at least 2 more bands.
Just one reverb with odd algo choices and one delay doesn’t cut it. Could use 2nd delay (let’s say, one for slap, the other for throw) and one more reverb (for a typical plate/hall combo).
So it’s a great start but kind of half-baked… idk if they’ll ever update it or leave it as is.
I think it achieves a great sound that is comparable to my other other plugin chains, but some limitations are quite annoying and sour up the experience considerably sometimes, especially on material that is not exceptionally recorded and requires a lot of editing, it’s where all the limitations start sticking out like a bunch of sore thumbs.