There's been a lot of chatter online, accompanied by lots of misinformation, about the differences between Vocalign Ultra and Revoice Pro from SynchroArts. They are both great vocal/dialogue editing tools. They both do many of the same things, but there is plenty that each does that the other doesn't. Let's look at the similarities and the differences and set the record straight.
Let's get the immediate differences out of the way right upfront. Vocalign Ultra is a plug-in that works inside your DAW. As a plug-in, Vocalign Ultra requires no file management. Everything is saved and recalled with your DAW project. Revoice Pro is a standalone app that works separately alongside your DAW. Revoice Pro projects are saved and recalled independently. Happily, much of the file management housekeeping is done automatically when using the ARA version of Revoice Pro. Not every DAW supports the ARA version, though (yeah, I'm looking at you Pro Tools!), and the workflow is slightly different without it.
The other big elephant in the room often overlooked when discussing Vocalign Ultra and Revoice Pro is that Vocalign Ultra only does time and pitch alignment. Revoice Pro, in addition to time and pitch alignment, also does actual time and pitch editing. Alignment versus editing is significant even though only one of the four words is different.
Vocalign Ultra does not tune your vocal. It will conform doubles and harmony parts to match your lead. But it won't tune your lead vocal. So, it is an excellent tool if you are working with a strong lead vocal, where the supporting parts are a bit weak. But if your lead vocal needs work, Vocalign Ultra is not the tool to use.
On the other hand, Revoice Pro is a complete vocal production soloution. Use it to tune your vocal. Use it to adjust the phrasing. Use it to smooth pitch transitions. Use it to tame sibilance and other non-pitched parts of the audio. Use it to edit vibrato, straighten pitch fluctuations within a note, and more. And, of course, use it to align the time and/or pitch on multiple vocal tracks.
The inclusion of Process groups is another fantastic enhancement Revoice Pro has over Vocalign Ultra. There will undoubtedly be multiple vocal tracks requiring different treatments in complex vocal arrangements. Create Process Groups to recall quickly and tweak the settings at any time in your editing and arranging workflow. Another fantastic feature of the Process group implementation is that changes made to the guide track are automatically applied to the same group members. Imagine you've tuned your lead vocal, aligned your harmonies and doubles, and then decided you want to change the timing of a syllable in your lead. Make the change, and all your corrected harmonies and doubles follow instantly.
Is Revoice Pro better than Vocalign Ultra? It depends on how you define "better." Is it more full-featured, with more vocal editing tools? The short answer is yes. However, the advantage of Vocalign Ultra is that it is fast, lightweight, and purpose-built to be easy when targeting the alignment of multiple vocal tracks. So if you have strong lead vocals, and all you need to do is align and not tune, Vocalign Ultra will get you to the goal post more easily. If you need to work on your main vocal track, you will be hard-pressed to find anything more powerful and clean sounding than Revoice Pro.
Check out this video to see some of these features in action.