Waves released Vocal Bender

[Tj Shredder]

It achieves zero latency by delaying the signal a bit. You can test it yourself. Duplicate audio to another track. Process it with Vocal Bender and render it. Compare the original to the processed version. You'll see, by my count about a 512 sample difference.

Latency and delay is a synonym. Its one processing block latency then, which is not zero... Maybe they simply don’t report any. In theory you could turn down that delay to zero if there is no pitch change...

[yellowmix]

It was previously determined it reports 0 latency to the DAW (read the previous page). I was explaining how it achieves that. So no, latency and delay are not synonymous here. "Latency" refers to what is reported to the DAW, which is zero. Delay is what happens in the audio signal.

[Tj Shredder]

But that means zero latency isn’t a feature, its the opposite of a feature and thus marketing bs... It means that its not capable of delivering a PDC correction... Which is totally ok for the technical reasons... If you look at specs of audio interfaces, the latency is the delay any signal will need/produce between input and output...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latency_(audio)

[Qkimat]

Yup, marketing BS - there is no such thing as zero delay pitch shifting. The DAW reported 0 latency could cause issues if using parallel processing, but overall, it's a nice "feature" to have, as long as you understand it. Moreover, the small delay that the plugin introduces is bearable even for tracking/live use, so I'm ok with that. The tone is good too - otherwise the plugin would be useless. I tried it on some tracks, and it works nice.
I used to do similar stuff with with old Cubase pitch corrector stock plugin years ago - pitch shift up an octave, lower the formant, and mix to taste to add nice harmonics. I could not replicate the tone ever since, and Vocal Bender took right back to those years. I'll play around with it some more, that's for sure. It's a nice to have plugin.

[Ploki]

Antares AutoTune access also doesn't report Latency, but it's actual latency is about 5-10 samples. (Which for all intents and purposes of pitch shifting is close enough to 0 latency - since you couple of samples of difference isn't really a problem for parallel processing).

I didn't try Vocal Bender to decipher how much the actual latency is but i believe it's about the same.
And yeah, having switchable PDC would be a nice feature indeed.

as far as sound goes - from the demos it sounds awfully similar to Logic's "Vocal Transformer" (which is actually decent!)

[simon.a.billington]

Well yeah and no. There is a market for this type of tool to do its thing in real time. Just as you would expect from a synth or a guitar amp. So “no latency” isn’t marketing BS, it just simply underlines that a particular effect or instrument can be used in real time reliably. It’s used commonly everywhere by all plugin developers. It just means there’s “no additional latency” on top of the DAW’s I/O Buffer because I/O Buffers are ALWAYS going to be a given.

On the other hand, when something does induce latency devs will also inform you of that too. So when you make tools that both create additional latency and don’t create additional latency there really is no motivation to use that kind or marketing BS. You’re really just informing the public about a tool and how it’s designed to be used. Often as a contrast to their own products that aren’t designed to do the same thing.

Many times I’ve seen people on Waves specific forums enquire about which product would be best for that real time “T-Pain” effect. I honestly think that VocalBender was created in response.

[Ploki]

Well yeah and no. There is a market for this type of tool to do its thing in real time. Just as you would expect from a synth or a guitar amp. So “no latency” isn’t marketing BS, it just simply underlines that a particular effect or instrument can be used in real time reliably. It’s used commonly everywhere by all plugin developers. It just means there’s “no additional latency” on top of the DAW’s I/O Buffer because I/O Buffers are ALWAYS going to be a given.

On the other hand, when something does induce latency devs will also inform you of that too. So when you make tools that both create additional latency and don’t create additional latency there really is no motivation to use that kind or marketing BS. You’re really just informing the public about a tool and how it’s designed to be used. Often as a contrast to their own products that aren’t designed to do the same thing.

Many times I’ve seen people on Waves specific forums enquire about which product would be best for that real time “T-Pain” effect. I honestly think that VocalBender was created in response.

err, Waves Tunes Real-Time is for "real time t-pain" effect (how 2010s quaint).

And the point is that it DOES have latency, but the latency is fairly small (couple of samples) so it's "nearly realtime", and here's the catch - the latency is not reported.
If you do a loopback on this, or Antares Access, or Waves Tune Realtime, the recorded audio is always a couple of samples late. For true zero-latency plugins, it's never late.

[pixel85]

I didn't even heard yet any mumble "clone-wars" rap with this plugin used and it's already super irritating. Im getting around 1 to 3 emails about it every single day.
I never got so much spam about a single plugin from anyone. Their marketing for this plugin is as annoying as the music tracks which will be maked with it. It's made for purpose I guess

[Cancel Culture Club]

I didn't even heard yet any mumble "clone-wars" rap with this plugin used and it's already super irritating. Im getting around 1 to 3 emails about it every single day.
I never got so much spam about a single plugin from anyone. Their marketing for this plugin is as annoying as the music tracks which will be maked with it. It's made for purpose I guess

Actually, pitched and formant changing vocals are done in a lot of genres of music.
Hiphop, EDM, Pop, etc... Not so much for instrumental and rock music though.

[pixel85]

I didn't even heard yet any mumble "clone-wars" rap with this plugin used and it's already super irritating. Im getting around 1 to 3 emails about it every single day.
I never got so much spam about a single plugin from anyone. Their marketing for this plugin is as annoying as the music tracks which will be maked with it. It's made for purpose I guess

Actually, pitched and formant changing vocals are done in a lot of genres of music.
Hiphop, EDM, Pop, etc... Not so much for instrumental and rock music though.

I know. But nobody abuse it in a way thwt mumble rappers do
Now it will be 24 semitone 1/32 LFO so everyone can get sick after 3 seconds of listening

[Cancel Culture Club]

I didn't even heard yet any mumble "clone-wars" rap with this plugin used and it's already super irritating. Im getting around 1 to 3 emails about it every single day.
I never got so much spam about a single plugin from anyone. Their marketing for this plugin is as annoying as the music tracks which will be maked with it. It's made for purpose I guess

Actually, pitched and formant changing vocals are done in a lot of genres of music.
Hiphop, EDM, Pop, etc... Not so much for instrumental and rock music though.

I know. But nobody abuse it in a way thwt mumble rappers do
Now it will be 24 semitone 1/32 LFO so everyone can get sick after 3 seconds of listening

To be honest I haven't listened to that in quite a while, the first time I heard it I knew I didn't want to hear it again...

[simon.a.billington]

Well yeah and no. There is a market for this type of tool to do its thing in real time. Just as you would expect from a synth or a guitar amp. So “no latency” isn’t marketing BS, it just simply underlines that a particular effect or instrument can be used in real time reliably. It’s used commonly everywhere by all plugin developers. It just means there’s “no additional latency” on top of the DAW’s I/O Buffer because I/O Buffers are ALWAYS going to be a given.

On the other hand, when something does induce latency devs will also inform you of that too. So when you make tools that both create additional latency and don’t create additional latency there really is no motivation to use that kind or marketing BS. You’re really just informing the public about a tool and how it’s designed to be used. Often as a contrast to their own products that aren’t designed to do the same thing.

Many times I’ve seen people on Waves specific forums enquire about which product would be best for that real time “T-Pain” effect. I honestly think that VocalBender was created in response.

err, Waves Tunes Real-Time is for "real time t-pain" effect (how 2010s quaint).

And the point is that it DOES have latency, but the latency is fairly small (couple of samples) so it's "nearly realtime", and here's the catch - the latency is not reported.
If you do a loopback on this, or Antares Access, or Waves Tune Realtime, the recorded audio is always a couple of samples late. For true zero-latency plugins, it's never late.

Yes agreed. but it's somewhat of a grey area. A lot of ifs and buts that can change conditions from less than ideal to create an impact. But even true zero can never be true zero as calculations still need to be performed, even if it taps a nanosecond or two to produce it, it still a delay, just an unnoticeable one.

The only time it can be tru zero is if the audio is just passed through like a simple bypass.

[simon.a.billington]

I didn't even heard yet any mumble "clone-wars" rap with this plugin used and it's already super irritating. Im getting around 1 to 3 emails about it every single day.
I never got so much spam about a single plugin from anyone. Their marketing for this plugin is as annoying as the music tracks which will be maked with it. It's made for purpose I guess

Actually, pitched and formant changing vocals are done in a lot of genres of music.
Hiphop, EDM, Pop, etc... Not so much for instrumental and rock music though.

Yeah but you could use it as a doubling plugins, Much in the some way as people use Soundtoys Microsoft or Little Alterboy. Or you could do something creative by putting it on a delay or a reverb return.

So when you use it in this kind of sense you could actually use it for many more genres, but as a mix tool

[jens]

first thought it's little alterboy but costs more. but the the modulation could be interesting, though i have not felt the need for it whenever i do such stuff with vocals...

Is it? Little Alterboy is magic, because it introduces certain artifacts such as a very special distortion and whatnot - without these it would be nothing. So if this Waves thing don't has that (which it doesn't appear to), I think it's smearing LIttle Alterboy's name by even just mentioning it here!

[Ploki]

err, Waves Tunes Real-Time is for "real time t-pain" effect (how 2010s quaint).

And the point is that it DOES have latency, but the latency is fairly small (couple of samples) so it's "nearly realtime", and here's the catch - the latency is not reported.
If you do a loopback on this, or Antares Access, or Waves Tune Realtime, the recorded audio is always a couple of samples late. For true zero-latency plugins, it's never late.

Yes agreed. but it's somewhat of a grey area. A lot of ifs and buts that can change conditions from less than ideal to create an impact. But even true zero can never be true zero as calculations still need to be performed, even if it taps a nanosecond or two to produce it, it still a delay, just an unnoticeable one.

The only time it can be tru zero is if the audio is just passed through like a simple bypass.

No grey area i think, and not a lot of ifs.
Zero delay means that whatever process is taking place can take place in the same allocated Signal Vector size.
As in, if you push audio through and bounce it, it comes out 1:1 as if the plugin weren't there, if you do a loopback through a zero-latency DSP and without it, the looped back audio will be 1:1 on the same spot to the T, it will null-out to infinity.
If there's only slight delay that's unreported, parallel processing goes through the window. it would be extremely obvious in zero-latency compressors if they weren't actually zero latency.

How much time inside the signal vector it needs doesn't really matter - if it needs more time to process it, it causes latency.
That latency is either reported, or it's not reported.
In case of Autotune Access and Waves Vocal Bender, it's not reported, but if you do a loop-back of plugin, the resulted audio WILL be a couple of seconds behind, because there's no such thing as zero latency pitch-shifting. But it can be argued that couple of samples difference in timing of pitched material is not crucial for real-world applications.