Warcry: the metal vocal plugin

What Warcry does

• Scream Detect: hears clean or harsh in real time and blends eight harsh-voice offsets (grit, compression, taming, air, width, space, sub and output level) into the chain, automatically or manually; split into lows (growls, gutturals) and highs (fry, shrieks), each with its own eight offsets
• TUNE: real-time pitch correction with 13 scales, retune and humanize controls, and a skip-screams option that leaves harsh vocals uncorrected
• NOTES editor: capture a performance, then edit each note's pitch, drift, vibrato, formant, gain and timing; works in any host without ARA; breath and ess level chips; DETECT KEY; MIDI export
• ALTER: pitch ±24 st and formant ±12 st, robot and MIDI voices, THROAT vocal-tract and vowel shaping, a talkbox and an 8–32 band vocoder, a six-slot mod matrix and PERFORM keys (freeze, stutter, reverse, tape stop); 35 recipes
• HARMONY: up to six harmony voices sung from the lead (scale, shift, MIDI or chord), placed on a stereo stage; 13 arrangements including choir and gang vocals
• Nine reorderable inserts: Gate, EQ, Crush, De-Ess, Level, Tame, Octave, Grit and Double
• Delay and reverb sends with a look-ahead limiter at the output
• Four editions of the same plugin, each with everything in the one before: Warcry Essential ($29.99: the vocal chain, Scream Detect, TUNE and the factory presets), Warcry Standard ($79.99, adds ALTER and HARMONY), Warcry Pro ($129.99, adds the rest of ALTER and Scream Detect lows and highs) and Warcry Studio ($199.99, adds the NOTES editor); an upgrade costs the difference
• 60 factory presets across 14 collections, from Metalcore, Deathcore and Death Metal to Black Metal, Doom & Sludge, Djent & Prog and Voice FX
• Resizable interface (60–200%) in four colourways: Rally, Blackout, Toxic and Riot

Who Warcry is for

• Metal, metalcore and heavy vocals that move between clean singing and screams
• Vocalists and bands who want one vocal chain instead of separate tuning, harmony, compression, distortion and effects plugins
• Death metal, deathcore, black metal, hardcore, doom, djent, nu-metal, thrash, power and symphonic metal vocals
• Darker vocal textures such as demon doubles, gang vocals, talkbox, vocoder and industrial distortion

Hear Warcry

Original take (dry)

One real take that switches between low and high screams, unprocessed: excerpted, looped and loudness-matched only.

Vocal: Singer 12 from the EMVD dataset (Tailleur et al., 2024), CC BY 4.0. Excerpted, looped and loudness-matched; the preset renders are processed with Warcry. Source. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

Dual Voice Auto

The same take rendered through the actual Warcry plugin with the Dual Voice Auto factory preset. Scream Detect showcase: lush, open cleans; the moment the singer screams, the chain adds grit, crush, width and pulls the space back.

Vocal: Singer 12 from the EMVD dataset (Tailleur et al., 2024), CC BY 4.0. Excerpted, looped and loudness-matched; the preset renders are processed with Warcry. Source. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

Deathcore Dual (Lows/Highs)

The same take rendered through the actual Warcry plugin with the Deathcore Dual (Lows/Highs) factory preset. One track for the whole deathcore range: Scream Detect splits the harsh voice, so gutturals get sub weight and a heavy, dark crush while fry highs get tamed fizz and a wide double.

Vocal: Singer 12 from the EMVD dataset (Tailleur et al., 2024), CC BY 4.0. Excerpted, looped and loudness-matched; the preset renders are processed with Warcry. Source. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

Demon Screams Only

The same take rendered through the actual Warcry plugin with the Demon Screams Only factory preset. Cleans stay human; the moment the singer screams, a second, pitched-down monster screams underneath (ALTER follows the harsh voice).

Vocal: Singer 12 from the EMVD dataset (Tailleur et al., 2024), CC BY 4.0. Excerpted, looped and loudness-matched; the preset renders are processed with Warcry. Source. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

Modern Metal Vocal

The same take rendered through the actual Warcry plugin with the Modern Metal Vocal factory preset. All-rounder for screams and cleans: FET crush into opto, tube grit underneath, tempo delay and a ducked plate.

Vocal: Singer 12 from the EMVD dataset (Tailleur et al., 2024), CC BY 4.0. Excerpted, looped and loudness-matched; the preset renders are processed with Warcry. Source. Licence: CC BY 4.0.

Warcry FAQ

What is Warcry?

Warcry is a metal vocal chain plugin from Basic Shapes. A NOTES editor, pitch correction, a voice transformer with talkbox and vocoder, six-voice harmony, nine reorderable inserts, delay and reverb share one interface, built for both clean singing and harsh vocals.

Can Warcry process clean vocals and screams in the same chain?

Yes. Set up the chain for the clean voice, then choose what changes when the scream hits. Scream Detect blends eight harsh-voice offsets into the chain, with automatic detection or manual control of the clean-to-harsh blend, and SPLIT gives low growls and high shrieks offsets of their own.

Does Warcry include pitch correction?

Yes. TUNE provides real-time pitch correction with 13 scales and humanize controls, and skip-screams leaves the harsh sections alone. The NOTES editor lets you edit captured notes individually.

Can Warcry create vocal harmonies?

Yes. HARMONY adds up to six harmony voices on a stereo stage, with 13 ready-made arrangements that range from a single third above to a choir, gang vocals and MIDI-played chords.

Which metal styles do the Warcry presets cover?

The 60 factory presets are organized into 14 collections: Start Here, Metalcore, Deathcore, Death Metal, Black Metal, Djent & Prog, Thrash & Speed, Heavy & Power, Doom & Sludge, Nu-Metal & Industrial, Hardcore & Grind, Symphonic & Folk, Voice FX and Utility.

Can I buy Warcry yet?

Not yet. Warcry is coming soon in four editions (Essential, Standard, Pro and Studio), at launch prices of $29.99–$199.99 USD, and the release date is still to be announced. NOTIFY ME AT LAUNCH turns on plugin launch emails for your free Basic Shapes account. In the meantime, hear the scream demo and explore the plugin tour.

What formats and platforms?

Warcry runs on macOS and Windows as a VST3 plugin and a standalone app. There is no Audio Units or AAX version at launch.

Which DAWs does it work in?

Any DAW that loads VST3 plugins on macOS and Windows, and the standalone app runs without a DAW. Logic Pro and GarageBand only load Audio Units and Pro Tools only loads AAX, so Warcry won’t open inside them at launch.

Can I track and monitor through it?

The chain adds 72–111 samples at 48 kHz (about 1.5–2.3 ms, depending on quality). TUNE, ALTER and HARMONY share one pitch engine that adds 30.7 ms while any of them is on, so track with them off and switch them on for the mix.

What do presets change?

The whole chain, except what belongs to the song: your NOTES edits, the HARMONY arrangement, TUNE’s key and scale, and the Scream Detect split point you learned.

Do I need MIDI?

No. MIDI is optional: it plays ALTER’s MIDI voices, the SYNTH and PERFORM keys, and HARMONY’s MIDI and chord voices.

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