Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1188730
89 F A L L Q 4 I S S U E T E C H N O L O G Y Andy Koyama Arts VocALign plug-in in 2002, while working on ABC's "Alias." "I was looping an actor who had to replace this really long sentence and he just wasn't getting it. The sync was always off and I was stressing out about it. So I ran his ADR through VocALign, and it adjusted the sync to match the production line. The great thing about VocALign is that the more complicated the line the better the plug-in seems to work. I've had really great luck with it." Synchro Arts upgraded VocALign into Revoice Pro. The plug-ins are similar but not the same. Revoice Pro does a lot more than just align the vocals; it offers an Au- dio Performance Transfer process that can transfer the timing, pitch, vibrato, inflection and loudness of one perfor- mance onto another. "If a certain word is emphasized, Revoice can compensate for that. There are more functions in Revoice than in VocALign, some I haven't yet delved into, and it's a much better tool," says de Gorter. All plug-ins have a learning curve, some steeper than others. Users would b e n e f i t f r o m s p e n d i n g s o m e t i m e with the video tutorials (https://www. synchroarts.com/videos), and tutorials and sample audio downloads (https:// www.synchroarts.com/downloads/#re- voice-pro) on the Synchro Arts website before getting started. This video called Using Revoice Pro for Post Production (https://www.synchroarts.com/videos/ using-revoice-pro-3-for-post-produc- tion) is a great place to start. In essence, to replace location sound with ADR, have both tracks recorded and ready to go in your Pro Tools session. Open the Revoice Pro stand-alone pro- gram. Next, in Pro Tools, select Revoice Pro APT from the AudioSuite drop-down menu. In the plug-in window, the box "Capture Guide" should be checked. In Pro Tools, select the location sound clip you're replacing and hit "Capture." That clip will open in the Revoice Pro stand- alone program on the Audio 1 track . Next, in the plug-in window, the "Capture Dub" box should be checked. In Pro Tools, select the ADR clip you want to use. Then hit "Capture" in the plug-in window. The info from the ADR clip will now be displayed in the Revoice Pro stand-alone program. In Pro Tools, select where you want the new Revoice Pro rendered audio file to go by highlighting a small space on a new dialogue track. Last, in the plug-in window, hit "Spot" and the new aligned ADR track will appear there. You can tr y Revoice P ro for free: https://www.synchroarts.com/products/ revoice-pro/overview. And it works with several popular DAWs, including Reaper. Revoice Pro isn't just for ADR. "I'll even use it on dialogue edits," de Gorter says. "We'll cut together the takes that we want, get it close to sync, and then run it through Revoice as a final measure just to tighten everything up even better. It's one of my favorite plug-ins." Last season on HBO's "Westworld," de Gorter used Revoice Pro in a creative way. Over time, William (Jimmi Simp- son) transitions into Man in Black (Ed Harris). There were a couple scenes in which Jonah Nolan (executive producer) wanted to merge their two voices to- gether. "It doesn't really work that way; you can't merge two different voices together," notes de Gorter. His solution was to ADR Ed Harris reading William's lines for those scenes. Then he had Jimmi Simpson ADR those same lines. Using Revoice Pro's APT process, he matched the sync and pitch of their ADR to Simp- son's production dialogue. "Then we cut between all three versions, pulling words or syllables from the ADR takes and put- ting that into the production dialogue. The result was what Jonah was looking for, a feeling that something was off but you don't know exactly what. Since the pitch was almost the same on all three versions, it blended really well. It didn't sound like Jimmi for some of it but it matched so well that it felt like it all came from his character on-screen. It was a fun little exercise." Revoice Pro can even help with sync- ing up alt takes of production dialogue. Fo r e x a m p l e, w h i l e w o r k i n g o n t h e upcoming Netflix series "Soundtrack," de Gorter had to fix a scene in which there were glass clinks on an actress's line. "Instead of looping that line, I found some production alts that didn't have the glass clinks. I ran those through Revoice to bring them into sync with the original line, so we could replace it. The pitch and sync were the same, minus the glass clinks." The best part about Auto-Align Post and Revoice Pro is that these dialogue tools can be used together. Recently, on "John Wick 3," Koyama was working with a section of ADR that just wasn't looking quite right. Since the ADR was recorded with both a lav and a boom, Koyama phase/time aligned them with A u to -A l i g n P o s t a n d t h e n ra n t h e m through Revoice Pro to fix the sync. "All the sudden, it fit right in," Koyama says. "They're both amazing tools, but I can't believe we haven't had Auto-Align Post for this long. It's literally about a year old, and it's really a lifesaver." ■