Entertainment
How PlaqueBoyMax Made A Signature Setup
New Jersey native PlaqueBoyMax, born Maxwell Dent, has seen his meteoric rise to fame for streaming and music since 2022. Alongside this growing fame, Max has upgraded his recording setup from the most basic and budget of microphones and interfaces, to studio sessions in some of the most famous recording studios in the world, alongside producers like frequent collaborator Fred Again (often stylized Fred again..). Max’s setup is a case study in going from DIY bedroom workflow to a fully‑routed hybrid studio and streaming rig, without losing the speed that made his early clips feel so off‑the‑cuff. What makes his current setup interesting isn’t just the price tag, but how it’s designed so he can record vocals, talk to chat and cut songs live, all on the same grid.
In those earlier tutorials, Max is almost apologetic about how barebones his rig is: a Scarlett 2i2 on the desk, an SM58 or AT2020 on a stand, Audio‑Technica headphones into a cheap splitter so a friend can listen in, and everything running through FL Studio. The workflow is simple: drag a YouTube beat into FL, find the key and tempo with a site like Tunebat or similar analyzers, then build a vocal chain from the DAW’s built‑in EQ, delay, reverb and limiter. For pitch correction, he points viewers toward Antares Auto‑Tune and budget alternatives like Slate Digital’s Metatune, turning that basic chain into something closer to a modern rap preset. It is the definition of an accessible starter kit: one interface, one mic, one DAW, and a handful of plugins that come standard or are easy to pirate if you’re a teenager on a laptop.
The PlaqueBoyMAX vocal sound that people now try to reverse‑engineer is a more polished version of that chain, with third‑party plugins doing the heavy lifting. Community presets and breakdown videos point to him leaning on EQ stages like Waves VEQ3 or VEQ4 for tone‑shaping, plus an exciter or enhancer such as Waves Vitamin to pull his voice forward without just cranking the top end. From there it is the classic modern stack: Auto‑Tune for continuous pitch, compression to level out the performance, then short room reverb and slapback delays that keep things intimate even when the beat is wide. It is still built in FL Studio, but instead of only stock plugins, he layers color EQs and enhancers similar to the way his collaborator Fred again.. stacks analog‑style tools in Ableton and on outboard gear.
Hardware‑wise, the jump from the SM58 and AT2020 to a Neumann U87‑class mic instantly changes how that chain behaves. Condenser mics at that level pick up more top‑end detail and room tone, which means his EQ and de‑essing can be subtler while still landing that bright, hyper‑present vocal that cuts on TikTok and Twitch VODs. Max uses a dedicated USB mic like the Elgato Wave 3 for streaming, keeping his recording chain and his broadcast chain separate. The Wave series is designed for creators: plug‑and‑play on Mac or PC, built‑in clip protection and a software mixer that can route game audio, DAW output and mic to different virtual faders.
If you look at the streamed studio sessions with Fred again.., you can see how this philosophy scales up. Those sessions often run on a two‑computer workflow: one machine dedicated to the DAW and recording, the other capturing the screen, camera feeds and audio mix for Twitch, bridged by virtual channels and an interface capable of multiple cue mixes. A Stream Deck or similar controller sits on the desk to instantly mute talkback mics, switch scenes or drop markers, so a private conversation can happen while the beat still plays for viewers. Cameras range from a proper mirrorless body on an HDMI capture card in the control room to a simple webcam in the booth.
What ties all of this together is that Max’s setup is optimized for what his audience expects him to do on any given night: write hooks in real time, bounce between Discord, Twitch chat and FL Studio, and turn the best ideas into actual releases. The bedroom rig made that possible on a budget, but the current high-end configuration lets him keep the same spontaneous energy at a far higher technical ceiling. No matter what the setting, PlaqueBoyMax has excelled at giving people chances to watch the music being made as it happens.
