Synchro Arts have been on a roll lately. They broke new ground with their innovative Smart Align technology and the ability to process audio without real-time transfers using ARA technology. Previously available only in their flagship Vocalign Ultra, and more recently Revoice Pro, these two fantastic features are now available in version five of Vocalign Project.

Smart Align makes it easy to align vocal doubles and harmonies that are only added to a portion of the main vocal. In other words, not every line or phrase has a corresponding double or harmony. Despite this being the entry-level version of Vocalign, the ability to restrict the amount of timing shift, along with a choice of detection algorithms, makes this more than powerful enough to handle pretty demanding timing discrepancies. 

The inclusion of ARA in this version is excellent news for Logic Pro users. It is no longer necessary to momentarily press play followed by a stop to fill the plug-in buffers. Vocalign Project 5 takes care of that now for us. 

In this video, some of the vocals have fairly serious timing problems. A few tweaks of the max shift parameter are all that is needed to align everything. The Max Shift parameter sets a limit on the amount of time any part of the dub track can be shifted to match the guide track. More pronounced timing discrepancies between the guide and dub require a higher window of time. Generally, the “No Limit” setting works fine. However, if the detection and alignment are off, specific max shift values will restrict the movement of the dub track and result in more accurate alignment. Watch it in action!