Speaking of Janice Merritt's voice, this is what I thought.

I could be partially wrong, or totally wrong, it's just my best guess.

Use this song "Emerald" as an example, produced by Scott Collingwood & Ray Cochrane.

#1. Janice's formant is great out of the box, no need to make her voice "wet". I assume little to none reverb was used, so her singing feels "in the face", not "from a distance", is the goal?

#2. Janice's vocal is penetrating the backing music with high clarity. I assume Nectar Unmasking was used, so her vocal signal is sent to an iZoptope relay, carving the similar EQ frequency out of the backing music?

#3. The whole song is peaking at 0db or -1db and has a perfect loudness. I assume Ozone was used to get to that desired LUFS?

#4. Janice's breath was at a good volume level, not intruding, not completely gone. I assume RX was used to attenuate her breath?

#5. Janice's essing and plosives were controlled very well. I assume some sort of waveform editings were done to her vocal, such as a RX de-essing?

#6. There are some good vocal harmony in the song. I assume it's Janice's lead vocal used in BiaB Harmoniest, or similar software, to pitch shift to third, or fourth, generate a harmony with perfect timing?

Bottomline: 37 years of engineering is no joke. The difference can be heard almost instantly.

A Canadian music producer, singer songwriter, composer, and professional guitarist.