Synchro Arts VocAlign Ultra

Synchro Arts VocAlign is a long established
market-leading tool that adjusts the timing of
an audio ile (Dub) so it matches that of a source
(Guide). It works well with vocals, instruments,
sound efects and dialogue and is therefore
commonly used for a whole bunch of music and
post production tasks. VocAlign Ultra (AU, VST3,
AAX, ARA, Audio Suite) is their new fully
featured version and it replaces VocAlign Pro. In
terms of features it sits between the afordable
but quite basic VocAlign Project and their
lagship processor, Revoice Pro 4.
Major Update
It’s pretty obvious from the redesigned,
resizable GUI that VocAlign Ultra is a substantial
upgrade. The new window retains the colourful
look of its predecessor rather than the more
serious design of Revoice Pro, however, under
the hood it’s actually RVP’s time compression
and expansion algorithms that now power
things. This means that VocAlign Ultra can
process longer and more complex sections of
audio and also includes pitch-matching and
formant-shifting.
VocAlign Ultra comes in both regular plugin
formats (AU, AAX and VST3), Audio Suite for
oline editing in Pro Tools and the latest ARA2
(Audio Random Access) format (see boxout).
Synchro Arts
VocAlign Ultra £342
Editing and aligning audio can be time-consuming but this newly
updated industry standard could make your life considerably easier
“It’s pretty obvious
from the redesigned,
resizable GUI that
VocAlign Ultra is a
substantial upgrade”
GUIDE
The reference
audio track to
match others to
DUB
This is the track
you are planning
to align with
the Guide
FORMANT
SHIFT
Manually
adjust the
Dub’s
formants
(resonances)
up or down
for creative
effect s
OUTPUT
Here you can see
the final
processed audio in
yellow with Guide
as a blue trace
BASIC / ADVANCED
Advanced mode provides all controls
of parameters
PROTECTED AREAS
Select regions of the Dub
that don’t follow the guide
either in timing, pitch or both
VIEWS
Choose one of three views -
waveform, pitch and signal energy
WAVEFORM ZOOM
Adjust the size of the
waveform so it’s easy to see
PRESETS
Select from over 60 presets
designed for dialogue, vocal and
instrument doubling and pitching
SYNC POINTS
Create manual sync points to tie
important points between the Guide
and the Dub
Synchro Arts have included DAW-speciic
instructions for implementation of each format.
Three Ways
VocAlign Ultra has three core processors –
Match Timing, Match Pitch and Formant Shift.
You’ll see these to the right of the interface and
each is accompanied by a single parameter
control. For both timing and pitch these
determine how loose or tight the matching
processing is. Formant Shift includes a
straightforward Higher/Lower option (+/- 20%).
The button above these controls reveals
additional parameters. For timing the key
parameter is Alignment Rule and this has six
presets that tailor the way compression or
expansion is applied to the Dub. Next up, Max
Shift allows you to specify the maximum timing
shift allowed, which is great if you have gaps in
your Dub that may get misinterpreted. Finally,
High Resolution upsamples the internal audio to
74 / COMPUTER MUSIC / September 2021
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