Okay, so in theory it is an amazing workflow enhancer. But the auto alignment is really unreliable and half-baked. I believe it’s kind of a macro of warping/groove quantize. There doesn’t seem to be any intelligent coding behind it. I might be wrong.
Look at ReVoice Pro! 98% reliable with almost no audio artifacts. Now you can even do pitch correction matching on stacks of vocals etc. as well.
What do you guys think?
Love it. Massive time saver (vs. manual correction). Works best in small chunks (bounced as individual events). My primary use case is double-tracked vocals. I don’t expect miracles. I only expect time savings. It delivers on those expectations. I have no experience with other tools.
Fantastic! But my experience has been very unpredictable with it. Seems like it’s okay for simple double tracking, but for complex vocals stacks with many layers it’s not quite there yet.
I’ve used Vocalign/Revoice a lot. True, It’s often (but not always) more accurate than Cubase Audio Alignment, but it’s also quite a bit slower and faffier to set up, using insert effects and side chains, and it doesn’t give perfect results every time either. (You say 98% of the time, lucky you I’d say! I only get about 75-80% success on a first attempt and it’s a lot slower to get there!) The Cubase Audio Alignment is so very quick to use that I’m now always trying it as a first option. If I can’t get the result I want, I just Ctrl+Z then try Vocalign to see if the results are any better. Vocalign and Revoice have more processing controls but again thiese take time to set up and try. (similarly for vocal tuning and simple alignment Variaudio is useful to to me because it’s so quick and embeded into Cubase. Melodyne and Revoice may be more fully featured but it’s slower more complex workflow.)
In my experience, for both Audio Alignment and Vocalign/Revoice the clarity of the of the clips you’re processing seems critical. For vocals, breaths and conflicting dynamics + annunciation can properly mess things up with either system. It pays to clean up the audio rigourously for breaths, ambient noises, mouth clicks, etc before processing. Also, the length of the clip seems to matter - I usually chop things up into small parts first.
I agree, Audio Alignment could do with some refinement, but IMO it’s a good start . Even as it is right now, It’s so quick to try that there’s barely any reason not to. Going back to the Variaudio analagy, the first Variaudio outing was pretty basic but nowadays with all the quick controls right on the audio, it’s very slick to use for monophonic parts. Hopefully Audio Alignment will mature similarly
THis discussion is very similar to the discussion about Melodyne and Variaudio.
Variaudio performs well - Melodyne is still superior. But both have their value. And Variaudio has taken a good road.
I assume Audio Alignement will also be further improved over time.
Just my 2 cents, Ernst
I agree with you 100%
Great to hear from you all! I’ve stuck around with Cubase for nearly 20 years, so, yes, I know things will get better.
The slightly involved workflow of RV is justified with very large and complex sessions. Although with 4.2v and ARA 2… it’s quite a breeze.
I‘m happy about the time it saves. Can just chime in and say ‚good it’s there, hopefully will improve‘. All in all very nice that the toolset increases with such useful workflows even though they’re not perfect or do not perform like additional software that comes at a price.
If VariAudio had been earlier, I’m not sure I had bought Melodyne (talking of long ago when MD was also monophonic only). If Envelope Shaper had been earlier, I wouldn’t have bought any Transient Designers etc.
With AutoAlign on board I won’t have to get another software as it works mostly without quirks for me and if it doesn’t, a manual edit (old school) is still pretty quick!
Never tried Revoice, just demo‘d Vocalign (back in non-ARA days): my impression was good but for the real work I‘ve used the demo on I also had to readjust some parts manually. It wasn’t perfect either.
As a long time melodyne user I definitely wouldn’t like beeing restricted to the capabilities of VariAudio, but VA is what I often use for non-critical standard edits though. The seamless integration into Cubase is still closer/quicker than ARA (thanks for ARA anyway). In case of AutoAlign I’m just not used to a more ‚pro‘ tool in the first place - which is a good starting point to make most out of it.