Presets and Getting Started

• Working with presets
• Capture Sequence
• Loading a preset
• Inspecting the Results of Processing
• Modifying the preset
• Manually Changing Control Settings
• Saving and managing presets

Working with presets 

Capture Sequence

If you are going to use a different preset on a new Guide and Dub, if you change the preset before you capture the new Guide, it will be applied to the current Dub, which you might not want to happen.

Here is the safest order to do your operations:

1. Before you move on to capture a new Guide, don't change the preset!!
2. Capture your new Guide
3. Change the preset now (if you want to)
4. Capture the Dub

Loading a preset

To load a preset, click the preset menu at the top of the interface 

and browse through the menu structure to the preset with the name that most closely describes the source material and results you’re aiming for. 

The menu hierarchy is not rigid, but an example of presets for Vocal Doubles is shown below:  

The heirarchy largely follows the levels described below:

• Tier 1 – signal type: Choose Vocal (sung), Instrument (melodic or percussive instruments), Rap (rhythmic vocals) or Dialogue (spoken word). 

• Tier 2 – Relationship or Task: Here’s where we specify the relationship between the Guide and the Dub, from a range of options including vocal and instrumental Doubles and Harmonies, and Dialogue Replacement and Inflection Transfer.  
  
  Many tasks are further divided into subcategories, such as describing different pitch ranges of source material – Low Pitch Dub and High Pitch Dub, for example. These are used to deliver better quality editing for signals or used to set controls for situations like “Dub with Gaps - SmartAlign OFF”.

•  Tier 3 – tightness: Each task is presented at several degrees of ‘tightness’, governing how strictly the timing and pitch of the Dub are aligned with the Guide. For example, the basic Vocal Harmony task comes in Slightly Loose and Tight Timing options.  
   
  Exceptions to this are the Creative Vocal presets, which are described in terms of upward or downward pitch and formant shift, or, simply, Make monotone. These unusually detailed ones are mainly included to indicate some possible options the user might find useful to know about.

• The Recent folder will show the last 5 presets you have used which have their original settings when they were created (and not changed versions). 

• User Presets - are where you can create and save your own presets, which would also show up in Recent after you use it. 

Inspecting the Results of Processing

You need to understand when VocAlign 6 Pro automatically processes (which helps speed up your workflow): If there is a Guide already captured, as soon as a Dub is captured, VocAlign 6 Pro automatically processes the Dub with the selected preset and creates a new Output. Or, if there is a Dub present and the preset is changed, VocAlign 6 Pro will reprocess the Dub with the new preset setting and create a new Output.

The Output appears in the bottom of the three default waveform views, as a solid purple waveform overlaid with a yellow outline of the Guide waveform to show time alignment of the Output relative to the Guide.  

Further visual confirmation of the time and pitch alignment can be seen in the pitch view, shown against the 'piano keyboard' note grid, with the purple Output pitch trace alongside the yellow and orange Guide and Dub pitch traces. 

These pitch traces can be individually turned on or off with "eye" switches to provide a clear understanding of the changes both needed and made. The "eye" switches are indicated by the red arrows in the below image.

The Guide and Dub aren’t part of the preset, so you don’t have to recapture them when you select a new preset. Changing preset with a Dub and/or Guide clip loaded reprocesses the Dub instantly according to the parameters of the new preset to create a new Output. 

If you would like to changes settings including the preset for multiple dubs at the same time, make sure you use our Process Groups feature.

WARNING: If you are going to use a different preset on a new Guide and Dub, if you change the preset before you capture the new Guide, it will be applied to the current Dub, which you might not want to happen.

TIP: Change presets as much as you want only after you capture a new Guide, not before.

Modifying the preset 

Be sure to try modifying the controls and see what happens in the timing and pitch displays as well as in the sound. You may find you need to make at least minor adjustments to the controls to make a new preset to adapt to your source material.  If you do that and want to keep that preset, save it as a User Preset with a good descriptive name.

Manually Changing Control Settings

Overview

VocAlign 6 Pro has three control panels than can be opened and closed using the buttons found on the right hand side of the user interface. They are circled in red in the below image.

You may sometimes need to make adjustments to the controls on one of the panels after starting from your chosen presets' to adapt the processing better to your source material, or modify the results you hear in the Output to get a better or different results. Then when you're happy with the settings you can close the panels. 

Using the control panels is covered in depth in the section Adjusting the Automatic Time and Pitch Matching. 

Saving and managing presets 

To save all the current VocAlign 6 Pro control settings as a new preset, click the preset menu and select Save As Preset, then give your preset a name and click Save.  

Selecting Manage User Presets from the same menu opens the user preset folder in macOS Finder or Windows Explorer, where you can rename and back up your presets. 

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