FIRST:
Listen to the signals and also in the top window, examine the yellow aligned Dub energy trace and how it matches the blue guide energy pattern to hear and see where the alignment is going wrong.
Try to find if VocALign is not aligning the beginning, middle or end of the signals correctly and follow these steps in order.
If VocALign does not match (align) the START of the Dub to the Guide:
1. Check that there is (ideally) around 0.25 sec of low level audio before the main audio starts in the Guide and Dub. If not, try to select audio to achieve that. If you can’t, then try to select similar starting points in the two energy displays.2. Try moving the “sliders” (or start locators - see user manual for detail) at the start of the audio signal to alter the energy start for selected regions and get similar matching start points in the Guide and Dub energy patterns.
3. Try to avoid having breaths or other different noises at the start of one signal than in the other.
If VocALign aligns the start, but does not correctly align the MIDDLE of the Dub to the Guide or it creates unnatural sounding audio:
1. Try changing the Warp Flexibility. (Max compression/expansion, High/Low Flexibility, Normal Flexibility). For example, Lower Flexibility will often reduce the amount of editing, but might make matching harder.2. Try doing smaller selections – in other words, select up to where it goes wrong and align that. Then select the remaining parts.
If VocALign does not align the END of the Dub to the Guide, but aligns the start and middle correctly:
1. Try moving the “sliders” to alter the end of the selected regions and get similar matching end patterns in the Guide and Dub energy patterns.2. You can end the guide selection earlier than the dub selection, and VocALign will align up to the end of the Guide selection and add the extra audio of the Dub unaltered.
See User Manuals for further details in achieving the above.
If the above doesn't help, capture smaller length sections.
The user must remember that VocALign is deliberately restricted to stretching a part of a signal by a factor of 2.0 (100% expansion) and compressing it by a factor of 1/2 (50% compression). If VocALign is trying to expand or compress a gap in the speech, and it has used up its allowance, it may try to expand or compress the neighbouring speech.
This means, for example, that if gaps in the new and replacement dialogue appear in different places or are of very different durations, after modifying the gap region,
VocALign might also have to expand or compress the replacement speech signal near the gap, to best align the modulations. This may lead to unwanted effects. In this case, the user should break the signal into sections that can be individually treated.