It fares best with percussive and monophonic sources, though resonant body instruments, e.g. Though VocAlign Ultra is focussed on voice work, it does have a set of instrument presets. Overcooking the pitch tracking will cause an unnatural finish, but there’s plenty of control with two operation modes to prevent this. This significantly affects how the timings and energy levels match and the degree to which an audible artifice can come to bear on the output signal. The most useful is the Alignment Rule drop-down menu which offers seven flexibility ranges for time compression/expansion. Opening the Advanced mode is inevitable as ears become accustomed to the range of VocAlign Ultra, and with it comes a host of extra options for digging into the rules that govern how the Guide defines the Dub. With the appropriate preset, it’s hard to fault the initial output of VocAlign Ultra, and often only the Basic mode controls are needed for seasoning to taste. This frees up time for more creative tasks – or longer coffee breaks. The setup, with or without ARA, is fast, and a reviewable result is near-instantaneous. Tightening up vocal stacks is definitely in that category, but having developed speedy chops over the years, I’m happy to relinquish much of the work to VocAlign Ultra.
#VOCALIGN PRO 4 REVIEW PROFESSIONAL#
The menu also contains a recent folder that saves menu searching for those making heavy use of VocAlign Ultra.Īutomated processes in audio production can be a touchy area for many, especially when areas of skilled efficiency become a source of professional pride. Whether it’s being used on lead vocal stacks or ADR production, the main bases are covered, with more extreme needs catered for in sub-folders. VocAlign presents a situation where even the most preset averse are best served by starting with the well-curated menu. This function is especially convenient when working on vocal stacks that have occasional harmonisations or rhythmic syncopations. Besides sync editing, the user can also set protected areas on the Dub that are spared from timing/pitch processing. These advanced tools only become necessary when the source material possesses major divergences, such as heavy breaths between words or phrases. In advanced mode, the displays permit you to add and edit sync points to adjust the algorithm’s assessment of the timing relationship between the Guide and Dub. In all three modes, there are vertical and horizontal zoom sliders and an easily navigable timeline. This display can switch to show the pitch variation of the three signals or their energy levels. Output overlays the adjusted Dub with the outline of the Guide, updating as you change parameters. The majority of the scalable interface is given over to three waveform displays: Guide, Dub and Output. Naturally, there is also a world of editing possibility lurking just a few clicks away when the interface is switched from Basic to Advanced. Then, once the preset is selected, and the Guide and Dub are hooked up, it is mostly a case of tweaking the Match Timing and Match Pitch knobs to achieve the required tightness.
#VOCALIGN PRO 4 REVIEW FREE#
The GUI is relatively unfussy, free of endless options and spurious controls. Both methods are quick to set up, but the algorithm dictates how much faster and better this semi-automated approach to vocal stack editing is. It only needs to be redone if audio events are moved or edited in the DAW. VocAlign can build up a patchwork across the timeline as you work on sections. The plug-in then needs to be played the Guide and Dub parts in real time to gather the necessary data, though you needn’t do this in one long stripe. The near-ubiquity of the sidechain function makes this approach possible across almost all DAWs. The second method has the user place the VocAlign plug-in on the Dub track and select the Guide track as the sidechain input. Pro Tools has a similarly slick AudioSuite implementation that doesn’t need you to play audio into the plug-in, either, which can make processing extremely fast.