How to Sound Like XXXTentacion: Vocal Chain and Settings (2026)

What makes the XXXTentacion vocal sound

Jahseh Onfroy built his audience on SoundCloud with songs that ignored every rule about clean vocals. "Look at Me!" is famous for a vocal that clips and crackles on purpose. A year later, 17 and ? showed a completely different side: quiet, emotional singing over sparse guitar and piano. Most people searching for an XXXTentacion vocal preset want the second sound, but a good chain should handle both.

• Close, intimate tone. On the melodic records the voice sits right in your ear. It is soft and breathy, with very little room sound.
• Imperfect on purpose. Timing, pitch and breaths are left in. Tuning is there on some songs, but it is gentle compared with Travis Scott or Don Toliver records.
• Warm, smooth dynamics. The vocal stays upfront without sounding squashed. Slow, program dependent compression is the right tool here, not a fast peak catcher.
• Dark, washy space. Long delays and dark reverbs make the beat feel empty and sad around him.
• Distortion as emotion. On the louder songs, the clipping is the point. It sounds like the voice is breaking the speaker.

Record it like the records sound

The biggest mistake people make chasing this sound is recording a polished, booming vocal and then trying to make it sad with plugins. The emotion has to be in the take.

1. Get close and sing quietly. Two to four inches from the mic with a pop filter. Proximity effect adds warmth, and singing softly keeps the tone fragile. That is most of the "Jocelyn Flores" sound.
2. Do not chase perfect takes. Keep a take with a cracked note if it feels right. Comp for feeling first, pitch second.
3. Leave the breaths. Turn them down a little later if you need to, but do not cut them out. They are part of the intimacy.
4. For the loud songs, record clean and distort later. Real clipping on the way in is impossible to undo. Track at a safe level, around -12 dBFS peaks, and create the distortion in the mix where you can control it.
5. Stack sparingly. One quiet double on the hook and maybe a low harmony. These records feel lonely, so avoid big, wide choir stacks.

If your recordings are muddy or boomy before any plugin touches them, read our guide on leveling vocals before compression first.

The XXXTentacion vocal chain for melodic songs

This is the chain behind the soft, sad sound. It works in FL Studio, Logic Pro, Ableton, Pro Tools, Studio One, Cubase, REAPER and GarageBand with stock plugins or your favorite third party versions.

Pitch correction: keep it gentle

Unlike hard tuned melodic rap, the XXXTentacion melodic sound uses tuning as a safety net. Set the key, then slow the retune speed until you stop hearing the robot effect on held notes. If a slide sounds stepped, slow it further. A good real time pitch correction plugin lets you hear this while you record.

Compression: optical first

The warm, upfront feel comes from slow, smooth compression. An LA-2A style optical compressor is perfect here because it reacts more on long loud phrases and less on quick transients. Aim for 3 to 5 dB of gain reduction on the needle. Follow it with a faster compressor that only touches the loudest words. Our guide on how to compress vocals covers serial compression in more detail.

Delay: the "SAD!" trick

Mix engineer Koen Heldens has talked about the delay on the lead of "SAD!". In an interview reported by XXL, he said the feedback was "almost infinite, which I would never normally do", so the echoes kept repeating through the open parts of the verse. He called it a happy accident.

You can borrow the idea without drowning the song. Put a quarter note delay on a send with feedback around 40%, then automate the feedback up to 70 to 85% only on the last word of a phrase or in gaps between lines. Keep a high cut around 3 to 4 kHz on the delay so the repeats stay dark and behind the lead.

The chain for aggressive, distorted songs

For the "Look at Me!" side of his catalog, the chain flips. The vocal should be loud, dry and broken up.

1. High pass at 120 Hz. Distortion makes low end messy fast, so clean it first.
2. Push into distortion. Use a distortion or saturation plugin with a hard clip or fuzz character. Start with the mix at 30 to 50% so the words stay readable, then push it further on the loudest sections.
3. Compress hard after the distortion. 6:1 or higher, fast attack, 8 to 10 dB of gain reduction. It should feel like the vocal is pinned against the ceiling.
4. Cut harsh mids. Distortion piles up energy around 2 to 4 kHz. Pull 2 to 3 dB there if it hurts.
5. Stay dry. Little or no reverb. A short slap delay at 80 to 120 ms is enough.

A good habit: build the distorted version on a duplicate track or a bus. You can switch between the clean and broken versions by section, which is how many producers create that sudden jump from soft verse to screaming hook.

Building the XXXTentacion chain in your DAW

You do not need expensive plugins to get close. Here is how the melodic chain maps to the stock tools in the most common DAWs.

FL Studio

Use Pitcher for gentle tuning with a slower speed setting, Fruity Parametric EQ 2 for the low cut and mud cut, and Fruity Limiter in compressor mode for leveling. Put Fruity Delay 3 and Fruity Reeverb 2 on separate mixer sends so you can automate the delay feedback trick on the last word of each phrase. For the aggressive version, Fruity Blood Overdrive or Fruity Fast Dist before the compressor gets you the broken sound.

Logic Pro and GarageBand

Pitch Correction with a slower response, Channel EQ, then the Vintage Opto mode in Logic's Compressor gets you an LA-2A style feel. Follow it with the Vintage FET mode for peaks. Tape Delay and ChromaVerb on buses handle the space. In GarageBand, the Compressor and Echo and Reverb sends are enough to sketch the sound before you move to a full preset.

Ableton Live

Ableton has no stock pitch correction, so tune in your preferred plugin first. Then use EQ Eight, Glue Compressor or Compressor with a slow release, and Echo on a return track. Echo's feedback and filter controls make the "SAD!" style repeats easy to automate. For distortion, Roar or Saturator on a duplicate track works well.

Pro Tools, Studio One, Cubase and REAPER

The same order applies everywhere: tune, EQ, slow compressor, fast compressor, air, de ess, then delay and reverb on sends. If your DAW has an optical or "vintage" compressor mode, use it for stage three. If not, use a normal compressor with a soft knee, a 3:1 ratio and a release around 300 ms.

Common mistakes

• Too much tuning. Fast retune on a soft, breathy vocal sounds like a different genre.
• Bright, airy EQ everywhere. A little air helps. Too much makes the vocal sound like a pop record instead of a bedroom confession.
• Clean, short reverbs. These records need longer, darker tails. Cut the highs on your reverb and delay returns.
• Distortion with no compression after it. Without compression the distorted vocal jumps around and loses impact.
• Copying instead of feeling. The settings get you close. The performance does the rest.

For another emotional melodic rap guide, compare this chain with our Juice WRLD vocal guide. The reverb and delay ideas also connect to our reverb settings for vocals guide.

Skip the setup with the XXXTentacion vocal preset

Building this chain by hand takes time, especially if you are new to gain staging. The XXXTentacion vocal preset gives you a tested starting point for FL Studio, Logic Pro, GarageBand, Ableton Live, Pro Tools, Fender Studio Pro, Cubase, REAPER and Waves, plus a RysUpAudio version. The DAW versions are $49.99 each, the RysUpAudio version is $24.99, and the free RysUpAir plugin is included.

Load it, set your recording level, then adjust the compressor threshold and delay send to fit your voice. If you sing quieter or louder than our test vocals, those two controls do most of the work.

Pair this with the RysUp lineup

If you want the chain inside your own plugin setup, these two cover the most important stages of the XXXTentacion sound.

Want every RysUp plugin? RysUpSuite covers the full lineup for $9.99 a month billed yearly. See everything on the plugin lineup and install with the RysUpHub.

Questions producers ask

Did XXXTentacion use Auto-Tune? Some of his melodic songs have audible pitch correction, but it is usually gentler than in hard tuned melodic rap. The exact plugins and settings on each song have not been published, so be careful with "exact settings" claims.

What is the XXXTentacion vocal chain? Light pitch correction, a low cut, optical compression, a second fast compressor, a small air boost, a de esser, then a dark delay and a long reverb on sends. For his aggressive songs, add heavy distortion and hard compression and keep it dry.

How do I make my vocals sound sad like XXXTentacion? Sing softly and close to the mic, keep breaths and small imperfections, use gentle tuning, and put long, dark delay and reverb behind the vocal. The emotion in the take matters more than any plugin.

How do I get the distorted XXXTentacion vocal from "Look at Me!"? Record clean, then use a distortion or clipper plugin after a 120 Hz high pass, followed by hard compression. Cut a little 2 to 4 kHz if it gets harsh and keep reverb to a minimum.

Is there an XXXTentacion vocal preset for FL Studio? Yes. The XXXTentacion vocal preset comes in FL Studio, Logic Pro, GarageBand, Ableton, Pro Tools, Fender Studio Pro, REAPER, Cubase, Waves and RysUpAudio versions.

Sources. The "SAD!" delay story comes from XXL's report on Koen Heldens' Studio Talks interview. Preset pricing and DAW versions were read from the live product page on October 27, 2026.