What is a VOCODER

[RD423]

I hear a lot of ppl talking about them what are they meaning a vocoder and what does it do thanks for any help

[Omega]

Ever heard a guitar talk? That's probably due to a vocoder.

What happens, using the talking guitar situation as an example, is that the amplitude characteristics of the voice (the modulator wave) are taken first from a vocal track. These characteristics are then applied to the guitar (the carrier wave) so that when
the voice is loud, the guitar is loud, and conversely, when the voice is soft, the guitar is also soft.

But what makes the vocoder sound like a vocoder is the fact that before it applies these amplitude characterists to the guitar, it splits up the sound of the voice and processes it in such a way that the filtering characteristics of the voice are also incorporated into the guitar sound. This concept is very difficult to explain, and, thus, if you would like to learn more, you probably need to search for an article on the internet that explains the vocoder in great detail.


But if you want just a general definition of one, a vocoder, essentially, takes the amplitude and filtering characteristics of one wave and applies it to another.

[milesmaxwell]

Do you feeeeeellll liiikkkeee weee doooooo....

Check out Frampton Comes Alive if you really don't know what a vocoder sounds like.

Another good example is Walter Becker's guitarwork on Steely Dan's "Haitian Divorce." Bow-chick-a-bow-wow.

[WolfeMacleod]

Here's a great article on Vocoders and speech synthesis.
http://www.ling.su.se/staff/hartmut/kemplne.htm
After thier invention in 1936, the military refined Vocoders in order to code and decode transmissions so they they could not be eavesdropped. One Vocoder would code it, then the other would DEcode it. Thus Vocal-Coder.
Peter Frampton's unit is actually a Talk Box, whereby a horn tweeter or hor midrange speaker driver was fed through a tube, and into the mouth. Mouthing the words into the mic would give the impressions that the guitar was speaking.
A simple Talkbox can be made with a $15 Radio Shack horn tweeter or midrange driver, plastic tube, and an amplifer to drive it.
Vocoders do not make guitars talk. Ever.

By the way, greetings. This is my first post. I hope I could help.

Wolfe Macleod

[Omega]

Vocoders do not make guitars talk. Ever.

I believe that this excerpt from a Sound on Sound article indicates otherwise:

"What we want is the ability to control the synthesizer by applying an external signal -- maybe using a guitar to 'play' it, or using your voice to make it 'speak'."

I realize that the article is referring to using a vocoder to making a synthesizer "talk," but under these circumstances, the same principle also applies to guitars.


The other information provided was helpful, though, so thank you for bringing that to the forum.

[WolfeMacleod]

Omega
I suppose you're right, a guitar could be played through a Vocoder to give it a Vocoder'ed sound, but I'm pretty sure the guitar's sound itself still won't "speak" in any intelligible vocal sounds.
I know of no instances where a Vocoder was used to such exents as TalkBoxes, where words and sentences have been clearly (ok, well, sorta) recongnizable.
If you can provide an example of actual Vocoder-Guitar speak, I'd love to hear it.

Wolfe

[rambo]

The sound of spech has three basics: tubulent air formed by teeth, tongue and lips to ceate consonants like s, f, v and z. Stop and release airpressure to create consonants like p, t, k...
And vocals that comes from resonans of your vocal cords.
Now you can replace the sound of your vocal cords by feeding the vocoder guitar tube into your mouth, so you let the guitar create all vocals.
But you still have to create you consonants to make it sounds like speach. If you have the right technic I can work, but it will be quite tricky to match levels of vocals and consonants into the mike.
But it can be done......

[dobro]

And the connection to Cool Edit is...?

I've been waiting for it to come up, but so far, no joy.

Why'd you post a question about vocoders in the Cool Edit forum, RD? A general propensity for blunders?

[RD423]

I put it here for 2 reasons

1st Cool Edit Pro has a VOCODER
2nd I didn't know what other forum to put it in

[dobro]

Right you are. So, now, who's the one with a propensity for blundering?