Please all share experience: Aligning vocals to tempo

[keyjslider]

Hi all, everytime I ever finish any vocal recording session, I ask me on the most time-saving ways of aligning vocal file to tempo grid (I mean the syllabiles and consonants).
Please, advice the right technics and audio software. I mostly do recordings into FL Studio, but find this program to be of insufficient conviniency and sometimes audio quality for those purposes (clicks and pops at transients in slicex, impossibility to merge single syllabiles' being cut into one file without recording to the mixer twice). Wavelab and Adobe Audition are better, but less faster. The best for me would be ReCycle - it reproduces transients nicely, allows adequate stretching, but if it could also allow moving the sliced parts left/right)))
Could anybody share experience????

[Bops2000]

if i understand correctly, you are using vocal samples as opposed to someone really singing?

[howie15]

Must be.....otherwise I would say...give the vocalist a metronome.

Howie J

[af-Reegs]

Vocalign?
http://www.synchroarts.com/

[BagHun]

Melodyne can be used for that.

[kope]

Ask your self do you have proper hardware – Audition slow??? FL Insufficient??? There is lot of technical issues, which you have to check. On first place what are you doing? Which sampling rate you are using? What is the length of samples? Size and speed of RAM? Sound card and type of driver? CPU and chip set? If you want of as to help how to reach Alaska, on first place you should say to as where you are.
By the way, the best what I so about aligning is Sonar 8 (8.5).

[keyjslider]

if i understand correctly, you are using vocal samples as opposed to someone really singing?

they are vocal samples previously recorded from the real singer/ Is there an opportunity or software to tempo-align real-time vocals during recording session on the fly?? I understand this does not make sense, but what are they for the common knowledge, if exist?

[keyjslider]

Must be.....otherwise I would say...give the vocalist a metronome.

Howie J

Agree, but.. that's me singing..)) And please, be politically correct in favour of colleagues

Yes, metronome is great, but personally I've got the good reasons for such the alignment, inspite that I've got good sense of rythm, musical education, some basic singing training and experience in electronic music)
Fine-aligning syllabiles to rythm is also a good production technic, used in all studios, even if the overall timing is correct.

I put my personal vocals upon a remix track in style rnb americana. The problem is the song's range is 1 octave up my comfortable personal vocal range. So, I work at the limits of my possibilities, have to make up to 30 takes per one string to get them sit with correct pitch and vocalization, after that I surf through these takes and select the best ones, combining certain phrazes and sometimes even in favour of musicality, sacrificing the correct timing, as it takes my voice delay to approach every single syllabile at the highest pitch correctly. I speak about alignment of 1/16 and 1/32 th notes))

[keyjslider]

Ask your self do you have proper hardware – Audition slow??? FL Insufficient??? There is lot of technical issues, which you have to check. On first place what are you doing? Which sampling rate you are using? What is the length of samples? Size and speed of RAM? Sound card and type of driver? CPU and chip set? If you want of as to help how to reach Alaska, on first place you should say to as where you are.
By the way, the best what I so about aligning is Sonar 8 (8.5).

My setup with 2Gb RAM single Athlon 3500+ core is sufficient even for 192KHz) Under fastners I mean the usebility, depending on specific program, let's say how much time I spend for certain operation to proccess my file at every alignment stage within the audio software. Audition does not have a detailed grid (visual problem), Fl studio is the best, but the marker's placement algorythm is awful (in Edison) - Cubase has better one, etc. What would I wish to make with vocals being aligned? Yes, some fine pitch correction, for that I need the single audio file made of sliced pieces. But no one has this feature - e.g., Fl Studio introduced assigning groups to slices, but it didn't enable the "make group unique" function and so on...))

[Bops2000]

Acid pro may be a look.
I would run samples in Acid pro then minipulate,
dice, slice, whatever, then bring back to Sonar for mixing.

I am not understanding why you would mess with vocal samples, lest they were for some backround stuff.

Perhaps run Sampletank with an outboard keyboard for that kinda thing..

Just some thoughts.

[kope]

When I need something like that, I open new project in FL with exactly the same settings like primary project. For pitch correction, I’m using AWOX because of his ability to follow MIDI notes and ability to made backing vocals. Finale I will render to wav file and import in main project. Advantage is that you are on safe side to don’t stack or damage main project. This is practice when you want to make something new from existing sound (or sample). For simple aligning to rhythm, best results are with Sonar (I tested in ver. 8). With just one click all done J. FL have bad algorithm for beat detection, I newer make something with it. You have to use some external BPM meter like Tractor have or similar.

[keyjslider]

Vocalign?
http://www.synchroarts.com/

Thanks - I've tried, and found it to be a funny stuff to make a singing drunker voice from a stuff and some kind effects, but not useful to achieve planned result)

[keyjslider]

Melodyne can be used for that.

Thanks, tried out Melodyne - nearly ideal stuff for that, but problematic with moving notes - it autostretches the phraze when quantizing/moving, thus ruining the musical character as concerns transition from one motive to another etc.

[keyjslider]

When I need something like that, I open new project in FL with exactly the same settings like primary project. For pitch correction, I’m using AWOX because of his ability to follow MIDI notes and ability to made backing vocals. Finale I will render to wav file and import in main project. Advantage is that you are on safe side to don’t stack or damage main project. This is practice when you want to make something new from existing sound (or sample). For simple aligning to rhythm, best results are with Sonar (I tested in ver. 8). With just one click all done J. FL have bad algorithm for beat detection, I newer make something with it. You have to use some external BPM meter like Tractor have or similar.

Thank's, Kope,
I found AVOX good, I also use Vielklang, Antares and Akai Decabuddy for backing voc/pitch correction.
There's no need for self-detection slicer algorythm, cause my samples are the heavy case and require doing everything manually because of their nature. All I need is to set manually the slice markers, after that move the sliced pieces to meet correct tempo position and export to wav, all that within single environment.

[keyjslider]

Acid pro may be a look.
I would run samples in Acid pro then minipulate,
dice, slice, whatever, then bring back to Sonar for mixing.

I am not understanding why you would mess with vocal samples, lest they were for some backround stuff.

Perhaps run Sampletank with an outboard keyboard for that kinda thing..

Just some thoughts.

Thanks, will try)