The $uicideboy$ have carved out a sonic space that’s raw, dark, and brutally honest. Their music blends southern rap influences, grunge energy, cloud rap textures, and emotionally charged vocals into something that feels completely authentic and unmistakably underground. With harsh distortion, haunting samples, and a DIY ethos, their sound has become the voice of a generation disenchanted with clean pop formulas and polished perfection.
If you're trying to capture that same energy in your own music, you don't just need the right beat—you need the right vocal tone. The $uicideboy$ vocal style is aggressive, eerie, and soaked in emotion. They often use layers, pitch effects, reverb, and distortion to create atmosphere. And while the emotion is raw, the vocal mix is intentional. Every scream, whisper, or echo has a purpose in their storytelling.
This is where $uicideboy$ vocal presets come in. With a well-designed preset, you can achieve that signature dark, distorted vocal tone using only stock plugins in your DAW—without spending hours trying to reverse-engineer someone else’s mix. Let’s dive into how you can sound like the $uicideboy$ using presets that preserve your creative edge while delivering the sonic darkness they’re known for.
Understanding the $uicideboy$ Vocal Aesthetic
The $uicideboy$ vocal sound is gritty and unfiltered. It often feels like the vocal is on the verge of breaking—sometimes distorted, sometimes drenched in reverb, sometimes eerily close and dry. Their lyrics often deal with themes of mental health, drug abuse, existential dread, and spiritual pain, and the vocal mix reflects that raw emotion.
There’s a deliberate lo-fi, almost analog texture to their sound. Whether they're screaming through saturation or rapping with a monotone delivery under delay and vinyl crackle, every element is there to create mood and emotion. But don’t mistake the chaos for a lack of control—their vocal mixes are carefully crafted to carry the weight of each line.
To replicate this vocal tone, you need a preset that captures all of those layers: the saturation, the stereo width, the slapback delay, the dark EQ curve, and the heavy reverb. A $uicideboy$ vocal preset will give you a foundation that’s raw and distorted—but still clean enough to sit in the mix.
Recording with Intention: Start with the Right Take
Before you apply a preset, it’s important to record with the right delivery. The $uicideboy$ style is emotional and intense. You can’t fake it. Whether you’re rapping with a laid-back cadence or yelling your pain into the mic, your performance has to match the vibe.
Use a dynamic or condenser mic in a quiet space, and don’t over-process your input signal. Avoid auto-cleanup plugins while tracking—let the grit come through. The emotion needs to be intact before you layer any effects. Once the take is solid, that’s when the preset can work its magic.
EQ and Tone Shaping for a Darker Mix
The $uicideboy$ vocal tone leans heavily into the midrange and low-mids. Their vocals are not overly bright or shiny. Instead, they sit low in the mix, creating a haunting presence. Using EQ, you’ll want to roll off any rumble or room noise below 80Hz but keep the warmth around 200–400Hz.
Don’t be afraid to pull back the top end. This isn’t a pop vocal mix—you’re not looking for airiness or sparkle. If anything, taming harsh high frequencies can help the vocals blend with moody, sample-driven instrumentals. A $uicideboy$ vocal preset should have this tonal balance baked in, giving your voice a slightly filtered, analog-style presence without losing the emotional clarity of the words.
Distortion and Saturation for Texture
One of the most important elements of the $uicideboy$ sound is vocal distortion. This isn’t the clean saturation you hear in commercial trap music—it’s heavier, dirtier, and more aggressive. The distortion often emulates tape or tube overdrive, adding harmonics and a broken edge that makes the vocal feel more tortured and real.
To get this sound, use a saturation or distortion plugin with a gritty character. Focus on midrange gain to avoid making the vocal too harsh or fizzy. The goal is to rough up the vocal without making it unintelligible. A well-designed $uicideboy$ vocal preset will include saturation and clipping settings that give you that blown-out character without destroying your mix.
Layered distortion can also add depth. You might have a dry, clean vocal with a distorted copy tucked underneath or panned slightly to the side. These kinds of layering techniques are easier to pull off when your preset is built to handle them, with sends, returns, or parallel processing paths already included.
Reverb and Delay to Build Atmosphere
The $uicideboy$ vocal style thrives in space—literal space. Whether it's a cavernous reverb tail or a tight slapback delay, their vocals rarely feel dry or unprocessed. These spatial effects are crucial to building the immersive, haunted vibe that defines their sound.
For reverb, think big but dark. You’re looking for a long decay with low-end dampening and minimal high-frequency sparkle. This makes the vocal feel like it’s trapped in a room or coming from another dimension. Reverbs with pre-delay can also help the dry vocal stay present while still creating that atmospheric tail behind it.
Delays should be subtle but rhythmic. Slapback delays can give the vocal an old-school texture, while tempo-synced delays help the voice echo into space without washing out clarity. Some $uicideboy$ tracks feature modulated or filtered delays that morph over time. A good vocal preset for this style will give you those effects without overwhelming your mix.
Stereo Width and Panning Techniques
The duo often plays with stereo image to create tension and emotion. Sometimes the lead vocal is dead center, but layered with left- and right-panned doubles that create a sense of paranoia or internal conflict. Other times, a whispered ad-lib might float hard left while a delayed vocal repeats in the right ear.
This spatial movement adds to the mental chaos their music often represents. A good preset should give you stereo widening options and make it easy to build these layers. Chorus or stereo imaging plugins can also help you widen the vocal without making it lose power in mono.
Layering Vocals for Emotional Impact
One vocal take isn’t always enough to capture the depth of a $uicideboy$ track. Layering is key. They often stack vocals—sometimes with identical takes for fullness, sometimes with pitch-shifted or whispered variations for eerie effects. These layers create depth and emotion.
Using a vocal preset that includes buses for doubles or ad-libs makes this process much easier. You can drag a second vocal take into a new track, apply the same preset, and adjust the distortion, reverb, or pitch independently. That gives you the flexibility to create complex, emotional vocal stacks without losing consistency.
The Power of $uicideboy$ Vocal Presets
Mixing vocals like the $uicideboy$ from scratch takes time, experience, and a lot of trial and error. But with a professionally crafted $uicideboy$ vocal preset, you can skip the technical maze and get straight to creating. A great preset gives you the gritty, emotional, lo-fi vocal tone you’re looking for—without spending hours adjusting compressors and reverb sends.
At Cedar Sound Studios, we design vocal presets inspired by real artists using only stock plugins. Our $uicideboy$ vocal presets work right inside FL Studio, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, and more—no extra software needed. You’ll get the distortion, reverb, delay, EQ, and dynamic control dialed in from the jump, so you can focus on delivering your most powerful performance.
If you want your vocals to hit like $crim and Ruby da Cherry—dark, aggressive, vulnerable, and unforgettable—this is the easiest way to get there.
Final Thoughts: Bring the Pain to the Mix
The $uicideboy$ didn’t build their sound by playing it safe. They embraced emotion, chaos, and vulnerability—and turned it into something sonically iconic. If you want to sound like them, you have to tap into that same fearless creativity.
But you also need the tools to make it work. With the right $uicideboy$ vocal preset, you’ll have everything you need to create vocals that feel real, intense, and emotionally honest. Whether you’re screaming into the void or whispering into the darkness, your mix will hold the weight of what you’re trying to say.
Explore the full library of artist-inspired vocal presets at Cedar Sound Studios and find the chain that helps you unlock your sound—raw, real, and unapologetically yours.