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ANTARES Avox Evo user manual

1. Contents Chapter 1 Getting Started Chapter 2 Introducing AVOX Evo Chapter 3 Harmony Engine Evo Vocal Modeling Harmony Generator Chapter 4 THROAT Evo Physical Modeling Vocal Designer Chapter 5 DUO Evo Vocal Modeling Auto Doubler Chapter 6 CHOIR Evo Vocal Multiplier Chapter 7 PUNCH Evo Vocal Impact Enhancer Chapter 8 SYBIL Evo Variable Frequency De Esser Chapter 9 ARTICULATOR Evo Vocal Formant and Amplitude Modeler Chapter 10 MUTATOR Evo Extreme Voice Designer Chapter 11 WARM Tube Saturation Generator Chapter 12 ASPIRE Evo Aspiration Noise Processor Index vi Welcome On behalf of everyone at Antares Audio Technologies we d like to offer both our thanks and congratulations on your decision to purchase the AVOX Evo Antares Vocal Toolkit a suite of uniquely powerful DSP tools for creating spectacular vocal tracks As an AVOX Evo owner you are entitled to receive notification of any software updates technical support and advance announcements of upcoming products But we can t send you stuff unless we know who and where you are So please register At Antares we are committed to excellence in quality customer service and technological innovation With your purchase of AVOX Evo you have created a relationship with Antares which we hope will be long and gratifying Let us know what you think You can count on us to listen Again thanks The Whole Antares Crew 1 Getting Started
2. Vocal Timbre Behind this unassuming knob lies a compact version of the THROAT Evo vocal modeler When this control is set to 0 the doubled voice will have exactly the same character as the original voice As you adjust the control in either direction DUO Evo sends the doubled voice through a progressively more extreme vocal model l e near 0 the timbre is very close to the original voice As the control approaches 40 or 40 the vocal timbre undergoes a fairly radical change As you might imagine this knob simultaneously controls a number of vocal modeling parameters We ve linked them together to give you quick and easy access to a range of useful timbres Although the exact effect of any setting will depend a good deal on the vocal being processed in general e Selecting a positive value will result in a lengthening of the vocal tract and hence an older darker more male vocal quality e Selecting a negative value will result in a shortening of the vocal tract and hence a younger brighter more female vocal quality Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 0 Vibrato The Vibrato control allows you to select the amount of variation in vibrato depth applied to the doubled voice Selecting a positive value increases the doubled voice s vibrato depth relative to the original voice Selecting a negative value decreases the doubled voice s vibrato depth relative to the origi
3. the larger the maximum amount of allowable variation i i i Stereo Spread STEREO SPREAD This control selects the extent to which the This control only functions in Stereo or Mono gt generated voices are spread across the stereo Stereo modes spectrum At a setting of O all of the voices appear in the center of the stereo soundstage As the value is increased the voices spread out from the center until at the maximum value they appear across the entire stereo soundstage Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 100 Usage Tips e CHOIR Evo is available in mono and stereo versions and depending on the capabilities of your host program a mono gt stereo version which in most cases is the preferred routing In the case of the stereo version CHOIR Evo processes only the left channel CHOIR Evo is dramatically more effective with the voices panned across the stereo spectrum so if at all possible try always to use it with stereo output e The real power of CHOIR Evo comes not as a processor for one voice but as a processor to assign to each of a number of harmony parts Even if you have only one singer have them overdub the basic harmony parts and then process those parts through THROAT Evo to give each the character of different voices Then assign an instance of CHOIR Evo to each of those parts and create your vocal ensemble e Alternatively create harmony parts by proc
4. Again your best bet in working with Throat Width just to try a variety of settings to hear what works best for your project To adjust Throat Width click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise The numeric display will indicate the percentage of change Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 1 00 AMPLITUDE EXTRACTION SECTION The controls in this section don t exist In the schematic signal flow this section represents the process of extracting the Control Signal s amplitude envelope which is a fancy way of saying the way its loudness changes over time ARTICULATOR Evo does this all by itself with no need for any input from you AMPLITUDE MODULATION SECTION Here s where you decide how much effect the Control Signal s amplitude envelope will have on the Audio Signal Envelope Amount This control sets the amount Mod of amplitude oo modulation i e change in loudness applied to the Audio Signal M by the Control Env Amount Signal s amplitude envelope Amplitude ENIF When this control is set at 0 the Control Signal s amplitude envelope has no effect on the Audio Signal In this case the loudness dynamics of the Audio Signal are preserved and only the formant information from the Control Signal is imposed on the Audio Signal When this control is set at 100 maximum
5. the result is an amazingly realistic large vocal ensemble Controls T voices Chair Size CHOIR SIZE This control allows you to select the number of individual voices that will be generated from the original voice Choices are 4 8 16 and 32 voices VARIATION Vibrato Variation The Vibrato control allows you to select the range of variation in vibrato depth applied to the generated voices Each voice is individually assigned a vibrato variation relative to the original voice The higher the value of this control the greater the possible vibrato variation Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 30 Pitch Variation The Pitch Variation control lets you select the range of the random variation in pitch applied to each generated voice Each voice is individually assigned a pitch variation relative to the original voice The higher the value of this control the larger the maximum amount of allowable variation Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 30 24 Variation vibrato Timing Variation The Timing Variation control lets you select the Command Mac Control PC click the control to range of the random variation in timing applied to reset it to its default value of 100 each generated voice Each voice is individually assigned a timing variation relative to the original voice The higher the value of this control
6. warmth Additionally WARM has been designed to be extremely DSP efficient so that even a relatively modest native system will be capable of running WARM on an almost unlimited number of tracks simultaneously What s the big deal with tubes anyway For most of us in audio recording distortion is a bad word We typically want the cleanest possible recordings free of any audible distortion But for certain types of audio there is an exception the distortion that comes from transient clipping in a high quality tube preamplifier When high quality tube pre amps are operated in their linear range there is virtually no signal distortion and their audio qualities are essentially identical to that of high quality solid state pre amps However it is common for transients to exceed the preamp s linear voltage range resulting in distortion And here s where things get interesting The distortion characteristics of a vacuum tube pre amp are vastly different than those of solid state amplifiers Specifically the overtones produced by tube distortion are generally harmonically related to the fundamental input pitch whereas solid state overdrive distortion generally produces non harmonic overtones This tube distortion is often described as adding a certain warmth to a sound This is in contrast to what is often described as the brittleness of the solid state sound As a result many people pay large sums of money for
7. Evo If you have instantiated a Mono version the slider will be disabled Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of O absolute center Usage Tips Although we ve already mentioned this a few times it bears repeating that to obtain the most interesting results from ARTICULATOR Evo it s most important to select appropriate Control and Audio Signals Control Signals e First and foremost the Control Signal should be dynamic both in formant information and volume as would be case with speaking or singing e Since the actual pitch of the output is provided by the Audio Signal if you are singing the lyrics to a song it s not necessary to sing the actual notes of the melody for the Control Signal It s only necessary to enunciate the words clearly and distinctly with whatever expressive gestures are appropriate for the track Even a monotone will work e Don t limit yourself just to words All manner of vocalizations and vocal effects can be used to provide a dynamic Control Signal Try vocal beat box sounds or the kinds of vocal wah wahs that simulate a resonant synth filter e Interesting effects can result from using the amplitude envelope of an intricately rhythmic Control Signal like congas tablas or even an entire drum track 39 Audio Signals e The most important characteristic of a good Audio Signal is that it has rich harmonic content The formant information fro
8. How to use this manual The plug ins that make up the AVOX Evo suite have been designed with clear consistent friendly user interfaces If you come to AVOX Evo with previous vocal processing experience you will find that most of their functions are self evident and are extraordinarily easy to use However since some of the AVOX Evo tools do things that have never been done before or do them in new ways a few aspects of their user interfaces may not be immediately obvious Consequently we encourage you to at least scan each of the individual plug in s chapters for descriptions of their various parameters In particular Harmony Engine Evo offers new and extremely intuitive ways to specify vocal harmony while THROAT Evo ARTICULATOR Evo and ASPIRE Evo offer entirely new approaches to vocal processing providing capabilities that have simply never before existed ina DSP plug in We strongly suggest that you read their chapters in their entirety to gain an understanding of what they can do If you just can t wait to get some sound going feel free to load up some vocal tracks and play around with the various AVOX Evo plug ins Be sure to check out Harmony Engine Evo s and THROAT Evo s collection of factory presets They ll give you a good idea of what they re capable of as well as providing inspiration for your own creations Then come back and dig into the details If you re upgrading If you are upgrading from AVOX or
9. It s fun ES ANOTHER NOTE Because the Alienize function needs to store up a small bit of your speech before it can start Alienizing it there will be a short delay between the beginning of the audio and when the alienized voice begins to sound the exact delay depends on the selected Dialect setting Conversely depending on exactly when your audio ends the alienized voice may continue for a very brief time after you stop while the last alienized segment is completed Think of it as Alien Timeshift To set the Dialect click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise The numeric display will indicate the segment length in arbitrary units or beat divisions depending on Dialect mode Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 10 INPUT OUTPUT SECTION Here s where you can adjust the output level bypass the entire plug in and get a visual representation of the before and after versions of your audio Output Volume This control applies gain or attenuation to the output signal Since MUTATOR Evo s various functions can substantially increase or decrease the level of the input you can use this control in combination with the output level meter to ensure that your output is at an appropriate level without clipping To adjust output volume click on and move the fader to the desired position The numeric display wi
10. the the full effect of the Control Signal s amplitude envelope is applied to the Audio Signal And as you might imagine intermediate settings of this control apply intermediate amounts of amplitude modulation ESD NOTE lIn order for the Control Signal s amplitude envelope to have maximum effect on the Audio Signal the Audio Signal should be a sustained sound like the Noise Generator or a synth pad or at least one in which audio is constantly present If there are periods of silence in the Audio Signal its output during those periods will be silence regardless of the Control Signal s envelope If the Audio Signal is constant but has a varying dynamic range you might depending on your goal consider engaging the Compressor in the Input Mixer to even it out ES TIP The easiest way to understand the effect of this control is to do the following 1 Do whatever your DAW requires to set up ARTICULATOR Evo with a speaking or singing voice as the Control Signal 2 In the Inout Mixer set Audio Level to inf and Noise Level to a comfortable level 3 Set the Formant Extraction controls as appropriate for your Control Signal 4 In the Output Mixer set Control Signal Level to inf and Audio Signal level to a comfortable level 5 While playing the Control Track vary the Envelope Amount control from 0 to 100 and listen to the result To adjust the Envelope Amount click on the knob and move the cursor up to
11. ASPIRE Evo Once you ve tweaked the voice exactly as you want it you can double multiply or harmonize it with DUO Evo CHOIR Evo or Harmony Engine Evo Finally WARM and PUNCH Evo work well with pretty much any input so they would typically be the last of the AVOX Evo plug ins in the chain e Effects like reverb and conventional chorus or flanging should typically be applied after processing by the desired AVOX Evo plug ins Special Cases e While you will usually choose between DUO Evo or CHOIR Evo you can use them together for a really huge vocal section Assign DUO Evo to your track and pan the original and doubled voices to opposite tracks Then assign separate instances of CHOIR Evo to each of the two tracks Humongous e Ifyou will be using Harmony Engine Evo to generate harmonies from a single vocal line start with SYBIL Evo if necessary and then THROAT Evo and then feed its output to Harmony Engine Evo Ifyou have a vocal with problematic vibrato either too much or too little you can use DUO Evo for vibrato modification Assign DUO Evo to the track and use only the doubled output Set all parameters to their minimum effect and use the Vibrato function to adjust the performance s vibrato depth See Chapter 5 for more details For maximum control of the timbre of doubled voices at the cost of increased CPU requirements assign DUO Evo to your vocal and pan the original and doubled vo
12. ES5 NOTE Choosing the wrong Voice Type or just forgetting to set it at all can result in compromised performance Pay attention Tracking n order to accurately analyze the input ASPIRE Evo requires a periodically repeating waveform characteristic of a voice or solo instrument The Tracking control determines how much variation is allowed in the incoming waveform for ASPIRE Evo to still consider it periodic Tracking If you are working with a well isolated solo signal e g tracking in a studio or from a multitrack master you can typically set the Tracking control to 25 and forget it If on the other hand your signal is noisy or not well isolated as might be more common in a live performance situation or you are dealing with a particularly breathy or guttural voice it may be necessary to allow more signal variation higher Tracking numbers However under these circumstances tracking is not guaranteed and a too relaxed setting may introduce distortion and popping To adjust Tracking click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise Remember higher numbers allow more variation while lower numbers require less Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 25 Display The display provides a graphic representation of the harmonic content of the input signal the white plot the aspiration noise
13. Off as appropriate Keep in mind that On means that the Bypass function is on i e the plug in is bypassed Usage Tips e THROAT Evo is a monophonic processor e For best modeling performance THROAT Evo needs to be able to detect the pitch of the original performance To do that THROAT Evo requires a clean pitched monophonic signal If THROAT Evo can not reliably detect the pitch of the input either because of a noisy or effected signal or because the input is not a single monophonic voice it will not fail but will fall back to an alternative but not quite as accurate modeling method e f you are going to be using pitch shift set your pitch shift range first and then adjust the modeling controls to create the desired vocal timbre e As has been mentioned several times already for natural realistic results always start with relatively small adjustments to the various throat modeling controls whether the Length and Width sliders or the Graphic Display control points The actual range of variation in human anatomy iS quite small relative to the overall range offered by THROAT Evo When you re first getting started try limiting control changes to around 15 As you get a feeling for the effect of various settings slowly increase the ranges until things start sounding weird not that that s necessarily a bad thing 17 If you just want to start playing try the following brief tutorial St
14. at the selected Frequency The range is from 12 0dB to 12 0cB To adjust Gain click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 0 0 Bypass Bypass p The Bypass button allows you to bypass the effect of the EQ section When the button is red EQ is bypassed Click the button to toggle its state Gain N A t Aal tiy in T Display The EQ Section Display provides a real time graphic representation of the Control Signal red plot the Audio Signal blue plot and the EQ curve green plot 38 OUTPUT MIXER SECTION Here s where you can set the output levels and pans of both the processed Audio Signal and the Control Signal ij Audio Signal CD o This control applies gain or attenuation to FTA the processed Audio Signal Audio Signal EI plus Noise if any The range is from inf i e off to 12 dBs of gain The associated meter indicates the level of the processed Audio Signal along with a clipping indicator Between the effects of the modeling process and the EQ it is possible to generate quite a bit of additional gain If necessary adjust the output level so that clipping is avoided To adjust Audio Signal Level click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise The numeric displa
15. component and its relative level the red plot and the current setting of the parametric EQ the green plot Increase Reduce Increase Reduce Click the appropriate button to ether Increase or Decrease the amount of aspiration noise The appropriate controls will become active and the remaining controls will be disabled ES IMPORTANT NOTE ASPIRE Evo acts on the aspiration noise naturally present in a person s voice It does not synthesize aspiration noise from scratch There are people with extremely pure voices that contain virtually no audible aspiration noise In those relatively rare cases ASPIRE Evo will have no audible effect Reduction This control allows you to select the amount of reduction of the aspiration noise A setting of 0 0 provides no reduction Maximum reduction is 12 0 dB The red aspiration noise plot on the graphic display will move to reflect the setting of the control Reduction To adjust Reduction click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 6 dB Increase This control allows you to increase the amount of the aspiration noise although see the section on EO below for an explanation of how this function can also be used for selective reduction A setting of 0 0 provides no increase Maximum increase is 12 0 dB The red aspirat
16. control is set to the extreme Original end of its range only the original unprocessed voice will be sent At the extreme Mutated end only the processed voice will be sent In the middle of the range a selectable mix of the two will be sent To set the Mutant Mix click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise The numeric display will indicate the percentage of the Mutated signal in the mix Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 100 all mutated signal 43 ALIENIZE SECTION The Alienize section lets you give your speech the quality of an alien language by chopping it up into small segments and playing each segment in reverse The effect is kind of hard to describe in words so just try it You ll see Alienize The Alienize switch lets you activate and deactivate the Alienization inf process Click anywhere on the switch to toggle its state between On and Off It turns blue when Alienization is On and gray when it is Off Dialect This control sets the length of the speech segments that are reversed You can choose one of two Dialect modes Internal or Tempo Sync Internal Mode When using Internal Mode i e when the Temp Sync button is not engaged the Dialect control sets the length in time of the speech segments that are reversed Low numbers result in short segments while progressivel
17. meter s range is OdB To adjust attenuation click on and move the fader to the desired position The numeric display will indicate in dBs the exact amount of attenuation applied Gain Command Mac Alt PC clicking anywhere in the fader track will reset the control to its default value of OB 50 Usage Tips At its most basic level WVARM is designed to add an extremely accurate model of a tube preamp s sound to warm your digital tracks But we have purposely designed WARM to have a range of controls that allow you to push well beyond that model Here are a few other things to try e Pass your entire final mix through WARM Instantiate a stereo version of WARM or more if you are mixing for surround on your mix bus Start with a little Velvet tube with OmniTube off Experiment with the Drive amount and or adding OmniTube for a unique timbral effect Or switch to the Crunch tube for a more dramatic effect The result will depend a lot on the nature of your mix but will rarely be less than interesting Run your vocal through the Crunch tube with OmniTube on and a high Drive level Instant industrial vocal e Although we usually warn against input clipping for extreme effects try purposely clipping the input for digital distortion and then passing the distorted signal through the tube model This will usually sound pretty ugly but in some cases it might be just the ugly you re looking for e Experim
18. pitch detection pitch shifting and throat modeling that is substantially more accurate and reliable over a much wider range of audio input quality Now we ve turned our attention to incorporating Evo Technology into the AVOX plug ins The result is an entirely new level of sonic performance With faster more accurate pitch detection smoother artifact free pitch shifting and seamless natural sounding if you want it to be throat modeling AVOX Evo plug ins just work better Leaving you free to focus on creating your music Redesigned User Interfaces The original 5 AVOX plug ins have been redesigned to be consistent with the current Antares interface design language In addition some key new features have been added to selected AVOX Evo plug ins Harmony Engine Evo INTEGRATED CHOIR EVO Harmony Engine Evo now includes five integrated channels of our unique CHOIR Evo Vocal Multiplier to let you turn the input voice and or each harmony voice into 2 4 or 8 distinct individual unison voices each with its own pitch timing and vibrato variations Perfect for creating entire choirs out of a single vocal line THROAT Evo PITCH SHIFT Added the ability to shift the pitch of the voice up or down an octave in semitone intervals In combination with the improved throat modeling this allows a much wider variety of potential voice design ARTICULATOR Evo METERING Added input level meters to the Audio Signal and Control
19. synth patch a processed guitar or the built in noise generator but typically not another vocal track antares Finally because different hosts offer different or no capabilities for routing multiple tracks to asingle plug in the version of ARTICULATOR Evo for each plug in format features a unique Input Routing subsection that is designed for the specific capabilities of that format SIGNAL SELECTION As mentioned above ARTICULATOR Evo requires two audio sources although the built in Noise Generator can serve as one of them They are The Control Signal This signal serves as the source of the formant and amplitude information that will be applied to the Audio Signal A good Control Signal will have a lot of variation in both loudness and resonant harmonic content A voice whether singing speaking or just making weird rhythmic vocal noises makes an ideal Control Signal The Control Signal will always be mono The Audio Signal This is the signal that the Control Signal s formant and amplitude information is applied to A good Audio Signal will be rich in harmonic content and sustained 31 32 in nature Examples include synth pads and patches rich in overtones distortion rich guitar sounds or even entire instrumental mixes The built in Noise Generator also makes a good Audio Signal but its character will pretty much always be in the nature of whispering It can also be mixed with an external Audio
20. the available authorization options will be found in the the file Authorization Read Me which is included on the installation DVD ROM or with your software download ES NOTE When initially installed this software will run for ten days without authorization So even if you can t authorize it right away you can still use your software in the meantime During this period click the Continue button whenever you are presented with the Trial Period screen at launch But don t procrastinate too long After those ten days are up you will no longer be able to launch AVOX Evo until it s authorized Technical Support In the unlikely event that you experience a problem using AVOX Evo try the following 1 Make sure you have the latest version of the software You can download and install the latest version of AVOX Evo from the following web page http www antarestech com download update shtml 2 If you are having problems authorizing your software be sure that you have the latest version of the PACE Interlok drivers You can download and install the latest version for your operating system from the following web page http portal knowledgebase net article asp article 174703 amp p 5764 If your problem is not resolved after taking the above actions try the following 1 Make another quick scan through this manual Who knows You may have stumbled onto some feature that you didn t notice the first time thr
21. the level of the sound Be certain that Input Gain is not increased so much as to cause clipping It may be necessary to go back and forth between Drive and Input Gain a few times to get exactly the effect you want ES NOTE If your audio was recorded at an exceptionally low level it may be that even maximum Input Gain and maximum Drive will still not result in a level high enough to generate distortion In that case either re record your audio at a higher level if possible or use your waveform editing program to digitally increase the level keeping in mind that this may negatively affect the signal quality To adjust the Drive amount click on the fader handle and move it left or right to the desired setting The numerical display will indicate the amplification factor in dB and the tube graphic s will glow will change to provide an additional visual indication i e eye candy Command Mac Alt PC clicking anywhere in the scale will reset the Drive value to OdB OmniTube Without OmniTube engaged WARM Omnilube jc functions exactly like a tube preamp i e the regions of the input signal that exceed the clipping level typically transients are affected and all other regions are passed with no change With OmniTube on all regions of the input signal are subject to tube distortion To accomplish this when you engage OmniTube a compressor is inserted into the signal path after the Inpu
22. the throat length For example a value of 1 20 represents a 20 increase in throat length while a value of 0 80 represents a 20 decrease in throat length In addition to simply changing vocal timbre increasing throat length is useful when the original input is female and you are shifting it down and want it to sound male Conversely decreasing throat length is useful when the original input is male and you want to shift it up to sound female or childlike ES NOTE While this control gives you the ability to radically change the throat length keep in mind that the variation in the length of human vocal tracts is rarely more than about 20 in either direction If you are looking for a realistic vocal characteristic start with modest settings of this control More extreme settings can produce dramatic results but probably not what anyone would call realistic To adjust Throat Length click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise The numeric display will indicate the percentage of change Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 1 00 Marrow wide Throat Width Throat Width As you might imagine this control is similar the the Throat Length control described above but instead modifies the width of the modeled throat Values above 1 00 represent a widening of the throat while values below 1 00 represent
23. to their default values Output Level Matching Bypass Gain OUTPUT This control lets you adjust the output level of the modeled vocal over a range of 24 dB As you will discover some models result in substantial level changes This control is used to bring them back up or down to the desired level Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 0 dB Level Matching As mentioned above some model settings result in substantial level changes The Level Matching function attempts to compensate for level differences between the original and processed versions by automatically applying gain adjustments to the modeled version VERY IMPORTANT NOTE his function ES is provided for ease of A B comparisons with the original vocal It inserts some processing into the modeled vocal path that can have a very small but nonetheless real effect on the overall audio quality Once you have a model you like turn the Level Matching function Off and use the Output Gain to adjust the proper level Click the Level Matching button to toggle its state The button will display On or Off as appropriate Bypass This control is used to you guessed it bypass the plug in It has been designed to provide artifact free bypass switching so that you can use it to seamlessly enable THROAT Evo only where desired on a track Click the Bypass button to toggle its state The button will display On or
24. you can always come back and try another setting and see if it makes a positive difference To select vocal type click on the Vocal Type pop up and then select the closest stylistic character of the vocal performance from the pop up list Source Throat Precision If you ve already been poking around the THROAT Evo interface you might be asking yourself What the heck is throat precision And a good question it is As it happens this control works a bit differently than the previous two Here you re not being asked to tell THROAT Evo something about the input but instead to tell THROAT Evo how precise to be in its attempt to calculate the characteristics of the input based on the type of modeling you intend doing the choices being subtle medium or extreme So why not always leave it at subtle Another good question The answer is that THROAT Evo s most precise analysis results in extremely accurate characterization of the source throat which works well for models that are within the general range of human anatomy i e subtle modifications However for more extreme models the subtle setting can in some cases result in artifacts most often a sort of whistling In those cases such artifacts can often be reduced or eliminated by choosing a different setting for this control As a result the strategy for this control should be to always start with subtle which is the default and if a p
25. you select Sidechain the Audio Source will be the stereo audio track that ARTICULATOR Evo is instantiated on This is the most flexible configuration in that it allows for a stereo Audio Signal e f you select Audio Track L as the Control Signal Audio Track R will be selected as the Audio Signal e f you select Audio Track R as the Control Signal Audio Track L will be selected as the Audio Signal In these latter two cases you will typically be required to create the stereo track by combining via whatever method your DAW provides the two independent tracks you wish to use as Control Signal and Audio Signal being careful to ensure that they are hard panned to the appropriate channels In these configurations the Audio Signal is limited to being mono although it can be combined with the Noise Generator in Stereo Noise mode INPUT LEVEL METERS All of the Input Modules include little input level meters for both the Audio Signal and Control Signal These meters display the levels of the signals routed to their respective inputs Their main purpose is to allow you to visually confirm that that the two signals are actually routed as you expect INPUT MIXER SECTION The Input Mixer controls let you set the relative levels of the Audio Signal and the internal Noise Generator as well as optionally applying compression to the Audio Signal and selecting mono or stereo noise yp o Audio Level This control sets the level o
26. AVOX 2 you will find that everything you re already doing will continue to work in AVOX Evo only better To get up to speed quickly just check out the new feature overview below The contents of this manual Chapter 1 Getting Started The chapter you are reading Provides information on installing and authorizing AVOX Evo Chapter 2 Introducing AVOX Evo This chapter provides an overview of the tools that make up the AVOX Evo plug in suite Chapter 3 Harmony Engine Evo Vocal Modeling Harmony Generator Barely a chapter here s where we explain why there s a separate manual for Harmony Engine Evo Chapters 4 12 These chapters are reference information for all of the controls used in each of the other AVOX Evo plug in interfaces Installing AVOX Evo The AVOX Evo installer will give you the option of installing all or any combination of the 10 AVOX Evo plug ins While we can t imagine why you wouldn t want to install all of them you at least have the choice If you do choose to install only some of them you can always run the installer again later to install the rest The AVOX Evo plug ins are designed to function in a wide variety of digital audio applications Please refer to your specific host application s user manual for more information on installing and using plug ins Authorizing AVOX Evo Authorization is the process by which AVOX Evo is allowed to run on your computer Detailed instructions covering
27. Glottal Waveform control i e soft medium loud and intense If you want to preserve the stylistic character of the original vocal set this control to the same voice type as you set the Source Glottal Waveform e g if you set Source Glottal Waveform to soft set this control to soft As mentioned below this control interacts with the Glottal Pulse Width control Each of the Voice Types sets a default Pulse Width that is associated with it Once a Voice Type is set the pulse width may then be adjusted separately ED soft loud etc this control does not necessarily change the actual level of the signal although the intense setting does sometimes result in some level gain Its purpose is to model the glottal waveform that would result from the various styles of singing If you want to adjust the level use the Outout Gain control described below NOTE Despite the value names To select vocal type click on the Vocal Type pop up and then select the desired stylistic character from the pop up list 13 14 Glottal Pulse Width This control allows you to select the pulse width of the modeled glottal waveform If you are at all familiar with analog synthesizers you can think of this as being vaguely similar to the variable pulse width control on a square wave oscillator and if you re not familiar with analog synthesizers don t worry just move the slider and listen to what happens You wi
28. Graphic Throat Display described below If you have used that display to create a custom throat contour this control will preserve the overall contour while scaling it by the selected amount ES NOTE Similar to the Length control above this control gives you the ability to radically change the throat width Again if you are looking for a realistic vocal characteristic start with modest settings of this control And again this range is indicated by color on the control scale More extreme settings can produce dramatic results but probably not what anyone would call realistic Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 1 00 MODEL GLOTTAL WAVEFORM As was explained above in the Source Glottal Waveform section the glottal waveform is the waveform produced by the vibration of the vocal chords We used the Source Glottal Waveform control to help THROAT Evo neutralize the effect of the original vocal s glottal waveform The Pulse Width and Voice Type controls let you define the glottal waveform you want to model Glottal Voice Type This control is the converse of the Source Glottal Waveform control described above We used that control to tell THROAT Evo the characteristic of the original performance We use this control to tell THROAT Evo what kind of characteristic we would like to model Model Glottal The choices here are the same as the choices for the Source
29. Signal The Audio Signal can be mono or stereo depending on the capabilities of your particular host SIGNAL ROUTING Since few current plug ins need to make use of two independent audio signals some ingenuity is required to use ARTICULATOR Evo in some hosts The easiest way to route the required signals is through the use of a sidechain input In this scenario you simply instantiate ARTICULATOR Evo on the Audio Signal s track and route the Control Signal through the sidechain input Unfortunately not all hosts currently support sidechain routing If yours doesn t you will have to use one of the alternative methods outlined in the Input Routing section below THE ARTICULATOR EVO CONFIGURATION GUIDE While the general Inout Routing instructions below serve as a good basic overview we ve also developed a PDF guide that includes detailed configuration instructions complete with screen shots for a variety of popular hosts If you bought a boxed copy of AVOX Evo you ll find the guide on your DVD If you downloaded it from our web site it is included in the installer and will be found in the Antares directory with the other AVOX Evo documentation Since hosts change with dismaying regularity we will be regularly updating the guide to reflect the latest versions You can always download the most up to date edition at http Awww antarestech com support Controls INPUT ROUTING SECTION As mentioned above the R
30. Signal input module Added output level meters with clip indicators to the Audio Signal and Control Signal output module MUTATOR Evo TEMPO SYNCED ALIENIZATION Added the option to sync the Alienization Dialect rate to the project tempo or various divisions of the tempo AVOX Evo Processing Guidelines While it might seem to be convenient to consolidate all of the AVOX Evo functions in one huge integrated plug in some of the AVOX Evo functions use quite a bit of processing power By organizing them as separate plug ins you can choose to instantiate only those you need for each particular vocal track thereby using only as much of your computer s DSP power as you absolutely need While it s not likely that you ll be using all ten plug ins on every track it is likely that you ll often be using more than one When that s the case keep the following in mind General Guidelines e In general you should progress from the cleanest possible source vocal through successive stages of processing Harmony Engine Evo THROAT Evo ARTICULATOR Evo MUTATOR Evo ASPIRE Evo DUO Evo and CHOIR Evo in particular are designed to process pitched monophonic voices and will function much more effectively with clean input signals e f a track requires de essing use SYBIL Evo as the first of the AVOX Evo plug ins e Next in line would be one of the Voice Creation Modification plug ins i e THROAT Evo MUTATOR Evo and or
31. TAS VST and Audio Units versions of ARTICULATOR Evo each include an Input Routing section unique to each format s capabilities In the case of RTAS and VST these sections are simply informational in nature providing an indication of what s going where In the case of Audio Units the Input Routing section includes controls that let you select the routing that is supported by your particular host Details below RTAS Since Pro Tools supports sidechain routing setting up the RTAS version is quite straightforward Simply select the Audio Signal by instantiating ARTICULATOR Evo on the desired mono or stereo audio track and then assign the Control Signal via the sidechain input The RTAS Input Routing section includes a red LED that lights to confirm that the sidechain input has been enabled in Pro Tools VST The version of VST that is most commonly in use at the time this is being written and is used by ARTICULATOR Evo does not support sidechain j input Consequently the methods for getting both signals into the VST version of ARTICULATOR Evo vary depending on what kind of track it s instantiated on The Input Routing section will change to reflect each of the three possible options Instantiation on a mono track In this configuration instantiate ARTICULATOR Evo on the track of the Control Signal ARTICULATOR Evo s internal Noise Generator functions as the Audio Signal This is useful primarily for w
32. a narrowing of the throat The actual values represent the percentage change in the throat width For example a value of 1 20 represents a 20 increase in throat width while a value of 0 80 represents a 20 decrease in throat width ES NOTE As with the Throat Length control above if you are going for realism limit yourself to modifications of about 20 For special effects anything goes To adjust Throat Width click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise The numeric display will indicate the percentage of change Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 1 00 MUTATE SECTION Having created your basic vocal characteristic with the Voice Design controls the Mutate section let s you turn that voice into a variety of how shall we put it alternative entities i e weird creatures WEE Mutation The Mutation control allows you to select among 24 different varieties of mutation as well as being able to select 0 which not surprisingly will result in no mutation effect Although the sound of each mutation setting depends to a great extent on the characteristics of the specific voice being processed as a general rule odd numbered settings will typically result in more enharmonic overtones being added to the voice i e weird growly or grunginess than even numbered settings When first expe
33. allow it to cut through a dense mix with power and clarity It provides a combination of compression gain limiting and overload protection with a user interface designed for speed and simplicity Controls Input Level This meter displays the input level of the signal to be processed ES NOTE This display is for reference purposes only None of the following controls affect the input level The result of all processing will be reflected on the Output Level display described below Output Gain This control allows you to increase the gain of your vocal It will typically be set in combination with the Impact control below The effect of this control will be reflected on the Output Level display Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 0 0 Impact This control lets you select the amount of punch that is added to the vocal As you increase the value of this control level variations in the vocal performance are equalized and their level raised The effect of the control will be reflected on the Output Level display Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 0 Ceiling This control allows you to attenuate the signal after all other processing Although PUNCH Evo allows you to create a full level signal without risk of ugly distortion it will usually be wise to apply at least a little attenuation here to allow yourself so
34. antares AVUK Antares Vocal Toolkit Owner s Manual 2009 Antares Audio Technologies All rights reserved Certified lsinglass free All trademarks are property of their respective owners www antarestech com Printed in USA Rev 1 0 PN P35033 0609 M01 The Obligatory Legal Mumbo Jumbo The Antares AVOX Evo software and this User s Manual are protected by copyright law Making copies adaptations or derivative works without the prior written authorization of Antares Audio Technologies is prohibited by law and constitutes a punishable violation of the law Antares Audio Technologies retains all ownership rights to the AVOX Evo software and its documentation Use of AVOX Evo is limited by the following license agreement Please carefully read all the terms and conditions of this license agreement At the time of installation of the AVOX Evo software you will be presented with a copy of the agreement and asked whether or not you agree to it Continuing with the installation process beyond that point constitutes such agreement AVOX Evo License Agreement Antares Audio Technologies grants you a non transferable non exclusive license to use AVOX Evo under the terms and conditions stated in this agreement Use of AVOX Evo indicates your agreement to the following terms and conditions License You may 1 Use AVOX Evo on only one computer at atime Authorization requires an USB iLok Smart Key which must be purcha
35. art by assigning THROAT Evo to a vocal part and set the above contour on the Throat Shaping display Be sure you have set the proper Vocal Range and Source Glottal settings and leave all the other controls at their default values Now while listening to your vocal slowly move the Model Throat Length slider from 1 00 to 1 25 Note the effect Depending of course on the source vocal you might typically hear the vocal quality become subtly darker more male older etc Then try moving it back to 0 75 Again note the effect In this case the result might be subtly more bright female young etc Next return the Model Throat Length slider to 1 00 and repeat the above with the Model Throat Width Experiment with various combinations of the two controls As you become familiar with their effects try more extreme settings of the controls Finally use the Pitch control to shift the vocal up or down 4 6 semitones and repeat the steps above to see how the controls affect the shifted vocal e Speaking of weird it may be useful to understand just why extreme models are perceived as unrealistic or strange As mentioned above the range of human vocal anatomy is actually relatively small In order that we can differentiate between the voices of the many people we encounter in our lives the auditory processing function in our brains is extremely sensitive to very small differences in vocal timbre within the typical range
36. articular model results in artifacts and you don t actually like those artifacts change the precision one step at a time i e to medium and then extreme until you get the desired effect To select throat precision click on the Source Throat Precision pop up and then select the appropriate model type from the pop up list PITCH The Pitch control is anew addition to THROAT Evo that allows you to shift your entire vocal up or down up to an octave in either direction in semitone increments In combination with the various modeling functions this allows the creation of voices that range from tiny creatures or children to growling monsters as well of course as more subtle options Pitch i In practice you should typically set your pitch shift range first and then adjust the modeling controls to create your desired vocal timbre To adjust pitch shift simply click and hold on the fader and move it to the desired position Command Mac Control PC click the fader to reset it to its default value of 0 The next two controls allow you to add a variety of breathiness effects to your modeled voice ADD BREATHINESS Breathiness Mix This control lets you select the amount of breathiness component mixed into your modeled voice With a setting of 0 there will be no breathiness apart from what might be in the original vocal At a setting of 100 the model will be all breathiness with none of the orig
37. arts with the vocal chords Air from our lungs is forced through the vocal chords causing them to vibrate The contour of this vibration is the glottal waveform The actual shape of the waveform is affected by each individual s anatomy as well as the pressure applied to the vocal chords From there the voice is propagated through the throat the mouth and out through the lips It is the shape of these structures both their length and width that create the resonant characteristics that combine with the glottal waveform to define a unique vocal identity With THROAT Evo for the first time you have individual control over each of the elements that go into creating a distinct vocal character Whether you are a producer or engineer looking to subtly enhance a in pursuit of a totally new vocal effect THROAT Evo will give you creative capabilities that have simply never before existed Controls SETTINGS In order for THROAT Evo to do the best possible job of modeling it needs to know some basic things about the source audio The following three controls are used to characterize the vocal that you will be processing Vocal Range Use this control to select the range of the track you will be processing Choices include Soprano Voice Alto Tenor Voice Bass Baritone Voice and Instrument a general setting for anything that isn t actually a vocal Matching the appropriate algorithm to the input results in faster and more accurate pitc
38. ating waveform characteristic of a voice or solo instrument The Tracking control determines how much variation is allowed in the incoming waveform for ARTICULATOR Evo to still consider it periodic If you are working with a well isolated solo Control Signal e g tracking in a studio or from a multitrack master you can typically set the Tracking control to 25 and forget it 35 If on the other hand your Control Signal is noisy or not well isolated or you are dealing with a particularly breathy or guttural voice it may be necessary to allow more signal variation higher Tracking numbers However under these circumstances tracking is not guaranteed and a too relaxed setting may negatively affect the accuracy of the formant extraction To adjust Tracking click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise Remember higher numbers allow more variation while lower numbers require less Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 25 FORMANT MODULATION SECTION Another way of looking at the Control Signal s formant information is to think of it as a real time model of the vocal tract of the person singing or speaking The controls in this section allow you to modify the extracted formant information by modifying the geometry of that modeled throat Throat Length This control lets you increase or decrease the length of
39. ato to 0 and Pitch Variation to 10 Set Timing Variation to maximum and process a rhythmic vocal performance Pretty weird Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 10 LEVELS Original Level Sets the level of the original voice Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 0 Original Pan Position Sets the original voice s location in the stereo spectrum This control only functions in Stereo or Mono gt Stereo modes Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 100 far left Double Level Sets the level of the doubled voice Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 0 Double Pan Position Sets the doubled voice s location in the stereo spectrum This control only functions in Stereo or Mono gt Stereo modes Original Double Levels E A ESAE Ted o o Pan Pan Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 100 far right Usage Tips DUO Evo is available in mono and stereo versions and depending on the capabilities of your host program a mono gt stereo version which in most cases is the preferred routing In the case of the stereo version DUO Evo processes only the left channel DUO Evo is dramatically more effective with the original and doubled parts panned apart so if at all possible try alw
40. ays to use it with stereo output e For best performance DUO Evo requires a clean pitched monophonic signal If DUO Evo can not reliably detect the pitch of the input either because of a noisy or effected signal or because the input is not a single monophonic voice it will apply Vocal Timbre and Timing variations only e Experiment with various Pitch and Timing settings Different combinations can result in distinctly different stylistic effects e DUO Evo s Vibrato function can be used by itself to modify the vibrato depth on a recorded track If you have a track with too deep a vibrato or too shallow although that s a much rarer problem assign DUO Evo to the track and set the mixer so that only the doubled track is heard Set Vocal Timbre to 0 and Pitch and Timing to their minimum values While listening to the track adjust the Vibrato slider to reduce or expand the vibrato depth as desired Notice that while you are modifying the vibrato depth the expressive contour of the singer s original vibrato is retained 6 CHOIR Evo VOCAL MULTIPLIER CHOIR EVO Yaral Mutt paler a nta res iD 23 CHOIR Evo is a unique processor that turns a single monophonic voice into 4 8 16 or 32 distinct individual unison voices each with its own pitch timing and vibrato variations The voices can if desired be spread across the stereo spectrum When multiple instances of CHOIR Evo are assigned to individual harmony parts
41. e chain high pass filter The goal is to set the frequency such that the filter passes any sibilance thereby keying the compressor but not any of the desired signal Command Mac Control PC click the Highpass control to reset it to Frequency its default value of SS 5000 Hz COMPRESSOR Threshold This control sets the threshold level of SYBIL Evo s compressor The range is from 0 dB to 80 dB In most cases the default value of 48 dB is a good place to start Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 48 dB Compression This control sets the compression ratio of SYBIL Evo s compressor The range is from 1 0 1 to 99 1 In most cases the default value of 2 4 1 is a good place to start Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 2 4 1 29 30 Attack Time This control adjusts the speed with which SYBIL Evo s compressor responds to peaks in the signal coming from the high pass filter The range of the control is from 3 milliseconds to 100 milliseconds Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 10 milliseconds Release Time This control adjusts the time it takes the compressor s gain to increase 6 dB after the signal coming from the high pass filter drops below the threshold The range of the control is from 3 milliseconds to 200 milliseconds Command Mac Control PC click the con
42. ent and let your ears be your guide 12 ASPIRE Evo 51 ASPIRATION NOISE PROCESSOR A 5 FIRE E Wis paea e Palle Py eist a dels vica Trs ASPIRE Evo is the world s first tool for modifying a voice s breathiness independent of its harmonic content Whether reducing a bit of vocal rasp or adding a bit of smokiness ASPIRE Evo lets you modify the amount and quality of a voice s aspiration noise without otherwise affecting the vocal s harmonic characteristics What s aspiration noise As we mentioned back in the chapter on THROAT Evo when you speak or sing air from your lungs is forced through your vocal chords causing them to vibrate The contour of this vibration is the glottal waveform The actual shape of the waveform is affected by each individual s anatomy as well as the pressure applied to the vocal chords From there the voice is propagated through the throat the mouth and out through the lips It is the shape of these structures both their length and width that create the resonant characteristics that combine with the glottal waveform to define a unique vocal identity But going into a bit more detail we find that the vocal waveform is actually a combination of two antares different components One the one we usually think of as the primary element of vocal timbre is the harmonic content generated by the process described above However there is a second component that is generated by the turbu
43. essing a single vocal part through a harmonizer and then assigning each individual harmonizer output to an instance of CHOIR Evo e Keep in mind that the greater the number of voices the greater the CPU usage If you will be using multiple instances of CHOIR Evo it might be wise to limit each instance to 4 or 8 voices 25 e Along those same lines even if you have tons of CPU power more is not always better Match the choir size to the style of your music Not every song needs the Mormon Tabernacle Choir e Experiment with different combinations of the Pitch and Timing controls They can create dramatically different vocal ensembles With Timing at its minimum and substantial Pitch Variation you have a choir that s rhythmically tight but a bit loose with intonation Conversely reversing those settings gives you a group that s solidly in tune but rhythmically loose And there are of course many variations in between Match the performance style to the style of your music e For best performance CHOIR Evo requires a clean pitched monophonic signal If CHOIR Evo can not reliably detect the pitch of the input either because of a noisy or effected signal or because the input is not a single monophonic voice it will apply Timing variations only 26 7 PUNCH Evo VOCAL IMPACT ENHANCER PUNCH EVO waes antares i Input PUNCH Evo is a processor that is designed to optimize the level of a vocal track to
44. f the audio signal duh Its range provides for both attenuation and gain The range is from inf i e off to Audio Level 12 dBs of gain To adjust Audio Signal Level click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise The numeric display will indicate the amount of attenuation or gain in dBs Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 0 dB Compressor E This control lets you engage a compressor with fixed parameters Comp designed to maximize the Audio Signal s level It would typically be used in the case where the Audio Signal has quite a bit of dynamic variation that you would like to even out so that the Control Signal s dynamics can be applied to it Clicking the Comp button will toggle the compressor on and off The button will turn blue to indicate that the compressor is on ES NOTE Engaging the compressor usually results in an overall increase in gain You may need to adjust the Audio Level control to compensate enh Noise Level i s Do o This control sets the level of the internal Noise Generator a The range is from inf ja i e off to 12 dBs Moise Level of gain To adjust Noise Generator Level click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise The numeric display will indicate the amount of attenuation or gain in dBs Com
45. from the vocal chords through the throat mouth and out to the lips THROAT Evo s Breathiness controls let you add variable frequency noise to the model resulting in a range of vocal effects from subtle breathiness to raspiness to a full whisper Finally THROAT Evo allows you to shift the pitch of the voice up or down an octave to create a wide range of alternative vocal characters While THROAT Evo has been designed to allow subtle modifications to a voice s vocal quality the range of the controls also allows the creation of vocal tract models well beyond the limits of physical human anatomy offering the possibility of vocal characteristics that are simply unattainable by any other means DUO Evo Vocal Modeling Auto Doubler DUO Evo automatically generates a doubled vocal part from an existing vocal In addition to allowing programmable variation in pitch timing and vibrato depth for even more realism DUO also includes a simplified version of THROAT Evo s vocal modeling to provide timbral variation for the doubled part DUO Evo s output section gives you independent control of the level and stereo position of the original and doubled voices CHOIR Evo Vocal Multiplier Neither a harmonizer nor a conventional chorus effect CHOIR Evo is a unique processor that actually turns a single voice into 4 8 16 or 32 distinct individual unison voices each with its own pitch timing and vibrato variations The voices can
46. gh quality pitch shifting throat modeling a pitch tracking ring modulator for mutation and a mind bending Alienization function MUTATOR Evo is the perfect tool for unique vocal effects and post production sound design Controls VOCAL Vocal Range RANGE Use this select the range of the track you will be processing Choices include soprano voice alto tenor voice baritone bass voice and instrument a general setting for anything that isn t actually a vocal Matching the appropriate algorithm to the input results in faster and more accurate pitch detection and more accurate pitch shifting and modeling To select vocal range click on the Vocal Range pop up and then select the desired range from the pop up list at all can result in compromised performance Pay attention VOICE DESIGN SECTION The following three controls allow you to create the basic vocal characteristics of your voice Shift Pitch As its name suggests this control is used to shift the pitch of the input voice either up or down MUTATOR Evo s pitch shifting automatically includes formant correction i e it preserves the resonant characteristics of the original voice however you can further modify the vocal characteristics using the Throat Length and Throat Width controls described below NOTE Choosing the wrong Vocal Range or just forgetting to set it The range of the control is four octaves two octaves up and two oc
47. gth and width of the four throat sections and serves as a reference relative to which changes to the model throat are made The model throat plot is colored red and includes five control points that can be grabbed and moved effectively adjusting the length and width of individual sections of the throat Additionally the background of the display is divided into two sections by color The lighter grey central area represents the range of adjustments that are consistent with typical human anatomy As long as all control points and plot lines fall in this area the results of your model will be more or less realistic The darker grey area represents the range of adjustments that exceed the dimensions of typical human vocal tracts When any control point or plot line falls in this area the result may or may not sound like something that you might recognize as a human voice The more points and or plot lines fall in this area the more extreme the effect When you open a new instance of THROAT Evo the default state of the Throat Shaping display is with the original and model throat plots exactly superimposed indicating no difference If you adjust the Throat Length and or Throat Width sliders you will see the entire red model plot move to reflect the changes Length changes are self evident For width changes any part of the model plot that lies above the original plot indicates a widening of the throat while any part of the mode
48. h detection and more accurate modeling To select vocal range click on the Vocal Range pop up and then select the desired range from the pop up list ES5 NOTE Choosing the wrong Vocal Range or just forgetting to set it at all can result in compromised performance Pay attention Settings YT soprano Vocal Range T medium Source Glottal Voice Type Source Throat Precision Source Glottal Waveform The glottal waveform is the waveform produced by the vibration of the vocal chords The range of an individual s possible waveforms is defined by their particular anatomy Within that range the waveform can change pretty dramatically depending on the performer s singing style Imagine for example the progression from a breathy whisper to a straight ahead pop vocal to hard rock or full on operatic aria A lot of subtle factors influence the glottal waveform but for ease of setting we have characterized the choices as loudness Typically as loudness increases so does the pressure applied to the vocal chords and with that change in pressure a corresponding change in glottal waveform When setting this control select the loudness level soft medium loud intense that most closely matches the performance you are processing If you re not sure where your performance lies on this scale don t worry There is no need to obsess over subtle distinctions If in doubt just pick one Once you have set up a model
49. hain Compressor SYBIL Evo is a digital equivalent of a traditional vocal de esser When recording spoken or sung material the sibilant sounds Ss Ts CHs and SHs in the track sometimes depending on the individual performer appear louder than the rest of the signal The effect can sound unnatural and often irritating The solution to this problem is to compress only the sibilants thereby lowering their level relative to the rest of the track Processing a signal this way is called de essing The diagram below shows how a compressor and a high pass filter are traditionally configured to accomplish de essing COMPRESSOR OUT SIDECHAIN INPUT HIGH PASS FILTER SYBIL Evo uses a digital algorithm to implement the de esser function While the details of the algorithm are quite complex the resulting effect is functionally equivalent to the diagram above Controls GAIN REDUCTION METER The Gain Reduction Meter displays the amount of compression taking place If the frequency and threshold controls are set properly the meter will display little gain reduction during vowel sounds and soft consonants and substantial gain reduction during sibilants For this reason the meter is a useful tool when setting the other controls Gain Reduction Compressor Aitack Time Release Time S ide Chain SIDE CHAIN High Pass Frequency This control sets the frequency of SYBIL Evo s sid
50. he human vocal tract THROAT Evo begins by neutralizing the effect of the original singer s vocal tract and then gives you the ability to specify the characteristics of the modeled vocal tract THROAT Evo s controls allow you to modify the voice s glottal waveform as well as globally stretch shorten widen or constrict the modeled vocal tract For even more detailed control THROAT Evo s graphical Throat Shaping display allows you to individually adjust the position and width of five points in the vocal tract model from the vocal chords through the throat mouth antares and out to the lips THROAT Evo s Breathiness controls let you add variable frequency noise to the model resulting in a range of vocal effects from subtle breathiness to raspiness to a full whisper Finally THROAT Evo allows you to shift the original pitch of your vocal up or down a full octave in semitone intervals While THROAT Evo has been designed to allow subtle modifications to a voice s vocal quality the range of the controls also allows the creation of vocal tract models well beyond the limits of physical human anatomy offering the possibility of vocal characteristics that are simply unattainable by any other means In order to understand what THROAT Evo is doing and how you can use it to process your vocal tracks it helps to know how our throats actually work to create what we perceive as unique vocal qualities Vocal production st
51. hispering and modulated noise effects Instantiation on a stereo track In this configuration ARTICULATOR Evo treats the right channel of the stereo track as the Control Signal j and the left channel of the track as the Audio Signal As is probably obvious this will usually require that you create the stereo track by combining via whatever method your DAW provides the two independent tracks you wish to use as Control Signal and Audio Signal being careful to ensure that they are hard panned to 4 the appropriate channels In this configuration the Audio Signal is limited to being mono although it can be combined with the Noise Generator in Stereo Noise mode Instantiation on a3 channel FX bus In this configuration ARTICULATOR Evo treats the surround channel of the FX bus as the Control Signal and the left and right stereo channels as the Audio Signal Again this will require that you create the FX bus channels by combining the independent tracks you wish to use as Control Signal and Audio Signal again being careful to ensure that they are hard panned to the appropriate channels This is the most flexible of the three options in that it allows you to process a stereo Audio Signal 33 AUDIO UNITS Some Audio Units hosts support sidechain input and some don t Consequently the Input Routing section for the AU version provides controls that allow you to set up ARTICULATOR Evo
52. ices to opposite tracks Then assign an independent instance of THROAT Evo to each part and create a unique timbre for each voice But all that being said always feel free to ignore any of the above suggestions The AVOX Evo tools offer entirely new realms of creative possibilities There is no wrong way Now on to the details 3 Harmony Engine Evo VOCAL MODELING HARMONY GENERATOR If you ve purchased a boxed copy of AVOX Evo you will have noticed that it includes a separate manual for Harmony Engine Evo And if you ve downloaded AVOX Evo you ll find the Harmony Engine Evo PDF manual included with the plug in There are a couple of reasons for this First Harmony Engine Evo is by far the deepest plug in in the AVOX Evo bundle so there is a lot to say about getting the most out of it And from a more practical perspective since Harmony Engine Evo is also sold as a stand alone product we ve already done the work of formatting the manual and then printing a whole bunch of them so it s just a lot more efficient to include one of them here Bottom line read the Harmony Engine Evo manual try out the factory presets and play with the included tutorial sessions 4 THROAT Evo PHYSICAL MODELING VOCAL DESIGNER T H ROAT E Wo irri ese Wed Debs eat Sabings Pich Add Breathingss Miosa Passat THROAT Evo is a revolutionary vocal tool that lets you process a vocal through a meticulously crafted physical model of t
53. if desired be spread across the stereo spectrum Assign an instance of CHOIR Evo to each of four voices singing four part harmony and voila instant choir PUNCH Evo Vocal Impact Enhancer PUNCH Evo is a unique processor that as its name implies lets you quickly and easily give your vocal more dynamic impact allowing it to cut through a dense mix with clarity and power SYBIL Evo Variable Frequency De Esser SYBIL Evo tames vocal sibilance with threshold ratio attack and decay controls as well as a variable sidechain high pass frequency to match any vocal performance ARTICULATOR Evo Digital Talk Box A modern day version of the venerable talk box ARTICULATOR Evo lets you extract the formant and amplitude information from a vocal or other dynamic source and apply it to any other audio track or to a built in broadband noise generator Perfect for talking guitars singing synths and a wide range of special effects MUTATOR Evo Extreme Voice Designer MUTATOR Evo provides a combination of tools for creating unusual weird or downright wacky voices With high quality pitch shifting throat modeling pitch tracking ring modulator based mutation and a mind bending tempo synced Alienization function MUTATOR Evo is the perfect tool for unique special vocal effects and post production sound design WARM Tube Saturation Generator Based on Antares legendary at least among those of us who work here and based on
54. inal vocal characteristic present at all Intermediate settings will produce mixes of the original vocal and the breathiness component 11 Add Breathiness Model Throat ee Model Throat Length The Throat Length control allows you to globally lengthen or shorten the modeled throat Values above 1 00 represent a lengthening of the throat while values below 1 00 represent a shortening of the throat HP freg Hz The actual values represent the percentage The sonic character of the breathiness will change in the throat length For example a value depend both on the articulation of the original of 1 20 represents a 20 increase in throat vocal and more dramatically the setting of the length while a value of 0 80 represents a 20 Highpass Frequency control described below decrease in throat length Command Mac Control PC click the control Changes made to this control are reflected on to reset it to its default value of 0 the Graphic Throat Display described below If i you have used that display to create a custom Highpass Frequency throat contour this control will preserve the overall This control lets you set the high pass contour while scaling it by the selected amount frequency of the breathiness component ED NOTE While this control gives you the i e the frequency above which the ability to radically change the throat breathiness will be present This frequency determines the audio range and character of the b
55. ines 7 PUNCH Evo 5 26 Controls 26 Ceiling 27 Input Level 26 Output Level 27 Usage Tips 27 SYBIL Evo 5 28 Controls 29 Compressor 29 Gain Reduction Meter 29 Side Chain 29 Usage Tips 30 Technical Support 3 THROAT Evo 5 6 9 Controls 10 Add Breathiness 11 Graphic Throat Display 14 Model Glottal Waveform 13 Output 16 Pitch 11 Settings 10 Throat Modeling 12 factory presets 18 Usage Tips 16 Tubes 47 Upgrading 2 Usage Tips 16 22 25 27 30 39 45 50 54 WARM 6 46 Controls Drive Amount 48 Input Level 47 OmniTube 49 Output Attenuation 49 Tube Selector 48 Usage Tips 50 What s aspiration noise 51 What s New in AVOX Evo 6 What s the big deal with tubes anyway 47
56. ion noise plot on the graphic display will move to reflect the setting of the control Increase To adjust Increase click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 6 dB EQ SECTION The EQ Section provides one band of traditional parametric EQ ED that this EQ affects just the aspiration noise component not the main harmonic component If you want to apply EQ to the main voice you ll need to use another EQ somewhere else in the processing chain NOTE It s important to remember ES ANOTHER NOTE Although the EQ is only active in the Increase mode various combinations of Increase amount Frequency Q and Gain can result in selective shaping of the aspiration noise Specifically using negative Gain amounts you can use this mode to decrease the aspiration noise in a specific frequency range while increasing it or leaving it unchanged in another Frequency This control selects the frequency of the EQ ie the frequency that will either be increased or decreased via the Gain control The range is from OHz to 4000Hz Frequency To adjust Frequency click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 1500Hz Q The Q c
57. k as desired e To turn a woman into a child shift the voice up 5 semitones set Throat Length to 1 30 and set Throat Width to 0 60 Then tweak as desired e The effect of Alienization Dialect settings are entirely dependent on the specific speech it s applied to However for an interesting musical effect use a long cycle period and try matching the period to the tempo of your song 45 11 WARM TUBE SATURATION GENERATOR WARM tube Setucation Generator antares Based on Antares legendary at least among those of us who work here and based on the volume of emails we ve gotten since we discontinued it a fair number of others as well Tube plug in WARM warms up your vocals with Antares world renown tube modeling technology while being so processing efficient you can put an instance on pretty much every track in your project and still barely see your CPU meter twitch So what exactly is WARM WARM is an easy to use plug in that accurately models the sonic effects of recording audio through a high quality analog tube preamplifier It offers the choice of two different tube models as well as a unique OmniTube function that allows the application of the tube effect to the entire signal as opposed to only the transients as is typically the case with a tube preamp WARM s extended parameter ranges have been designed to allow the creation of a wide variety of sonic effects beyond the classic subtle tube
58. l plot below the original plot indicates a narrowing of the throat Here are some things to consider when working with the Throat Shaping display e Point 1 which represents the vocal chords serves as the anchor of the vocal tract It can be adjusted for width but not length When you move points 2 3 or 4 horizontally you are adjusting the relative lengths of the adjacent sections For example if you Move point 3 to the right you are lengthening the section between 2 and 3 while shortening the section between 3 and 4 The overall length of the throat model remains the same Only by moving point 5 can you change the overall length of the model apart from using the Throat Length slider of course e As we ve mentioned if you re looking for realistic vocal characteristics you would do well to start with relatively small adjustments that result in all control points and plot lines remaining in the central light blue area In addition to the plot point positions watch the contour of the plot lines connecting them It s possible to place the points in positions relative to each other that cause the plot lines to bow out towards the edges of the display or even pin against an edge of the display This will almost always result in artifacts of one sort or another Of course if it s artifacts you re looking for they may be just what you want e When you have created a custom model cont
59. lence of the air rushing past the vocal chords This component aspiration noise does not have harmonic content and can roughly be thought of as breathiness Aspiration noise presents itself in a variety of ways from a subtle bit of breathiness to a full blown rasp Of course whether it s a problem or not depends on the amount of noise and the style of a performance A whole lot of roughness that would work well for screaming punk or roots blues might well be a problem for mainstream pop or a smooth ballad of course it also might not Up to now there wasn t much you could do about it Now with ASPIRE Evo there is What s ASPIRE Evo do Quite simply ASPIRE Evo analyzes a vocal in real time and separates the aspiration noise component from the harmonic content It then 52 allows you to either increase or decrease the amount of aspiration noise as well as letting you affect the character of the aspiration noise by applying a parametric EO to the noise component Controls Voice Type Voice Type Use this control to vocal type of the track you will be processing Choices include soprano voice alto tenor voice baritone bass voice and instrument a general setting for anything that isn t actually a vocal Matching the appropriate algorithm to the input results in faster and more accurate analysis To select vocal type click on the Voice Type pop up and then select the desired type from the pop up list
60. ll find that the most dramatic timbral changes are usually found at the extreme ends of this control s range If you re looking for realistic stay in the middle 80 of the range ES IMPORTANT NOTE Keep in mind that this control interacts with the Glottal Voice Type control above Each Voice Type sets a default Pulse Width that is associated with it So if you set this control and then select anew Voice Type the value of this contro will change to the new voice type s associated pulse width default For that reason it is usually best to select the Glottal Voice Type first and then make any desired adjustments to the pulse width Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 64 GRAPHIC THROAT DISPLAY Okay here s where the fun really starts The Graphic Throat Display allows detailed tweaking of the model throat For the purpose of this control the model throat is divided into four sections defined by five boundary points For reference these sections and boundary points are illustrated on the head graphic to the left of the Throat Shaping display Point 1 starts at the vocal chords and the sections progress through the throat and the mouth out to the lips which are at point 5 The Throat Shaping display itself consists of two elements the original throat plot and the model throat plot The original throat plot is colored blue and is not user changeable It represents the original len
61. ll indicate in dBs the exact amount of gain or attenuation applied Command Mac Alt PC clicking anywhere in the fader track will reset the control to its default value of OdB Output Level Meter Use this meter in combination with the output level control to set the optimum output level Ideally the meter should peak in the upper area of its range without repeatedly pegging at 0 dB Bypas The Bypass control lets you completely bypass the plug in Bypass When the Bypass button is blue the plug in is processing normally When it is red it is bypassed Click the button to toggle its state Audio Display The Audio Display gives you a visual indication of the original and processed versions of your audio and is just kind of cool to watch The blue plot is the waveform of the original audio The red plot is the processed audio For hours of fun try changing the various controls while watching their effect on the red plot Usage Tips The effects of the various MUTATOR Evo functions are so dependent on the nature of each individual voice it s hard to give useful general guidelines If there was ever a plug in that rewarded just messing around this is it With that caveat e If you re looking to create the voice of a demon try shifting pretty much any voice down 8 12 semitones depending on how low the voice is to begin with set Throat Length to 1 10 and set Mutation to 2 Then twea
62. m the Control Signal essentially accentuates certain frequencies while attenuating others But you can only hear this effect if the Audio Signal actually contains harmonic information at those frequencies Using a sine wave for instance which contains only a fundamental frequency with no harmonics would provide almost no raw material for the Control Signal to act on Most solo instruments e g trumpet flute violin etc as well as solo voice are not much better Again better candidates are rich synth pads distortion rich guitar sounds thick chords from any combination of instruments and even whole mixes e An exception to the point above is that if you are only interested in using the Control Signal to provide amplitude modulation the harmonic content of the Audio Signal will not be an issue e If you do want the Control Signal to provide the rhythmic articulation the Envelope Amount control should be set at 100 and the Audio Signal should be sustained in nature e If the Audio Signal itself is rhythmic and you want to preserve that rhythm set the Envelope Amount control to 0 in which case the Control Signal will affect only the harmonic articulation 4a 10 MUTATOR Evo EXTREME VOICE DESIGNER MUTATOR EVO extreme voice Designer antares Voice Design Vocal Range Mutate J Alienize MUTATOR Evo provides a combination of tools for creating unusual weird or downright wacky voices With hi
63. mand Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of inf i e off A Stereo Noise ARTICULATOR Evo s internal Noise Stereo Generator can provide either a single Noise noise signal or two uncorrelated noise signals panned to the opposite extremes of a stereo output Clicking the Stereo Noise button will toggle it between mono and stereo noise The button will turn blue to indicate the selection of stereo noise ES NOTE Stereo noise is only available from stereo or mono gt stereo versions of ARTICULATOR Evo If you have instantiated a mono version this button will be disabled FORMANT EXTRACTION SECTION The controls in this section allow you to optimize the formant extraction process for your specific Control Signal Voice Type Voice Type F rang to select the range of the track you will be processing Choices include soprano voice alto tenor voice baritone bass voice and instrument a general setting for anything that isn t actually a vocal Matching the appropriate algorithm to the input results in more accurate formant extraction To select voice type click on the Voice Type pop up and then select the desired range from the pop up list NOTE Choosing the wrong Voice Type or just forgetting to set it at all can result in compromised performance Pay attention Tracking In order to accurately analyze the Control Signal ARTICULATOR Evo requires a periodically repe
64. me room for any further processing that might apply gain The default setting of 3 0 dB is a good starting point and you can always come back and add in more if necessary as you continue processing and the mix takes shape Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 3 0 dB Output Level This meter displays the level of the signal after all processing by PUNCH Evo The Gain Impact and Ceiling controls should be set in combination such that no clipping occurs 27 Usage Tips e PUNCH Evo is available in mono and stereo versions Since the point of PUNCH Evo is to optimize the impact of your vocal track in the mix it makes sense to set the controls while listening to the track in the context of the entire mix Every vocal performance is unique Finding the optimum settings for PUNCH Evo is very much a matter of experimentation Luckily there are only two controls that really matter so the prospect is not exactly daunting The Impact control has been purposely designed with a wide enough range to produce some pretty odd effects at its extreme If you re looking for that sort of thing check it out While PUNCH Evo has been designed for the voice it can perform its magic effectively on pretty much any recorded part It will even do interesting things to entire recorded mixes Check it out 8 SYBIL Evo VARIABLE FREQUENCY DE ESSER SYBIL EVO wrat meant antares Side C
65. nal voice ES IMPORTANT NOTE Unlike vibrato controls on most vocal processors this function does not simply use an LFO to apply a synthesized vibrato DUO Evo actually analyses the original vocal part to identify its vibrato and modify its depth As a result the modified vibrato will still reflect the overall contour of the original vibrato As an additional consequence however the Vibrato control will only have affect if the original vocal contains vibrato It will not add vibrato to a performance that does not originally have it The Vibrato control may be used by itself to modify the vibrato of a performance See the Usage Tips below for details Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 0 Pitch Variation The Pitch Variation control lets you select the amount of random variation in pitch applied to the doubled voice The higher the value the larger the maximum amount of allowable variation Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 10 Timing Variation The Timing Variation control lets you select the amount of random variation in timing applied to the doubled voice The higher the value the larger the maximum amount of allowable variation 21 DUO Evo s timing variation is completely independent of pitch variation To get a good idea of the effect of timing variation use the level controls to listen only to the doubled voice set Vibr
66. of variation But as a result of this we have no frame of reference for vocal timbres that fall outside of the range of common human anatomy We can t picture the person who would sound like that So we think more interms of filtered tubular or whatever Trust us if there were people with vocal tracts of the more extreme dimensions THROAT Evo is capable of this is what they d sound like While THROAT Evo has been designed for voice experiments here have shown that it can produce quite striking effects when used on other instrumental tracks Try it with drums guitars bass in fact pretty much anything In particular applying it to a drum loop and then following that up with PUNCH Evo has resulted in some truly twisted beats Give it a try e Play play play A few words about the THROAT Evo factory presets Unlike synth presets which will always sound the same for all users the THROAT Evo presets are heavily dependent on the vocal tracks that you use them on Consequently they serve primarily as starting points for various general effects with the expectation that you will tweak them to work best with your particular audio Specifically they all contain the default settings for Vocal Range and Source Glottal Waveform controls After calling up a preset you should be sure set each of those controls to reflect your track None of the presets include any Pitch Shift After checking them out at your track
67. ontrol allows you to set the slope and consequently the bandwidth of the EO s peak or dip Its range is 0 10 to 3 10 High Os result steep slopes and narrow bandwidth while lower Qs result in more gentle slopes and wider bandwidth The easiest way to understand this is to watch the green EO plot while adjusting the Q and Gain controls All will become clear To adjust Q click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 0 70 53 54 is Gain The Gain control lets you set the amount of boost or cut that will be applied to the aspiration noise Gain component at the selected Frequency The range from 12 0dB to 12 0dB To adjust Gain click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to tu rn it counterclockwise Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 0 0 U sage Tips If you ll be using any of the more radical AVOX Evo plug ins on a voice ASPIRE Evo should come first in the signal chain or second if you will also be using SYBIL Evo As in many of the AVOX Evo plug ins we ve provided control ranges that allow you to create effects well beyond what would normally be considered realistic In particular large Increase amounts in combination with high Gain and Q at vari
68. or WARM includes two different tube models The Velvet blue tube models the subtle effects of a classic high quality tube preamp While this model is perfect for adding warmth to vocals it s just as useful for acoustic guitar horns strings synth pads in fact pretty much anything The Crunch red tube models the deep warm distortion of an overdriven tube amplifier Use Drive Drive Amount The amount of tube saturation effect applied to your audio is controlled by the Drive control in combination with the Input Gain control described above The Drive control determines the amplification factor of the modeled tube pre amp with the numeric display indicating the amplification in dB At 0 dB no distortion occurs even for full amplitude 1 or 1 signal levels These levels represent the rails of the amplifier As the Drive is increased the amplification is increased Any regions of the signal that increase beyond the rails generate saturation distortion Because the maximum Drive amount is 12 dB generating the tube effect requires the original it in moderation to impart a subtle or not so subtle effect to almost any track Or crank it up for that industrial vocal sound electric guitar bass or synths To select a tube simply click the appropriate button signal to be at a level greater than 12 dB If this is not the case you should adjust the Input Gain control to increase
69. ough 2 Consult our searchable knowledgebase at http www antarestech com support index html 3 Check our web page for tips techniques or any late breaking information http www antarestech com 4 Join the Antares Online Community at http www antarestech net The community provides a user forum where you can ask for help and insight from hundreds of other Antares product users 2 Introducing AVOX Evo LLL eee ee G G 0 9 The heart of any great song iS a great vocal sound With the AVOX Evo Antares Vocal Toolkit we ve combined ten state of the art vocal processing modules that open up an entirely new world of vocal processing capabilities AVOX Evo gives you the power you need to create stunning vocal tracks in any musical style as well as design unique vocal effects for audio post production applications In the following chapters we ll deal with each AVOX tool in turn but first let s take a brief look at what s in AVOX Evo and how you might use the tools in combination AVOX Evo Overview The AVOX Evo Antares Vocal Toolkit includes Harmony Engine Evo Vocal Modeling Harmony Generator Harmony Engine Evo is a real time harmony generating plug in that puts professional quality vocal harmony arrangements within reach of any songwriter producer musician or engineer With four independent harmony voices a variety of powerful harmony generating modes humanization feature
70. our the Model Throat Length and Width controls will adjust the overall throat length and width while retaining and scaling your custom contour e Extremely striking effects can be created by moving plot points in realtime You can do this manually for one point at a time or much more powerfully you can use your host s automation capabilities to program movements of all five points simultaneously For the purposes of automation each point is represented by two parameters one for horizontal position length and one for vertical position width In addition to the original and model plots when THROAT Evo is processing audio the display will also contain real time representations of the original and modeled throat contours As with the plots the blue contour is the original throat and the red contour is the model throat As you begin to get familiar with the Throat Shaping display trial and error will no doubt be the first order of the day However with a little experience you will soon be able to predict what effect a particular plot adjustment will have Checking out the factory presets with a particular eye towards model plot shapes should help you on your way Reset Clicking the Reset button cancels any custom contour you have programmed but retains any global Stretch and Width settings set by the Model Throat Length and Width controls To reset those controls Command Mac Control PC click them to set them
71. ous frequencies can result in some rather unusual effects As mentioned above ASPIRE Evo will only have an audible effect if a voice actually contains natural aspiration noise If you are working with one of those rare super pure voices and need to add an element of breathiness use the Add Breathiness function in THROAT to a add synthesized simulation of aspiration noise Index Antares Audio Technologies ii Antares Online Community 3 ARTICULATOR Evo 5 6 31 Configuration Guide 32 Controls 32 Amplitude Extraction Section 36 Amplitude Modulation Section 36 EQ Section 37 Formant Extraction Section 35 Formant Modulation Section 35 Input Level Meters 34 Input Mixer Section 34 Input Routing Section 32 Output Mixer Section 38 Signal Routing 32 Signal Selection 31 Usage Tips 39 ASPIRE Evo 6 51 Controls 52 EQ Section 53 Increase 53 Increase Reduce 52 Reduction 53 Tracking 52 Voice Type 52 Usage Tips 54 Authorizing AVOX Evo 3 Breathiness 51 CHOIR Evo 5 23 Controls 23 Choir Size 23 Stereo Spread 24 Variation 23 Usage Tips 25 DUO Evo 5 19 Controls 19 Levels 21 Variation 20 Vocal Range 19 Usage Tips 22 Evo Voice Processing Technology 6 Harmony Engine Evo 4 6 8 Installing AVOX Evo 2 Intervals 41 License Agreement iii 55 MUTATOR Evo 5 6 40 Controls 41 Alienize Section 43 Input Output Section 44 Mutate Section 42 Vocal Range 41 Voice Design Section 41 Usage Tips 45 Processing Guidel
72. reathiness effect length keep in mind that the variation in the length of human vocal tracts is rarely more than about 25 in either direction If you are At high settings the effect will be rather looking for a realistic vocal characteristic start whispery and ethereal depending of course with modest settings of this control As a visual on the original vocal and the Mix amount At reference this range Is indicated by color on the lower settings the effect is more of a raspiness control scale More extreme settings can produce again depending on the mix Experimentation dramatic results but probably not what anyone is the best way to become familiar with the would call realistic possibilities Command Mac Control PC click the control Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of 1 00 to reset it to its default value of 4000 Hz The remaining controls are used to define the model vocal tract Model Throat Width The Throat Width control allows you to globally widen or constrict the modeled throat Values above 1 00 represent a widening of the throat while values below 1 00 represent a narrowing of the throat The actual values represent the percentage change in the throat width For example a value of 1 20 represents a 20 increase in throat width while a value of 0 80 represents a 20 decrease in throat width Changes made to this control are reflected on the
73. rimenting try starting with 8 and then work out from there Beyond that there are really no rules for predicting how a particular setting will affect a particular voice Trial and error is the method of the day ES NOTE For the technically curious what s going on here is a unique variation of the technique called ring modulation a staple of early analog synthesizers What makes MUTATOR Evo s mutation process special is that MUTATOR Evo is constantly detecting the pitch of the input voice and shifting the relative pitch of the modulating signal to match thereby preserving the basic mutation quality regardless of pitch changes in the input A setting of 8 sets the modulation signal to the same frequency as the input voice 4 sets It an octave lower and 16 an octave higher Intermediate settings result in more complex ratios and more complex harmonic structures To select a Mutation variety click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise The numeric display will indicate the mutation number Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of O no mutation bir Mutated Mutant Mix Mutant Mix This control allows you to set a mix between the original unprocessed voice and the voice after being processed by the Mutation control This mix is then sent on to the Alienize section Original When this
74. s for natural sounding performances five integrated channels of CHOIR Evo Vocal Multiplier and a flexible real time preset system for harmony and vocal type Harmony Engine Evo provides incredibly easy to use tools to quickly and easily produce virtually any vocal arrangement you can imagine Whether you re an experienced vocal arranger a songwriter looking for that perfect backup vocal or a composer experimenting with unique vocal effects Harmony Engine Evo gives you entirely new ways to create the harmony parts you hear in your head In fact experimenting with different harmonies is so easy and dare we suggest fun you may find yourself using Harmony Engine Evo to explore harmonic alternatives you may have never otherwise considered THROAT Evo Physical Modeling Vocal Designer THROAT Evo is a revolutionary new vocal tool that lets you process a vocal through a meticulously crafted physical model of the human vocal tract THROAT Evo begins by neutralizing the effect of the original singer s vocal tract and then gives you the ability to specify the characteristics of the modeled vocal tract THROAT Evo s controls allow you to modify the voice s glottal waveform as well as globally stretch shorten widen or constrict the modeled vocal tract For even more detailed control THROAT Evo s graphical Throat Shaping display allows you to individually adjust the position and width of five points in the vocal tract model
75. s original pitch try shifting the pitch up or down and readjusting any parameters as desired Also although some presets are named to give a general idea of their intent feel free to experiment with any preset on any source track There are no rules 5 DUO Evo VOCAL MODELING AUTO DOUBLER DUO EVO vecai Liodeling Auto Gober The DUO Evo Vocal Modeling Auto Doubler automatically generates a doubled vocal part from any existing monophonic vocal Unlike conventional doublers that simply apply pitch and delay variation to the original part DUO Evo makes use of Antares unique vocal modeling and vibrato processing technologies to create a doubled part that actually sounds like another singer There is no easier or quicker way to create a realistic doubled vocal part antares Controls Vocal Range VOCAL RANGE Use this control to select the range of the track you will be processing Choices include Soprano Voice Alto Tenor Voice Bass Baritone Voice and Instrument a general setting for anything that isn t actually a vocal Matching the appropriate algorithm to the input results in faster and more accurate pitch detection To select the desired Vocal Range click on the Vocal Range pop up and then select the desired range from the pop up list NOTE Choosing the wrong Vocal Range or just forgetting to set it at all can result in compromised performance Pay attention 19 20 VARIATION
76. sed separately You may not 1 Make copies of AVOX Evo or of the user manual in whole or in part except as expressly provided for in this agreement Your right to copy AVOX Evo and the user manual iS limited by copyright law Making copies verbal or media translations adaptations derivative works or telecommunication data transmission of AVOX Evo without prior written authorization of Antares is prohibited by law and constitutes a punishable violation of the law 2 Make alteration or modifications to AVOX Evo or any copy or disassemble or de compile AVOX Evo or any copy or attempt to discover the source code of AVOX Evo 3 Sub license lease lend rent or grant other rights in all or any portion of AVOX Evo or any copy to others Term of the Agreement This agreement is effective until terminated by you or Antares You may terminate the agreement at any time by notifying Antares and destroying all copies of the manual and erasing AVOX Evo from all machine readable media whether on line or on archival copies In the event of breach of any of the terms of this agreement you shall pay the attorney s fees of Antares that are reasonably necessary to enforce the agreement plus resulting damages Product Installation and Required Activation There are technological measures in the AVOX Evo that are designed to prevent unlicensed or illegal use of the Software You agree that Antares Audio Technologies may use
77. t Gain control and before the tube model The compressor is set to compress the signal and then apply sufficient makeup gain to ensure that the Drive control can drive the entire signal above the clipping level After the tube effect is applied to the entire signal an inverse gain function restores the signal s original dynamics The effect of OmniTube is highly dependent on the character of the input signal which tube is selected and the setting of the Drive control Experimentation is the order of the day To toggle OmniTube on or off simply click on the OmniTube button The color of the switch will change to indicate its current state ES NOTE Despite the fact that OmniTube employs a compressor it is important to remember that the final output signal is not compressed and that the original dynamics are maintained If you want to actually compress your signal you ll need a separate compressor somewhere else in the signal chain Output Attenuation This control applies attenuation to the signal after it s passed through the tube model It is typically used to ensure that no clipping occurs as a result of the gain applied by the Drive control As a starting point set the attenuation to OdB i e no attenuation If the Clip indicator lights apply just enough attenuation to avoid the clipping and cause the output level meter needle to spend most of its time in the top two meter segments The top of the level
78. taves down The control is calibrated in 48 discrete steps of a semitone each Since an octave is equal to twelve semitones the values of this control are equivalent to the following musical intervals 1 minor 2nd 2 major 2nd 3 minor 3rd 4 major 3rd 5 perfect 4th 6 aug 4th dim 5th 7 perfect 5th 8 aug 5th min 6th 9 major 6th 10 minor 7th 11 major 7th 12 octave 13 minor 9th 14 major 9th 15 minor 10th 16 major 10th 17 perfect 11th 18 aug 11th 19 perfect 12th 20 minor 13th 21 major 13th 22 minor 14th rarely used 23 major 14th rarely used 24 2 octaves To adjust pitch shift click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise The numeric display will indicate the number of semitones shifted Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 0 Fl rlii y oh a A Shorten Stretch Throat Length Throat Length This control uses the vocal tract modeling technology from THROAT to modify the vocal characteristics of the input voice by actually 41 42 varying the length of the voice s model vocal tract It can be used in combination with the Shift Pitch control to modify gender and or vocal quality Values above 1 00 represent a lengthening of the throat while values below 1 00 represent a shortening of the throat The actual values represent the percentage change in
79. the modeled throat that is applied to the Audio Signal hroat Length Values above 1 00 represent a lengthening of the throat while values below 1 00 represent a shortening of the throat The actual values represent the percentage change in the throat length For example a value of 1 20 represents a 20 increase in throat length while a value of 0 80 represents a 20 decrease in throat length The effect of this control is so dependent on the combination of each specific Control Signal and Audio Signal that the only guideline for working with it is to just check out Its entire range and discover what works best for your particular needs 36 To adjust Throat Length click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise The numeric display will indicate the percentage of change Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 1 00 Throat Width l As you might imagine this control is similar the the Throat Length control described above but instead modifies the width of the modeled throat Throat Width Values above 1 00 represent a widening of the throat while values below 1 00 represent a narrowing of the throat The actual values represent the percentage change in the throat width For example a value of 1 20 represents a 20 increase in throat width while a value of 0 80 represents a 20 decrease in throat width
80. the volume of emails we ve gotten since we discontinued it a fair number of others as well Tube plug in WARM warms up your vocals with Antares world renown tube modeling technology while being so processing efficient you can put an instance on pretty much every track in your project and still barely see your CPU meter twitch And yes that s probably the longest single sentence in this manual ASPIRE Evo Aspiration Noise Processor ASPIRE Evo is the world s first tool for modifying avoice s breathiness independently of its harmonic content Whether reducing a bit of vocal rasp or adding a bit of smokiness ASPIRE Evo lets you modify the amount and quality of a voice s aspiration noise the component of every voice that s the result of air passing over the vocal chords without otherwise affecting the vocal s harmonic characteristics What s New in AVOX Evo The following are the key new features that have been added in AVOX Evo Core algorithms rewritten to incorporate Evo Voice Processing Technology During the development of Auto Tune Evo the latest version of the worldwide standard in professional pitch correction Dr Andy went back to the proverbial drawing board to create a seriously evolved voice processing technology that takes advantage of the hugely more powerful computers that are now the norm for digital audio recording The result was Evo Voice Processing Technology setting a new standard for
81. these measures to protect Antares Audio Technologies against software piracy Limited Warranty And Disclaimer AVOX EVO AND ACCOMPANYING MATERIALS ARE PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE Antares Audio Technologies does not warrant that the functions contained in the program will meet your requirements The entire risk as to the use quality and performance of AVOX Evo is with you SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW LIMITATIONS ON HOW LONG AN IMPLIED WARRANTY LASTS SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU THIS WARRANTY GIVES YOU SPECIFIC LEGAL RIGHTS YOU MAY ALSO HAVE OTHER RIGHTS WHICH VARY FROM JURISDICTION TO JURISDICTION Limitation of Liability N NO EVENT WILL ANTARES BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES INCLUDING LOSS OF DATA LOST PROFITS OR OTHER SPECIAL NCIDENTAL CONSEQUENTIAL OR INDIRECT DAMAGES ARISING FROM THE USE OF AVOX EVO OR ACCOMPANYING MATERIALS THIS LIMITATION WILL APPLY EVEN IF ANTARES OR TS AUTHORIZED AGENT HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE LICENSE FEE REFLECTS THIS ALLOCATION OF RISK SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES SO THE ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU Whew Now that that s over let s get on to the good stuff
82. to take advantage of whichever capabilities your host provides The Input Routing section will ers e change to reflect each of the Signal two possible options instantiation on a mono track In this configuration you can select either the sidechain input or the audio track itself as the Control Signal If our host supports sidechain input you will typically always select it as the Control Signal If your host does not offer sidechain input select Audio Track Depending on your choice the resulting Audio Signal source will appear in the Audio Signal display as follows e f you select Sidechain the Audio Source will be the audio track that ARTICULATOR Evo is instantiated on e If you select Audio Track ARTICULATOR Evo s internal Noise Generator functions as the Audio Signal This is useful primarily for whispering and modulated noise effects Instantiation on a stereo track In this configuration you can select Audio either the sidechain input or the Signal left channel of the audio track or the right channel of the audio track as the Control Signal If our host supports sidechain input you will typically always select it as the Control Signal If your host does not offer sidechain input select either the left or right channel of the audio track Turiy Track Depending on your choice the J resulting Audio Signal source will appear in the Audio Signal _ display as follows 34 e If
83. trol to reset it to its default value of 20 milliseconds Usage Tips e SYBIL Evo functions solely as a mono processor e If the high pass frequency is set too low non sibilant components of the signal will be compressed and the vocal will have its highs attenuated If it is set too high some sibilance will still remain The trick is to find that ideal point where only the sibilance is affected When set correctly you can t tell that there is processing going on If you can hear something happening SYBIL Evo needs to have its settings tweaked 9 ARTICULATOR Evo DIGITAL TALK BOX ARTICULATOR EW ipte tesace A modern day version of the venerable talk box ARTICULATOR Evo lets you extract the formant and amplitude information from a vocal or other dynamic source and apply it to any other audio track or to a built in broadband noise generator Perfect for talking guitars singing synths whispering voices and a wide range of special effects So what s going on here ARTICULATOR Evo is unique among the AVOX Evo plug ins in a number of basic ways First it requires two different audio sources what we call the Audio Signal and the Control Signal more about those in a bit Second while every other AVOX Evo plug in is designed to process and affect a vocal track ARTICULATOR Evo is designed to use a vocal track to control the processing of a second track ideally a track with broadband harmonic content like a rich
84. tube preamps designed to provide this desirable but elusive quality It was the best sonic qualities of a number of these preamps that served as the sources for WARM s digital models Controls Input Level This control applies gain to the input signal before it s passed to the tube model It is typically used to ensure that the level of the input is high enough to exceed the clipping level in the tube model As a starting point adjust the gain such that the input level meter needle spends most of its time in the top two gray and purple meter segments Further adjustments can be made in combination with the Drive setting see below To adjust gain click on and move the fader to the desired position The numeric display will indicate in dBs the exact amount of gain applied Command Mac Alt PC clicking anywhere in the fader track will reset the control to its default value of OaB ES NOTE Since the Drive control is capable of a maximum of 12dB of gain the input signal transients must be at least above 12dB to produce any tube effect If the inout meter never enters the top segments of the meter no tube effect will be audible with even maximum Drive ES ANOTHER NOTE Unless you are going for some special effect you do not want to have clipping at the input stage This is not the good clipping that happens in the tube model Input clipping is that nasty digital kind 47 48 Tube Select
85. turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 100 maximum amount EQ SECTION The EQ Section provides one band of traditional parametric EQ for fine tuning the Audio Signal as well as the Noise Generator output if used Frequency k This control selects the frequency of the EQ i e the frequency that will either be increased or decreased via the Gain control The range is from 100Hz to 4000HZz To adjust Frequency click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 1500Hz r The Q control allows you to set the slope and consequently the bandwidth of the EQ s peak or dip Its range is 0 10 to 3 10 High Os result steep slopes and C narrow bandwidth while lower Qs result in more gentle slopes and wider bandwidth The easiest way to understand this is to watch the green EQ plot while adjusting the Q and Gain controls All will become clear Frequency 37 To adjust Q click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 0 71 The Gain control lets you set the amount of boost or cut that will be applied to the Audio Signal
86. y higher numbers result in progressively longer segments At very low numbers the segments are so small that you can still easily understand the original spoken or sung words At higher numbers intelligibility becomes progressively worse until at very high numbers each segment can include one or more entire words Tempo Sync Mode To engage Tempo Sync Mode click the Tempo Sync button so that it turns blue In Tempo Sync Mode the length of the speech segments are synced to beats or fractional beats relative to your host s tempo With the host s transport running the Receiving Clock LED will light to indicate that MUTATOR Evo is in fact receiving the clock signal from your host In Tempo Sync Mode the Dialect control lets you select what division or multiplier of the beat will define the length and position of each speech segment The choices are 4 4 4 beats 3 4 3 beats 2 4 2 beats 1 4 dotted quarter note 1 4 quarter note 1 AT quarter note triplet 1 8 dotted 8th note 1 8 8th note 1 8T 8th note triplet 1 16 dotted 16th note 1 16 16th note 1 16T 16th note triplet 1 32 dotted 32nd note 1 32 32nd note 1 32T 32nd note triplet ES NOTE It should be noted that Alienize is a real time function i e it doesn t simply analyze and reverse sections of a pre recorded track You could in fact connect a microphone and have MUTATOR Evo Alienize your voice as you speak or sing Try it
87. y will indicate the amount of attenuation or gain in dBs Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of 0 dB Audio Signal Pan This slider allows j 1 you to set the L R Audio Signal s location in the stereo spectrum ES5 NOTE Audio Signal Pan only functions in Stereo or Mono gt Stereo versions of ARTICULATOR Evo If you have instantiated a Mono version the slider will be disabled Audio Signal Command Mac Control PC click the control to reset it to its default value of O absolute center Control Signal Level This control applies gain or attenuation to the Control Signal The range is from inf i e off to 12 dBs of gain Dy Control Signal The associated meter indicates the level of the Control Signal along with a clipping indicator If necessary adjust the output level so that clipping is avoided To adjust Control Signal Level click on the knob and move the cursor up to turn the knob clockwise or down to turn it counterclockwise The numeric display will indicate the amount of attenuation or gain in dBs Command Mac Alt PC clicking on the knob will reset it to its default value of inf off Control Signal Control Signal Pan This slider allows you to set the L R Control Signal s location in the stereo spectrum ES5 NOTE Control Signal Pan only functions in Stereo or Mono gt Stereo versions of ARTICULATOR

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