Mocromaniac-Style Vocals in FL Studio: Dry, Hard and Upfront

With Mocromaniac, it's all about the bars. No cloud of reverb, no shiny top end, just a voice that sits dry and hard right in your ear. A lot of people call him one of the most technically skilled rappers in the Netherlands, and his 101Barz sessions show why: every word lands, even when the flow moves faster than you could read along.

Recreating that sound in FL Studio looks easy because there are barely any effects on it. That's exactly what makes it hard. A dry vocal hides nothing. Every rushed breath, every sloppy syllable and every bit of room sound comes straight through.

What dry and aggressive actually sounds like

• Mids up front. The voice lives where the words live, not in deep lows or a glossy top. That's why it cuts through a busy beat.
• Hard compression. Every syllable hits at the same level. The end of a line is as solid as the start.
• Very little air. The top isn't dull, but there's no hiss or sparkle sitting on it. It feels close and a little raw.
• Almost no space. The lead stays dry and upfront. Effects are saved for ad-libs and accents.

The same dry rap vocal: first without a preset, then with the Mocromaniac Type preset. Turn your sound on.

Fast bars need breaths you plan

The denser your writing, the more your breathing decides the take. On a dry, heavily compressed vocal, a rushed gasp comes back loud. And a line where you run out of air drops off at the end while the compressor is trying to keep everything level.

• Mark the spots in your lyrics where you breathe. Rap it through once without the beat and check that it works.
• Breathe in right before you come in, not halfway into the first word.
• Record long sections in parts. A punch-in after a few bars sounds better than one long take where you're gasping through the last lines.
• Stand up and record with energy. Aggressive only sounds real when your body is in it. Sitting at your desk, you rarely get there.
• Don't rap louder than your voice can handle. Yelling sounds thin and starts to crack. Firm and controlled comes across louder in the mix.

Keep your distance when you go hard

On the heaviest lines you'll want to lean in. Don't. The closer you get to the mic, the thicker and boomier your voice gets, and hard consonants start to pop. Stay at a fixed distance with a pop filter in between. If a line gets really loud, turn your head slightly away instead of pulling your input down. Your tone stays the same and the compression has less to fix.

Set your input so your loudest line never hits the red. If that leaves the recording a bit quiet, that's fine. The preset has an input gain knob up front to bring quiet recordings up to level.

From dry take to hard vocal

The steps themselves are no mystery: clear out the useless lows and rumble, steer the tone toward the mids, compress firmly so everything hits at the same level, and add just enough clarity up top to stay intelligible without adding air. Space stays minimal. You can do all of it with the stock plugins in FL Studio Signature. For an overview of what kinds of steps belong in a chain, grab the free vocal chain cheat sheet.

The real work is the balance. Push the mids too far and it sounds like a phone. Compress too hard and your voice starts pumping while your breaths suddenly take the lead. How far each step can go before it tips over took a lot of testing, and that balance is exactly what's saved in the preset.

Singing a hook too? Use the melodic lead, which uses Pitcher for the autotune effect. Set Pitcher to the key of your beat. Not sure what the key is? Drop the beat into the Beat Lab and it tells you.

Three habits that cost you punch

Reverb on the lead

A little reverb feels safe because it softens the sloppy spots. With this sound, though, it pulls the voice back and every punchline loses its hit. Keep the lead dry and only use space on the ad-libs.

Adding shine because it sounds expensive

Plenty of home mixes get extra air up top by default. Here it works against you. The top starts to hiss, the voice gets thinner and it loses the weight that makes it aggressive.

Doubling everything

A double under every line makes a vocal wider, but also rounder and less sharp. Keep your verses single. Only double the words that need the emphasis, or put an accent in the ad-libs. The ad-lib preset with the phone effect is made for exactly that.

Not sure this is the right sound for your voice? Read which vocal preset fits your voice. Never loaded a preset before? Here's how to load a vocal preset in FL Studio.

More sounds in the same lane

• Mula B-style vocals in FL Studio: raw and full
• JoeyAK-style vocals in Logic Pro: dark and hard
• 3Robi-style vocals in Logic Pro: full and direct

Want to hear them side by side? All Type vocal presets with before and after videos are on one page.

Mocromaniac Type presets are inspired by the vocal mixing style of Mocromaniac. This is not an official product and Mocromaniac is not involved. Results depend on your voice, mic and recording.