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Is
it my imagination or does life in audio production land just keep getting
better with each new plug-in that comes along? I used to spend hours cutting
and splicing tracks, meticulously placing sound effects, carefully nudging
vocal phrases, and painstakingly moving drum hits—one waveform at a time.
Now there are plug-ins that handle many of these tasks automatically. Enter
some parameters, adjust a threshold, assign your sample and voilà—yesterday’s
dialog is locked to today’s groove, a new sound effect is dropped to the
old markers, every squeak below -20 dB is gone, and the lead singer’s flat
performance is perfectly in pitch.
One such plug-in
is VocALign AS by Synchro Arts. This amazing plug-in helps make audio alignment
a snap. Take two dialog lines at completely different locations, saying
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VocALign's
main window displays two waveforms: The top waveform (Guide) is
the alignment reference; the bottom (Dub) is the waveform to be
aligned. Five degrees of processing can be auditioned, via the Preview
button or an alignment trace (click image for larger view).
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the same thing, but
with totally mismatched meters. VocALign can lock these two performances
together, spotting, fixing timing and laying back the dub in the blink
of an eye. Tailor-made for ADR, clearly, but let your mind wander and
it’s obvious this plug-in also has a wealth of potential applications,
from sound-effects editing (e.g., replacing effects cues) to music production
(e.g., tightening up loosely sung background vocals).
Previously, the VocALign plug-in was a stand-alone application. While
it worked with Pro Tools, importing and exporting SDII files, it was not
an actual AudioSuite plug-in. VocALign AS is a real AudioSuite plug-in
(the AS stands for AudioSuite). The catch: VocALign AS is only compatible
with Pro Tools Version 5.0 or higher. Forget about using the plug-in with
earlier versions of Pro Tools; it won’t work. According to Synchro Arts,
the developers worked closely with Digidesign to implement specific code
in Version 5.0 that enables the AudioSuite operation. I put VocALign AS
Version 1.0 through its paces on a Mac (there’s no Windows version) for
this Field Test.
PREPARE TO ALIGN
Past experience told me that upgrading to Pro Tools 5.0 might be rough.
I was in the midst of mixing an important album and wanted to wait until
the project was complete before upgrading for fear that there would be
compatibility issues between the versions. The last thing I wanted to
find out, after doing the full install, was that 4.3.2 sessions didn’t
translate properly to 5.0. But if I wanted to use VocALign, which I did,
it was time to upgrade. This isn’t a Pro Tools field test, but I’m happy
to report that the 5.0 install was a piece of cake, and all my 4.3.2 sessions
are booting and playing fine.
With Pro Tools upgraded, I was ready to install VocALign. The plug-in
comes on CD-ROM—simply place the CD in your drive and run the installer
program. The installer places the plug-in in the Plug-In Folder inside
your system’s DAE Folder. A folder labeled VocALign AS is dropped into
your hard drive. Inside the VocALign AS Folder is a PDF manual and a tutorial
session. The complete install, including the uncompressed SDII files used
in the tutorial, eats up about 5.5 MB.
Synchro Arts recommends the tutorial for first-time users, but the program
is so easy to navigate, most folks will be able to dive right in after
a quick skim through the manual. However, the tutorial’s audio files are
optimized to show off VocALign’s capabilities, so they’re great for getting
an idea of what the program can do in a best-case scenario. Incidentally,
the manual, while it is clearly written with lots of useful application
tips, is poorly bound. After a few minutes of page turning and flattening,
all the pages fell out. A plastic spiral binding would be much more convenient
and durable.
Copy protection is via key disk. One install is provided. If you lose
the install, Synchro Arts will provide a challenge response code to registered
users—a good reason to register.
Continued
on Page 2
Reprinted with
permission from Mix Magazine, May, 2000
© 2000, Intertec Publishing, A Primedia Company All Rights Reserved
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