VocAlign Ultra Plug-in Versions and DAWs

• VocAlign Ultra Versions
• VST/AU ARA Plug-in Operation: Features
• VST/AU - Realtime Capture: Features

VocAlign Ultra Versions

The installers for macOS and Windows OS will install all the plug-in types below. Only some will work with your DAW.

You can see from the chart below which plug-in versions will work with your DAW.

If there are two (or more) types that will show up in your DAW, you must decide which one you want to use before you load it. 

This User Guide will tell you more about the differences.

Click this link for a complete up-to-date list of Compatible DAWS.

* Recommended when supported by DAW.

** Please note ARA mode will not work when using Logic Pro 10.6 on Apple Silicon (Unless you run Logic in Intel mode/Rosetta)

What are the differences between ARA Capture and VST3 or AU (Real Time Capture)?  

The next two sections explain the features, benefits and issues of the two types of plug-in operation.

VST/AU ARA Plug-in Operation: Features

• Fast capture of audio
  • For short segments it will seem almost instantaneous.

• Ease of setup – in most cases DAWs make this straightforward 
  • (Studio One, Cubase/Nuendo and Cakewalk in particular) 

• Some Daws add ARA plugins to:
  • entire tracks (Logic , Reaper)  
  • audio segments / events  (Cubase, Studio One, Cakewalk etc).
    
  • both-  Reaper can add ARA plugins to either entire tracks or individual segments.

• Transportable projects – the DAW takes care of loading and saving all ARA data.  
• Integrated/dockable display in some Daws. (Studio One and Cubase/Nuendo)
• Instant replay of processed signals.  
• ARA supports limited Undo/Redo (Render/Restore) if one is careful
• Control from the plug-in of the position of the DAW’s playback cursor
• Captured Guides and Dubs are labelled with names from DAW. 

WARNING: The time range of the processed signal using ARA is limited to the exact time range of the Dub. For example, if the plug-in's processing generates an output that is longer than the original Dub, the DAW will not replay the audio that comes after the original Dub segment. However, in nearly all cases this limitation does not cause any problems.

WARNING: VocAlign Ultra ARA plug-in must be the first plug-in in a chain of processing and there can be only one ARA plugin in a chain. This precludes having VocAlign Ultra and any other ARA plugin (e.g., Melodyne) on the same segment of audio.

• The capture of audio is more flexible than ARA’s as the ‘captured audio’ can span any number of audio segments and intervening silences in the DAW.  
• The length of the captured Guide will always be the same as the captured Dub.   
• Instant replay of processed signals.  
• The length and timing of the processed signal is not constrained by the timings of the Dub audio as it is in ARA See (6) in the ARA section above. 
• DAW must support VST3 /AU sidechains  
• Configuring the plug-in can be complicated. It depends on the DAW’s plug-in operations:
  • The Guide track needs to be routed to the plug-in’s sidechain.
  • Configuring the routing of the sidechain is simple in some DAWs (e.g., Logic, Studio One)
  • and complex in other DAWs (e.g., Reaper). 

• The capture of audio happens in real time. A 30 second piece of audio takes 30 seconds to capture both Guide and Dub.
• It is usually much slower to process a project using the real time plug-in than it is to process the same project using the ARA plugin.  
• Not able to integrate (dock) the plug-in's display. 
• No Render and Restore is available (see note 2 below) 
• Cannot reposition the DAW’s playback cursor from the plug-in. 
• Transportable “Realtime” projects (sessions)  for VST3 DAWS but in AU DAWS (Logic Pro)  the “Realtime” project is tied to your Apple computer.          
• It possible to chain the real time plug-in after any other plugin, though in our case there is rarely any good reason for doing this. 

Further detail

• Once you have added the Guides and Dubs to Ultra, the real time plugin and the Ara plugin work in much the same way. 
• Apart from the ‘Capture’ buttons, all Ultra’s presets and knobs will work in exactly the same way in both versions of the plugin. 
• There is not much ability to control the undoing or redoing of anything in the real time plug-in from the DAW itself.  For example, in Studio One using ARA you can Render and then Restore an alignment (i.e. Bounce in place/Undo bounce in Place/Redo Bounce.. /ad infinitum), whereas in the real time plug-in the ‘Restore/Render’ option is not available.  
• You can continue to  adjust the ouput audio from Ultra but not from the DAW. You can bypass the VocAlign Ultra Playback.
• Audio is in a separate file to be read and output during playback. 
• ARA DAWs knows about the audio. 
• You can you have both VST3 Realtime and VST3 ARA in same Studio One project as long as they are on different tracks.

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