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8 Ways to Use Sync VX for Better Vocal and Voiceover Results

Feb 03, 2025

Go beyond the basics to discover what else our vocal alignment plugin Sync Vx can do to improve the quality and sound of your backing vocals and dialogue recordings.

8 Ways to Use Sync VX for Better Vocal and Voiceover Results

Our Sync Vx plugin is a dream tool for aligning vocals – whether it’s for tightening backing vocals, post production dialogue replacement (ADR) or otherwise.

Synx Vx’s biggest advantage is its speed. For most simple cases, you can get near-perfect results in under ten seconds. But what if you need more than just basic alignment?

Maybe you want to keep some natural imperfections in certain takes, no problem. Synx Vx gives you the flexibility to fine-tune your vocals exactly the way you want.

In this article, we’ll show you eight things you can achieve with Sync Vx – above and beyond the first ten seconds of automatic vocal alignment. To grab your copy, head to our Sync Vx page or download the free trail via Waves Central.

1. Use More Than One Reference

For simple alignment, Sync Vx asks you to specify one track as the Reference, and it synchronizes every other track to that one automatically. But what if you have multiple backing vocal lines that are slightly different?

A project with Waves Sync Vx processing multiple vocal parts in two different subgroups. The setup uses two reference tracks to guide the two vocal parts.

In the example above, we have two sets of backing vocals. One follows the main arrangement and another follows a different melodic pattern. Simply syncing both stacks to one single reference wouldn’t work here. The second group needs to follow its own lead, not the reference for the main backing vocals.

That’s where Synx Vx comes in. It lets you assign up to four reference tracks, so each vocal group can stay in sync with the right leader. You can hear the difference in the Before and After mixdowns from the files shown above. Listen below:

2. Use Pitch Alignment – or Don’t

Sync Vx doesn’t just align vocal tracks in the time domain, it also gives you the option to synchronize pitch as well. To do this, click the global Pitch option (next to the global Time option) to activate it. Now, all the backing vocals are locked to the same pitch as the chosen reference.

Switching on Pitch alignment in Waves Sync Vx

Pitch-aligning your backing vocals can be a powerful tool, but its effectiveness depends on the context. That’s why it’s switched off by default. Sometimes it’s exactly what you need, and other times, a little natural variation works better.

If your backing vocals are meant to sing in unison, enabling pitch processing is a great option. It helps lock everything in place for a cleaner, more precise sound. But if you’re aiming for a richer, more natural blend, keeping some variation in pitch can actually enhance the mix. That slight detuning effect is what creates the lush, chorus-like sound you hear in stacked synths and vocal harmonies.

For harmonized backing vocals singing different notes, pitch alignment requires a more careful approach. We’ll cover best practices in Section 6, but for now, check out what happens when harmonies are force-aligned to the same pitch. Hear how it removes the harmony entirely, which may or may not be the effect you’re looking for.

3. Denoise Before Processing

Not every recording is sonically perfect, and a noise floor that’s present on multiple vocal recordings can easily sum together to be quite audible when these tracks are added together as part of a bigger project. Fortunately, Sync Vx has a built-in denoising feature that houses the same pedigree as our highly regarded Clarity Vx plugin. You can find this feature within the track header of the Reference track.

Another great reason to use the Denoise feature is that it enhances the accuracy of the processing. By removing background noise first, it helps Sync Vx detect vocal transients more precisely, ensuring a cleaner and more accurate alignment.

The Denoise feature in Sync Vx is set to Auto by default, meaning that it may or may not kick in, depending on your material

4. Sync it Less than 100%

It’s worth remembering that perfection isn’t always the goal in music. Sometimes, the slight imperfections being “the human touch” are what make a track feel natural and emotionally engaging. While Synx Vx can deliver precise alignment very easily, you also have the flexibility to keep some organic feel in your backing vocals.

If you want to soften the effect, you can scale back the processing in multiple ways.

  • To adjust alignment globally, use the Time dial in the top-right corner, which reduces the effect across all tracks.
  • To fine-tune individual tracks, use the Time dial to the left of each track, allowing you to dial back the correction for some vocals while keeping others tighter.
  • For even more control, click the three dots in the top-left of each audio region—this lets you tweak pitch alignment for just that specific section.

This way, you can strike the perfect balance between a polished mix and a more natural, expressive sound.

There are three methods for dialling back the effect of Sync Vx’s vocal alignment: globally (right), per track (middle) or per region (left). All methods are shown here

5. Define Your Own Markers

Almost all the time, Sync Vx will correctly work out which parts are supposed to align. In the event that it doesn’t – or if you want to subvert the plugin’s detection and do something a little different – you can manually create a marker to move and warp the audio waveform’s timing yourself.

To do this, select a spot on the timeline for one track and hit M. The markers either side help you to define your marker’s zone of effect, and you can move the main marker to warp the audio’s timing.

Waves Sync Vx with a manual marker preset at a transient in the waveform one one track

6. Ignore or Bypass (I or B) a Region – What’s the Difference?

Whether it’s a single word or a phrase on a particular track, these two commands let you isolate specific moments within audio in the plugin:

  • Press B to Bypass: This keeps the original, unprocessed audio for that section, playing it exactly as it was before Synx Vx was applied. It’s perfect for moments when you want to preserve natural timing, add a bit of human feel, or keep an ad-lib that might be “technically off” but sounds great in the mix.
  • Press I to Ignore: This goes a step further. Ignored regions are completely removed from processing and won’t pass through at all, as if they were deleted in the DAW.

These options give you total flexibility, allowing you to keep certain parts untouched while fine-tuning the rest of your vocal alignment.

7. Creative Vocals with Transposition and Formant Shifting

As well as automatic pitch correction to a reference track (if desired), Sync Vx can use this pitch manipulation power for more custom results.

Each track has a Transpose and Formant option tucked under an expander arrow in its track header. Transpose changes the tuning of the entire track, while Formant modifies the timbre of the voice.

Sync Vx pitch and formant controls

Here’s an example of our backing vocals where several takes have their Formants pitched down or up – with the tones as if the vocal properties have been altered, but the pitch remaining the same.

8. Doing the TimeWarp Again – Algorithms A vs B

You may notice when using Sync Vx that each track has an option to choose an algorithm for its processing. TimeWarp A, the default, is the recommended algorithm to use, while TimeWrap B is recommended only as a second choice. If TimeWarp A is leading to artifacts being created in the source audio, then TimeWarp B may offer an escape from these.

It’s best not to choose TimeWarp B without having tried TimeWarp A beforehand, though.

Get Your Copy of Sync Vx

Sync Vx makes it quick and simple to align backing vocals and voiceovers in post, and as you’ve seen in this article, the plugin also offers deeper control over more detailed processes as well.

You can get Sync Vx at the Sync Vx page, or download the free trial via Waves Central on your computer.

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