Quantizing Vocals.. possible?

[fastlanestoner]

Maybe it's...gasp...good performance?

[ksandvik]

Flex mode. Or manual edits. Or tremolo tool, or samples in Ultrabeat, or....

[Melvin III]

Vocalign

[AudioJunky]

Originally Posted by fastlanestoner

Maybe it's...gasp...good performance?

Yeah, I get that... but in the heavily produced... and sometimes over-produced mainstream pop that we hear these days, this is definitely not the Au Natural throw a mic up and have a great singer just NAIL it with no edits sound... and unfortunately when producers are competing with other tracks that sound nearly perfect (Unhumanly perfect I'll say), I think that this is going a little bit beyond just a good performance.

[AudioJunky]

Originally Posted by Melvin III

Vocalign

Melvin, I know that Vocalign will take another track and merge it with another to sound pretty seamless... how does this work with making one phrase line up rhythmically with let's say... a quantized midi sound where you do not want the timbre/instrument on the quantized midi track blending in with the voice?

[ronaktpr]

Yep, the vocals are all pocketed using the monophonic, polyphonic algorithm.

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[projektk]

vocalign works well. what's flex mode?

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[AudioJunky]

I'm not sure that what I want to do is being communicated hear.. but let me just clarify:

I want to have a vocal track (just one)... and let's say a quantized MIDI track that I bounce to audio match the EXACT same rhythm...ultimately lining up the words of the phrase to fit in perfect time with some quantized drum samples. Vocalign will do this?

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by AudioJunky

I'm not sure that what I want to do is being communicated hear.. but let me just clarify:

I want to have a vocal track (just one)... and let's say a quantized MIDI track that I bounce to audio match the EXACT same rhythm...ultimately lining up the words of the phrase to fit in perfect time with some quantized drum samples. Vocalign will do this?

Nope, vocalign will tighten one vocal to another eg double track, bv, or dialogue replacement ( in film).

The answer is a skilled manual editor. It's a hard skill to master, but the best guys can get a performance out of close to nothing.

For pop that is. For more natural styles, you don't want this.

[TreyM]

Use Flex Mode on the track in question. Command + F will turn it on, then you'll see a button allowing you to set the Flex Algorithm. For a solo vocal, choose monophonic. It will analyse the track then you'll see some vertical lines on the audio that you can drag. Clicking a line while your cursor is over the top half of the waveform will move the point and drag the audio around it. Clicking the bottom half of the waveform will move only the selected part and leave the surrounding audio in place.

[AudioJunky]

Originally Posted by psycho_monkey

Nope, vocalign will tighten one vocal to another eg double track, bv, or dialogue replacement ( in film).

The answer is a skilled manual editor. It's a hard skill to master, but the best guys can get a performance out of close to nothing.

For pop that is. For more natural styles, you don't want this.

Yes.. this would definitely just be for something pop oriented. Do producers sometimes have guys who sit around and edit audio.. just like I hear that some have someone around just to auto-tune..e tc?

[AudioJunky]

Originally Posted by TreyM

Use Flex Mode on the track in question. Command + F will turn it on, then you'll see a button allowing you to set the Flex Algorithm. For a solo vocal, choose monophonic. It will analyse the track then you'll see some vertical lines on the audio that you can drag. Clicking a line while your cursor is over the top half of the waveform will move the point and drag the audio around it. Clicking the bottom half of the waveform will move only the selected part and leave the surrounding audio in place.

Thank you for this...! This is what I'm looking for.

[TreyM]

Originally Posted by AudioJunky

Thank you for this...! This is what I'm looking for.

No problem. I actually do this all the time on BG vocals when I need to time align 2 takes for doubling. Look up flex time on youtube if you need a better explanation of how to use it.

You can also MANUALLY create a flex marker by clicking anywhere in the audio.

[Veddersound]

Melodyne

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by AudioJunky

Yes.. this would definitely just be for something pop oriented. Do producers sometimes have guys who sit around and edit audio.. just like I hear that some have someone around just to auto-tune..e tc?

I do it all the time for people. Remotely, in the room, on my own productions, etc etc. sometimes there's a dedicated guy, sometimes it's just the engineer/producer doing it.

Often I'm working with an engineering producer, so once we've got the sounds, I'll be editing whilst the producer continues with takes.

[Bender412]

I know the OP asked about logic, but in PT you CAN literally quantize audio, using the quantize function, just like you would with MIDI events. I'm assuming logic can do it too?

[TreyM]

Originally Posted by Bender412

I know the OP asked about logic, but in PT you CAN literally quantize audio, using the quantize function, just like you would with MIDI events. I'm assuming logic can do it too?

Yes, you can quantize the audio, although I would never trust it on something as sensitive as a vocal take. Start and end times would get all weird in PT or Logic without heavy tweaking to transient sensitivity and even then, I wouldn't trust it. On a vocal take you NEED to do the work MANUALLY. Same thing with pitch correction. Automated modes often sound fake while taking the time to manually correct it sounds much more natural.

[The Vulture]

Originally Posted by Veddersound

Melodyne

+ 1

You can get it done in many ways but melodyne is the easiest.

My 2 cents

[ooohhh2]

Originally Posted by The Vulture

+ 1

You can get it done in many ways but melodyne is the easiest.

My 2 cents

Yep, using melodyne for this is so easy.

[psycho_monkey]

Originally Posted by Bender412

I know the OP asked about logic, but in PT you CAN literally quantize audio, using the quantize function, just like you would with MIDI events. I'm assuming logic can do it too?

Yeah...but it won't sound as good as doing things manually.

All this warping/flex audio etc...you just don't need to do that if you can edit stuff well manually - which will sound much better in general.

[TreyM]

Originally Posted by The Vulture

+ 1

You can get it done in many ways but melodyne is the easiest.

My 2 cents

Honestly no easier than with Flex Time... and Flex Time is free since the OP uses Logic. I own Melodyne and I prefer to use Flex for time aligning vocals. I use Melodyne for pitch work only for the most part.

[Dpro]

Another suggestion for using Flex time it can work miracles when you have a singer rushing lines.