'Smooth' Sounding Vocoder?

Hey guys -

I havent used a vocoder all that much in my productions, just the BV512 in Reason pretty much. Today, I was really taken with the vocal from Moby's "Whispering Wind" :

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How does one go about getting that 'smooth' character from vocoder processed vocals? Most of the stuff that Ive coaxed out of the BV512 sounds kinda harsh and robotic.

Sounds like some reverse reverb/delay smooths out the attack...does the sound of the carrier wave have something to do with it?

Thanks,

A77

Number of bands in vocoder determine "smoothness". Also, type of filter used per band. Also, the modulator sound.

What he said. Most of the vocal formants required for articulate speech live at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formant

However many raw digital sources have a great deal of energy above 2.5KHz.

Try LPF-ing the carrier and modulator waves for more smoothness. If you go too low, you will lose intelligibility of course.

Jerry

You've got it-- it's the sound of the carrier wave, i.e. the sound of the synth patch.

Maybe try editing the patch and using sweeter sounding waveforms, like sine waves or some digital waveform.

You can probably set the number of "bands" of the vocoder, too... put it to the highest number you can.

There is definitely a slow attack on that carrier signal. I also hear a distinct high pass used on the source vocals, which is quite noticable on the Esses, but isn't present in the carrier, so it's coming from the vocal source. I can hear some of his source low frequency vocals in the mix, at a very low level. There is a slow delay on the vocode too, around 500ms delay. Sounds like a bandpass filter with resonance to give a hollow sound is being used too, with the resonance emphasizing some of the higher notes. I also hear a significant noise component in the carrier, which gives it that breathy sound. I frequently add a small amount of noise to the carrier for vocoding because it helps to fill in the frequency bands with something to vocode - and a little noise seems to be quite normal for a good result on a vocode, since it gives it a better simulation of the natural sound of the air passing through the vocal tract.

Sine waves aren't particularly useful. You need lots of harmonics in the carrier to vocode effectively, and a sine wave is just a single frequency.

On the other hand, a bit of filtered FM'd sines would do the job quite nicely and *sparkling*

No, seriously, you need a mellow detuned saw/pulse pad, stuff like that. Using lowpass and bandpass filters combined, experimenting with modulations, something like that.

The trick is to add some nice analog chorus to your vocoded vocals. It kinda blends everything together. On my Roland VP330, the chorus really makes the sound. Without it, it sounds robotic and Kraftwerkian. With it, it sounds smooth and ethereal...

Thanks for the great tips!! Can't wait to give this stuff a try.

Anyone have a favorite vocodoer? Hardware or software?

The vocoder in the VP330 is hard to beat IMHO. Very musical sounding. I also like the Digitech Talker pedal.

i believe there's some discussion on the Doepfer Yahoo! list debating this. i distinctly remember someone talking about a sine wave being "rich in harmonics." it's mainly one guy AFAIK so don't pass judgement on the list because of it.

Yeah all of that would work. Delay and reverb are not mandatory though. It's the chorus (or micro-pitchshift, same thing really) that changes the robotic character of the vocoded voice. Delay or reverb alone won't work.

that new orange vocoder anniversary can deliver some really smooth results.

I always liked the vocoder on my A-Station ... relatively smooth is exactly how I'd describe it ... (that was the main reason I kept it around even though I stopped using the VA a while ago ... )

... Gave it away to a friend yesterday ...

I've only used a vocoder effect on one song, though ... Every time I start to use it I always get to thinking, Why do I need this ... ??? I can sing ... And using the vocoder effectively nullifies ANY "singing" ...

The R3 has a great vocoder. By the way, you don't really want a "smooth vocoder." You want a sharp, fast, controlled vocoder that tracks the source very well. What you want is a smooth vocode result. The vocoder itself has little ability to smooth the result. That work is done primarily on the carrier wave, and somewhat on the post vocode effects. But beware that any post vocode effects need to be very carefully chosen or they will tend to obscure the vocode effect and make the words harder to understand. Spend your time on building a carrier wave that is optimized for vocoding, with a rich range of frequencies through harmonics and noise, particularly in the high frequencies, unless you have a highpass filter on the source to pass them through from your voice.

I love my nord modular g2 vocoder to death

Ive been trying to find a vc2 card for my vsynth, ive played around with the vsynth XT and the vocoder in that is amazing as well

i know a lot of people who like the access virus vocoder, I personally didnt enjoy it so much, though i wasnt using a TI version, I had the indigo 1

Try to use as your carrier the purest square wave or sawtooth, preferably analog in source with an open 24db per octave filter, and speak with overly emphasized diction and in a lower range.

V-Synth is the best vocoder I've used... very awesome and smooth.

cheers

ripe

Yeah, wish I had VC-2 ... That's a big plus for V-Synth XT ...