Aligning Vocals Perfectly?

J

Jcool

New member
Similarly to what VocAlign can do (align one vocal recording to another using one of them as a reference for the other), I want to be able to align a vocal recording to an instrument progression I have programmed in my DAW, because the timing is perfectly in sync with the BPM. Aligning one vocal take to another does not guarantee "perfect" alignment/timing because the reference track could be off-timing as well due to human error. I've tried to use an instrument progression I've made in VocAlign as the guide/reference track, and a choppy effect is the result. The vocals are actually even more out of sync, maybe because the program can't decide points to align from since the instrument and vocal tracks are not similar enough (timbre differences?). Any ideas? Other than manually trying to get "perfect" timing?
 
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I just move things around manually. I don't think it's quite as time consuming and/or hardas people make it out to be; as with everything, practice makes it a lot smoother and faster.
 
I wouldn't rely on anything that does it automatically, unless it does it perfect the first time your gonna have to make fine adjustments anyway. Ive never used one but with something as dynamic as vocals i think it would be hard for a computer to get it as accurate as a human in my opinion.
 
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DirtyThirdBeats said:
I wouldn't rely on anything that does it automatically, unless it does it perfect the first time your gonna have to make fine adjustments anyway. Ive never used one but with something as dynamic as vocals i think it would be hard for a computer to get it as accurate as a human in my opinion.
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Then again, if it does most of it alright, and you only have to fix, say, one third of the stuff you'd normally do, it ain't wrong...
 
You can align them manually in protools. Don't use any long crossfade over vocals or you'll get chorus-y artifacts. Short crossfades + a consistent waveform usually give the best result here.
There's also some plugins to automate this process. I've only seen it used once, and it was okay for backings. "Syncroarts Vocalign", google it!
 
Honestly, the best way is to do it manually and really use your ears and metronome to align your tracks properly. Try to get it the best you can. If the timing is still off a little vocally, you're are going to have to edit each track using elastic properties. From there, you start making your warp points and adjust the waveforms accordingly. Once your warp points are set, I'd quantize the waveform in elastic properties first, to see if I get lucky. :D Let me know if this helps!

-LOST Music
 
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