Synchro Arts Revoice Pro 5

As this vocal production powerhouse evolves, it’s not only growing more powerful — it’s also becoming quicker and easier to use.

At heart, Revoice Pro (I’ll refer to it as RVP from here) from Synchro Arts is an audio pitch‑, formant‑ and time‑processing app. There are plenty of those available now, including some powerful options built into DAWs, but what makes RVP particularly interesting is its unique ability to analyse multiple audio files and then apply one or more characteristics (pitch, timing and/or level) of one of them to any or all of the others. For instance, if you have two singers singing in unison and you wish to tighten up the pitch and timing differences between them, this can be achieved in just a couple of clicks. It doesn’t take much more effort to do the same for a whole stack of backing vocals, whether they’re singing in unison or harmonies. And, applying the same concept ‘in reverse’, RVP can create some very natural‑sounding fake double‑tracks too, by cloning a vocal part and then applying a specified amount of randomness to the clone’s timing, pitch and level. Furthermore, the results of any process can be tweaked for every new part created, and the results of all these processes can be dynamically linked, so that if you go into the Guide track and make corrections to the pitch or timing, these will all be cascaded out to any Dubs or Doubles you’ve created.

It’s pretty powerful stuff and, compared with traditional processors and editing tools, it has the potential to save music producers a huge amount of time when working with vocals, in almost any genre. And despite the name, it can also be used with other monophonic sources. I’ve used it to good effect with lead guitars and bases, for instance. And it’s not just about speed and convenience: importantly, the processing also sounds very good. Almost unbelievably, it’s approaching half a decade since I first evaluated RVP4, and if you’ve already read my review (which is free to access on the SOS website: https://sosm.ag/synchro_arts_revoice_pro4), you’ll know that I ranked it amongst the most natural‑sounding pitch‑ and time‑manipulation processors available at that time. It still is now.

Nonetheless, there were some aspects of v4 that I felt might be improved. Despite progress since earlier versions, moving audio between some DAWs and RVP could feel a little clunky, and inside RVP I found some of the terminology a bit alien, while some processes took more clicks and keystrokes than I felt should be necessary. Well, step forward Revoice Pro 5 — this latest version does a lot to address all those issues, while also ushering in an abundance of helpful changes that should make the app quicker and easier to use for everyone.

Plugged In Thinking

The new ARA2 plug‑in allows you to do rather more than simply transfer audio from your DAW to RVP.RVP5 is, at heart, a standalone application (for Mac and Windows OS) that can be used completely independently of your DAW and, as with previous versions, is authorised via iLok. But installed along with the main app are a few DAW plug‑ins that aim to take the pain out of transferring audio from your DAW to RVP and back again. It’s perhaps worth noting that the old AudioSuite plug‑ins for Pro Tools — the ones that allow you to apply presets pretty much instantly from within the Edit window — are still present, and that RVP still supports the drag‑and‑drop transfer of audio clips between applications. But the big news is that the Revoice Pro Link plug‑in, available in AudioSuite, ARA2 and AU/VST3 flavours, has been reworked to make it quicker and easier both to get audio from your DAW into RVP, and to monitor the result in your DAW.

More DAWs support ARA2 now than did when RVP4 came out, and I expect this version of the plug‑in will be what the majority of users end up using most.

More DAWs support ARA2 now than when RVP4 came out, and I expect this version of the plug‑in will be what the majority of users end up using most. Depending on how your DAW handles ARA2 and what you’re trying to do, you might prefer to instantiate this plug‑in at the DAW track level, where it can be used to capture/process/monitor multiple different clips, or directly on individual audio clips. Once instantiated, the GUI will tell you if RVP isn’t open (you’re prompted to click a button to open it)....