Old School Vocoder

[cephus]

I am messing around with adding some really inappropriate songs to our setlist and was thinking it'd be cool to have some vocoder stuff live. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use a vocoder live - at least not a local band. Anyone ever use one on a gig?

I have a Boss SE50 that has a vocoder patch and it seems like the effect is not pronounced enough. Like the consonants aren't cutting it. It's hard to tell what you're saying. Does anyone have any suggestions about using compression or a preamp or a particular mic to get the most from this effect?

I have a few ancient keyboards around. Since I'm a guitar player and don't really want to drag a bunch of stuff out, I was wondering if a CZ101 had a factory patch that would be good to try with this effect. I know that you can reset the memory and not have to keep batteries in it. It's small and has strap buttons, so it may be just goofy enough.

I am talking about the really schmaltzie vocoder stuff like "RockIt" and "No parking on the Dance Floor".

 

[SuperJX]

Yep-- used 'em live in the past. Worked best with a headset cardioid (Shure SM-10 if I recall correctly). May need a preamp and EQ for your voice to get a hot enough signal.

Depending on the style you're looking for, you'll want to try different sounds for the carrier signal and the voice. Something like Midnight Star would work well with a fuzz effect on your voice prior to sending it to the vocoder, and a synth patch that's bright and buzzy.

Do you have an SE50 or an SE70? I had a 50 in the past and don't recall a vocoder patch. Either way, you'll want to play around with the frequency bands in the patch to get the right sound.

I liked working with the Roland SVC-350 the most, and hacked around with the Paia vocoder, but lean towards software emulations when I need them now. Well known songs that I'd consider for vocoding ideas would also include "In the Air Tonight" by Genesis, practically anything by The Fixx ("Built for the Future" and "Are We Ourselves" as good examples), and of course the two that you named. The fun comes when you do an effect that isn't just "a talking synth" but something different. For instance-- try using a phase shifted synth pad for the carrier side, or using a drum machine instead of your voice as the modulator (aka "drum-coding").

 

[xistenz]

vocoder is completely passe in the electro/industrial crowd. been done to death. that's not to say others will not approve.

to get a good vocodor sound, generally speaking, the more bands the better as each band acts as a seperate modulator. this basically means that the lyrics will be more intelligible.

my korg ms2000's vocodor sounds great. the microkorg also has this feature.

 

[cephus]

I was wondering if there was any benefit at all to using a good mic versus something really crappy. I am gonna fool around with what I have and see if I can imporove my enunciation. that might have something to do with it.

One thing I saw did say you need line level to get the thing to work properly, so I'll probably run the mic thru a pre.

It is an SE50. The SE70 supposedly has a better vocoder patch. I;ve had the se50 in a drawer for several years. I got it out a while back and replaced the battery. I used to use the harmonizer in it to make this old lady/chipmunk voice on a Run DMC song I used to do. I never used it too much for guitar. I can't remember why I bought it. I don't use digital reverb in my signal chain.

I really just want the "Zee oh eye dee ess - fuh-reak a zoid" thing. It would be especially nice to use those syllables for other things, too.

It may be passe in terms of modern music, but as an entertainer and one who likes to be entertained, I think they are kinda neat. Neater than the shitty guitar version a la frampton. You see guys with talk boxes on their guitars all the time. I have never seen a vocoder live around here. I think it has a great protential for a good chuckle.

I thought about using different things to trigger the envelope like the drums. Is that how they got the droning synth 16th notes in stuff like "Heart of Glass" and those ZZ Top songs from the mid 80s?

 

[SuperJX]

Agree that the "robot voice" stuff may be passe, but you should be able to hack around with a vocoder and different carrier/modulator combos to make interesting textures. The different stuff that Rupert does in The Fixx is pretty cool, imo. More than just vocals-- he's using his voice as a synth modulation source.

Talk box is another great example-- the talking guitar effect got cheesy rather quickly (like that cruddy Bon Jovi song). But I've heard some tracks by Green Graham <sp?> (the guy in Scritti Politti) that again used a talkbox more for texture than to "talk" with another instrument.

16th note synth patterns in Heart of Glass and ZZ Top were almost certainly an "arpeggiator". These days most hardware synths have some sort of pattern engine to arpeggiate a series of notes, though they'll often call them things like RPS, or Karma, or whatever else.

 

[cephus]

16th note synth patterns in Heart of Glass and ZZ Top were almost certainly an "arpeggiator". These days most hardware synths have some sort of pattern engine to arpeggiate a series of notes, though they'll often call them things like RPS, or Karma, or whatever else.

To stray a little further, would bab o'reilly also be an arpeggiator? And eminence front? How do they work? I mean how much input do you have to give it so that it plays root/fifth/octave/fifth?

Neat.

 

[altitude909]

There are all sorts of arps. I will be based on the synths number of voices so i'm sure the newer stuff should have more options than all my 80's synths but generally its last note played. Bear in mind that you can modulate anything so you can plug anything as the carrier and modulate it with your source (Drums can be cool). The older roland SVC ones are nice but still fetch a good price

 

[SuperJX]

To stray a little further, would bab o'reilly also be an arpeggiator? And eminence front? How do they work? I mean how much input do you have to give it so that it plays root/fifth/octave/fifth?

Neat.

One could play Baba with an arpeggiator, but I'm not sure what Townsend did on that track. Same thing with Eminence Front-- though I saw a live performance a year or two ago where they played the pattern in that song on what appeared to be a Hammond organ. Used the key percussion and both tiers of the organ to repeat the phrase.

Arpeggiators are useful for repetitive phrases with rock-solid tempo, or for repetitive or very fast phrases, or as a crutch for players with less-than-perfect chops (like me ). The '80s synths I've had typically just took the notes I held down on the keyboard and would move up in pitch, down, up and down, or at random. Nowadays you have more phrasing going on, where a keypress results in a whole cascade of notes and/or events.

 

[cephus]

I have been playing around with the SE50 and the CZ101. I can get the "freakazoids, robots. Please report to the dancefloor" thing sounding pretty authentic. There are 7 "voices" or characters or something that you can tweek, but since it's hard to change settings realtime while you're actually making noise on the thing, it's hard to tell any difference.

Just for the sake of archiving to here so if I search later, I can find it, I am using the "string ensemble setting (I think it's preset 4)" on the cz101, an SM57 through a tubepre crap mic preamp with the mostly default vocoder settings on the SE50. I changed the sensitivity and noise gate threshholds pretty high. The noise gate in particular needs to be high so that it's totally silent unless you are talking into the mic.

I find it works much better if you very deliberately enunciate the words you are trying to get across. Exaggerated speaking.

So, the SE50 can defeintely be used for a vocoder with some effort. If I come up with any other tips. I'll resurrect the thread just since this can be searched in the future when vocoders become the "newest thing" in pop music again.

BY the way, I have a poly 800 (which has lost its sounds) and a Yamaha DX9 (which has lost its sounds). WOuld either of those offer any better sounds for the vocoder if they were reloaded? Anyone ever reload old synths any other way besides MIDI? I think both of them are supposed to be loaded from tape.

 

[altitude909]

You just need a wav file of the patches tape backup and just play it through your soundcard. Do it all the time on my ju-60

 

[SuperJX]

Heh heh-- my first "real" synth was a Poly 800. Ah memories...

The seven settings that you're referring to are usually frequency bands, kind of like an equalizer. If you change each of them to an abnormally high setting, you should hear a corresponding change in output. Just like an eq, the higher bands increase the sibilant frequencies of the carrier signal that are allowed through. Might want to check out the widipedia for more info on how a vocoder works: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocoder

You're also spot on with the exaggerated speaking-- depends entirely on what output you want, and also on how sensitive the mic is. An SM-57 would handle the noisy stage environment well, but you'll need to stress certain syllables for the vocoded signal to be intelligible.

Try plugging the pre out into a fuzz pedal of some sort and then into the SE50 to see what you get. The extra harmonics can help with the upper frequency bands.

Also mess around with the notes you're playing on the synth. A monotone robot voice works well if you play single notes in two octaves, or even 3 or 4 octaves. That way you get some high-frequency output from the synth for the vocoder to use. That's also why a bright string sound or "polysynth" sound makes a good carrier. The Korg may have some better sounds for this purpose, as the two DCOs will chorus a bit. (Always thought the PD synth in the CZ series sounded "sproingy" to my ears )

If I remember correctly, the Poly-800 used the batteries in the back both as a memory backup and as a means of "cordless" playing if you wanted to strap the thing on. Make sure you put some fresh ones in before loading cassette data or it'll get wiped out again when you turn it off. It came with a factory cassette, so you may be able to find one on ebay or something, or maybe even email Korg-- they may have a wav file of the factory data you could dump from the line out of your PC soundcard.

Never played with a DX9, but assume a similar situation. Good luck!