GUIDE · PLAYBOI CARTI VOCALS · ANY DAW
How to mix vocals like Playboi Carti.
Carti's vocals swing between the high 'baby voice', blown-out rage and bright plugg leads, with stacks of adlibs. Each one is a different chain. Here's how to build them with stock plugins, then the one-click way.
By Jordon Lumley, producer and maker of SCRAMBLE. · Nov 2026
The sound in four parts.
Baby voice: pitched up, formant up
Rage: distorted, loud, dry
Plugg: bright, tuned, chorus
Stacked adlibs
The chain, step by step.
In this order, on the vocal track. The numbers are starting points: trust your ears.
- Pitch correction. Song's key, fast retune, humanize off.
- Baby voice. Pitch up 2-4 semitones with the formant up a little too, or sing it high and add a light formant shift. Keep it dry and upfront.
- Rage voice. Distortion at 40-60% mix, hard compression (6-8 dB), short room. Loud and in your face.
- Plugg lead. Bright EQ (shelf above 8 kHz), a touch of chorus, 1/8 delay and a 2 s plate.
- Adlib stacks. Duplicate adlibs, pitch copies +7 and +12, pan them wide, high-pass hard.
- Low cut. High-pass 130-200 Hz on everything so the 808 has room.
Playboi Carti is named only to describe a vocal style. SCRAMBLE isn't affiliated with or endorsed by Playboi Carti. The settings below are our own starting points for the sound, not anyone's actual session settings.
Or do it in one click.
Load SCRAMBLE, open the VOCALS page, pick RAGE AIRY (free), hit MATCH SONG KEY. With the Bundle, RAGE BABY VOICE, RAGE BLOWN and the OPIUM VOCAL CHAIN folder (plugg leads) cover the rest. 24 Carti-style chains.
Everything in the chain above, in one free plugin: Playboi Carti vocal chain presets →
SCRAMBLE is free.
10 vocal chains, 8 FX modes for drums, 808s, hats, loops and the master bus, and a Rubik's cube with 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 positions, each a different FX chain. Mac + Windows, no card needed.
Questions
How do I get the Carti baby voice?
Sing higher than normal, then pitch up a couple of semitones with the formant raised. Keep it dry: the baby voice works because it's close and upfront.
Do I need paid plugins?
No. Every step works with your DAW's stock plugins (FL Studio, Logic, Ableton, Studio One all have a pitch corrector, EQ, compressor, saturator, delay and reverb). SCRAMBLE just does the whole chain in one free plugin.
Will it sound exactly like the record?
No chain will on its own: the voice, the mic, the performance and the beat matter more than any plugin. This gets your vocal into the same lane fast.