VOCODERS

[Rodgre]

There are two particular vocoder-based songs that I am totally in love with and I am not sure what instrument I am actually hearing.

Jon Brion's "I Believe She's Lying" and a new song by Imogen Heap called "Hide and Seek." Both songs seem to have the same, if not very very similar vocoder effects, which makes me wonder whether it's the same piece of gear or just the same technique.

I heard that Jon was a fan of the old Roland vocoder and it's cool glitchiness, but it's possible that he's using something else on the track.

The main characteristic is very broad sounding chords, which makes me wonder if it's just the synth sound that I really like, and the vocoder is any run of the mill box.

Laurie Anderson's vocoder work is similar now that I think of it...

Roger

[jaguarsg]

not sure, but one of my good friends swears by his electrix vocoder and says it eats the roland for breakfast.

[joel hamilton]

I have the electrix vocoder.
I really like it. It depends on the source keyboard, but I have printed some insane ZAPP sounding stuff, and also used it for washed out backing "vocal" padding type stuff.

Works really well. Not as cool looking as a BODE, or the roland, or any of the old ones, but it works really well, and is easy to get rolling during the mix.

I like the fact that it is simple to use the vocal formant to mess with the synth in he song already tracked, or a bass, or room mic... whatever. It can be a great thing to make a song more "exciting" without really hearing why....

[apropos of nothing]

I love vocoder. Any vocoder. Cuz they're analogous EQs. So the frequency range of the modulator track is applied to the carrier track.

Screw lowpass-sweeps; dynamicly generated band-pass filtering is where its at, baby.