[RWP] Vocoder

[colin McDonald]

so, when utilizing an auto tune or pitch correct plugin, is it best to use a 
separate audio track for the effect, and route the source material to that 
track  as well?
I just added the effect onto the original audio track and never did have 
much success.

regards
Colin
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Patrick Perdue" <patrick at pdaudio.net>
To: "Reapers Without Peepers" <rwp at reaaccess.com>
Sent: Monday, May 21, 2012 12:56 AM
Subject: Re: [RWP] Vocoder


> Generally speaking, no, unless you're using a vocoder that happens to have 
> it's own synth engine, like Klanglabs Vokko. Most don't.
>
> A traditional vocoder takes two audio inputs, usually the modulator (the 
> signal to be vocoded) on input 1, and the carrier (the thing over which 
> the modulator is, well, modulated,) on input 2.
> There are a bunch of different ways to achieve what I'm about to describe, 
> but this is how I'd setup routing for a vocoder input, in order to keep 
> things discrete for additional processing for both input and output if 
> necessary, such as compression and filtering.
>
> First, set up two tracks for your two individual sources, or one track 
> with mod panned hard left, and carrier panned hard right. In the case of a 
> single stereo track, you could either insert the vocoder directly on the 
> track, or send this track to another dedicated one with the vocoder effect 
> on it. If you send a single stereo track to another one dedicated to a 
> vocoder, make sure that track's master send is off. Otherwise, if the 
> vocoder has been inserted as an effect directly on that track, leave it 
> on, unless you're doing custom hardware output routing or something.
>
> Sending dedicated source tracks to the vocoder's input, however, has 
> additional benefits. Let's say you want to compress your vocal track 
> before it hits the vocoder, which really does help sometimes, as well as 
> applying a highpass filter, but you don't want to effect the carrier 
> source at all. You can simply stick those effects on your modulator track, 
> and you're good. With a single stereo track, that's harder, though not 
> impossible, to accomplish. The "not worth it" factor is pretty high, and 
> it's just easier to work with individual tracks.
>
> If you have a dedicated track for each of your sources, let's say track 1 
> is a microphone, and track 2 is a softsynth putting out a sawtooth wave 
> form, send both of these tracks to another track with the vocoder inserted 
> as an effect, and unroute both from master, unless you want both wet and 
> dry signals from each track to show up.
>
> Now, use the ReaAccess track I/O, shift+i, on the vocoder track, then 
> select receives. You should see the tracks you are sending to the vocoder. 
> For your microphone track, route input channel 1 to output channel 1, and 
> for the synth track, route channels 1/2, or just 1 or 2, to only channel 2 
> of the vocoder track. It is very important to not have either of your 
> tracks routed to both channels 1 and 2 of the vocoder track. If this 
> happens, you will essentially be vocoding something over itself, which is 
> probably not what you want to do, although, depending on the vocoder 
> algorithm you use, it can either be interesting as a stupid effect, or 
> incredibly boring and pointless.
>
> In this dialogue, mono channel routing comes after all the stereo pairs 
> from 1/2 to 63/64, and in this case, you want to generally send one 
> channel directly to another on a different track. Most vocoders don't have 
> stereo modulator or carrier inputs.
>
> Now, make sure your modulator track is armed, and that monitor is set to 
> normal. This insures that the track's output is actually sending to other 
> tracks as you send live input to it. Otherwise, those other tracks will 
> only get audio when playing stuff that has already been recorded on that 
> track.
> You'll want to arm the carrier as well, unless you want to record both 
> parts at separate stages. This is theoretically no different if you're 
> using a piece of hardware to generate your wave form to drive the vocoder, 
> or a piece of hardware connected to a physical input on your sound 
> interface.
>
> If you've never used a vocoder before, you may want to experiment with the 
> types of wave forms you use for a carrier input. I'd suggest starting out 
> with a raw saw wave, or playing with string and pad patches with very 
> little, if any, attack and release. The very boring ReaSynth can supply 
> you with the basic wave forms, but you won't get anything fun like 
> monophonic or portamento.
>
> Of course, the possibilities are endless. You can use any given number of 
> things to get interesting results, but those are good starting points.
>
> Also, the vocoder which comes with Reaper isn't really that great. 
> Depending on the type of vocoder sound you're looking for, I'd suggest 
> trying a few other ones. The free MDA vocoder is relatively OK at 
> providing a classic vocoder sound, and is generally more intelligible than 
> Reaper's default one, although you'll want to tweak the defaults on just 
> about anything you use to make it suck less.
>
> I have several hardware vocoder solutions, ranging from the really not so 
> awesome algorithm on my currently broken Ensoniq D/P4, the not much better 
> one from my Alesis Ion, the slightly nicer one from my Digitech Studio 
> Quad IV and Yamaha Motif XS, to my over all favorite, the Electrix Warp 
> Factory. I like this unit because it offers the most clarity with 24 
> bands, and has a huge amount of frequency response. It's also the only 
> unit I've seen with a stereo carrier input. It, however, doesn't have the 
> "classic" sound I want sometimes, though it is generally a really cool 
> unit to play with, so I usually fall back to the built-in vocoder on my 
> Motif XS to get that sound.
>
> On 5/20/2012 4:56 PM, Alexander Westphal wrote:
>> Hello!
>>
>> When I want to use a vocoder for an audio track, is it as simple as I'm
>> about to think? I would first record an audio item, insert a vocoder as
>> effect and then set up the track for midi recording and play the parts I
>> want to have. Could this be so easy?
>
>
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