Features:

• Two independent voices each transposing individual notes and chords
• Chromatic interval transposition down or up as much as four octaves
• Natural sounding physics simulation without delay or artifacts
• An instrument itself with an eight octave extended-piano range
• Custom programmed module for ToneCore pedals and docks

The Muzemazer Chromavoder is a custom programmed module designed for use with all Line 6 ToneCore pedals and docks. Chromavoder simulates an analog circuit or physical device that harmonically multiplies chromatic tones.

The Muzemazer Chromavoder retails for $360. Audio demos are available at the Muzemazer site.

Features:

• HardTune effect with user-selectable key or instrument-sensing
• Vocoder carrier can be driven by internal voice-controlled synth or instrument input (such as guitar)
• Transducer effects, such as megaphones, distortion and radio voices
• All effects can run simultaneously
• Includes Tone feature for adaptive live engineer sound processing
• Presets that can be edited and stored
• Instrument Thru allows normal instrument amplification and vocoding

TC-Helicon’s VoiceTone Synth will retail for US $395.

Details below.

HardTune: The jagged, stair-stepped vocal sound of key-based hard tuning is everywhere in contemporary R&B, Hip Hop and Electronica. This feature has eluded the majority of performing musicians until VoiceTone Synth came along. Now musicians can produce this effect live by simply recalling a preset and hitting the ‘On’ button. Easy key input methods include auto-instrument sensing or pushbuttons with a clear display of the current key. Other features of the HardTune effect include dry voice mixing, octave shift and character modification.

Vocoder: The vocoder in VoiceTone Synth is called ‘Massive-Band’ for a reason. It effectively scales resolution from ultra-clearly-enunciated Robot voices to the sound of the classic, analog low-band-count vocoders. The benefit is that, while typical vocoders require a lot of pre-processing, like distortion and EQ to hear the effect properly, with the VoiceTone Synth vocoder effect players can input signals such as clean acoustic guitar and vocode perfectly for sounds that until now have been impossible to achieve.

Voice-controlled Synth: The vocoder also features a voice-controlled synth mode – considered by many as the Holy Grail for vocoding. Prior to VoiceTone Synth, vocoding required a voice (the exciter), and an instrument input (the carrier) to make cool vocoded sounds. Of course VoiceTone Synth supports the dual input method, but for artists who don’t have another instrument or don’t play one, VoiceTone Synth can generate a synth part directly from the vocal and vocode that. The result? Generated vocoder parts with one input: the voice.

BOSS has introduced a twin-pedal stompbox for performing vocalists, the VE-20 Vocal Performer.

Features:

• Specialized effects for vocalists, including Harmony, Double-Track, Dynamics, Reverb, Delay, and more
• Create the total of 3-part harmonies and layers
• Realtime pitch-correction tools
• Special FX, including Distortion, Radio and Strobe
• Phrase Looper with 38 seconds (mono) of recording time
• Phantom power for condenser microphones
• Runs on six AA-batteries or AC adaptor (PSA)
• Easy operation, road-tough BOSS construction

Description:

The VE-20 is designed for all types of vocal expression, including traditional singing, narration, and beat boxing. With the click of a footswitch, lush vocal doubling and harmonies, real-time pitch correction, delay, reverb, limiting, and special effects — such as Distortion, Robot, Chromatic, Radio, and Strobe — can be added. Layers and loops can also be created in real time with the onboard Phrase Looper.

With stereo XLR outputs, ¼” and XLR inputs, and a simple user interface, the VE-20 is perfect for serious live-performance or recording.

“More and more bands are incorporating vocal effects into their live and studio performances,” says Paul Youngblood, President of BOSS. “We’re pleased to bring high quality BOSS effects to vocal performers everywhere.”

The VE-20 will be available in November 2009.

Frieze Magazine has published a article that takes a contrarian look at the musicality of Auto-Tune.

Author Jace Clayton first recognizes the fact that many musicians hate AutoTuned vocals:

Vocal purists hate Auto-Tune. They hear in its robotic modulations some combination of sugar-rush novelty, bulldozed nuance, jejune synthetics, loss of ‘soul’, disdain for innate vocal talent, teen-optimized histrionics, emotional anemia, and/or widespread musical decline. It’s ugly.

Discussing US R&B singer T-Pain’s Auto-Tune-aided hits in 2007, music critic Jody Rosen declared that, ‘T-Pain represents a kind of symbolic severing of African-American music from its traditional emotionalism […] the impassioned melismas that have powered black popular singing for decades are smoothed into synthetic gasps.’

Clayton goes on, though, to suggest that Auto-Tune is leading to a Man-Machine hybrid vocal style:

In an era of powerful computers that allow one to audition all manner of effects on vocals after the recording session, recording direct with Auto-Tune means full commitment. There is no longer an original ‘naked’ version. This is a cyborg embrace. In Cyborg Manifesto (1991), Donna Haraway notes that ‘the relation between organism and machine has been a border war.’ Auto-Tune’s creative deployment is fully compatible with her ‘argument for pleasure in the confusion of boundaries and for responsibility in their construction.’

What do you think? Are there artists that you think are using Auto-Tune to create cyborg art?

In Harmony is an Electro-Harmonix Voice Box demo video.

The Voice Box is an intelligent vocal harmony machine/ vocoder. Details below.

via EHX:

The Voice Box packs a multi-functional vocal synth processor into a tough and compact chassis. Sing, and you’ll have a troupe of backup singers following you in perfect harmony. Or use the built-in vocoder to unleash classic synth-robot sounds.

Diana Ross had the Supremes, Brian Wilson had the Beach Boys, Kraftwerk had The Robots. You have the Voice Box.

The harmony processor creates 2- to 4-part harmonies directly from your vocals, in the same key as your accompanying instrument. Studio-quality reverb lets you independently add depth to your dry and harmony vocals.

The focused 256-band articulate vocoder, designed by the same EMS genius who made vocoding famous, features adjustable harmonic enhancement and controllable formant shift.

Plug in your mic and your instrument, and let your new voice — or voices — be heard!

* Harmonically matches any electric instrument you plug into it

* Professional quality pitch shifting algorithm produces realistic harmonies

* The Low & High Harmony independently produces two harmony notes: 3rd and 5th

* 9 accessible programmable presets

* Natural Glissando

* Gender Bender knob allows for male/female formant modification

* Built-In Mic Pre with Phantom Power & Gain Switch

* Balanced XLR Line Output: Interface directly with any mixing board or A/D converter

* US96DC-200BI power supply included

TC-Helicon’s Laura Clapp talks about what the latest voice synthesis effects that she is demoing at the 2009 Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany.

Unfortunately, no demo was included!

This is a overview and demo of Electro-Harmonix‘ new Voice Box, from the 2009 Winter NAMM Show. 

Kendra talks about gender-bending effects and more before demonstrating just what the Voice Box is capable of.

A walkthrough the TC Electronic booth at Namm 2009. Their voice synthesis technology is getting to be insane.

2009 NAMM Show: Electro Harmonix has released the Voice Box – a multi-functional vocal synth processor.

Check out the cool demo video above and let me know what you think!

Description:

The harmony processor creates 2- to 4-part harmonies directly from your vocals, in the same key as your accompanying instrument. Studio-quality reverb lets you independently add depth to your dry and harmony vocals.

The focused 256-band articulate vocoder, designed by the same EMS genius who made vocoding famous, features adjustable harmonic enhancement and controllable formant shift.

Features:

• Harmonically matches any electric instrument you plug into it
• Professional quality pitch shifting algorithm produces realistic harmonies
• The Low & High Harmony independently produces two harmony notes: 3rd and 5th
• 9 accessible programmable presets
• Natural Glissando
• Gender Bender knob allows for male/female formant modification
• Built-In Mic Pre with Phantom Power & Gain Switch
• Balanced XLR Line Output: Interface directly with any mixing board or A/D converter
• US96DC-200BI power supply included

TC-Helicon has released a software update and several application videos for Harmony-M, its vocal harmony device for MIDI keyboard players. 

A demo video is embedded above. The music featured in the demo video does nothing for me – but the quality of the effects is impressive.

The software update offers improved chord detection latency, bass voice leading and footswitch operation. 

TC-Helicon has also released three performance videos from various musicians highlighting the different styles of music, and creative options Harmony-M provide. Additionally, five tutorial videos help get a player of any technical ability started with the product.

NaturalPlay, an intelligent harmony arrangement algorithm in Harmony-M, makes it possible for any singing keyboardist to get lyrically arranged harmonies playing as they normally would, without limitations. NaturalPlay provides a variety of voicings options, including bass voicing, unique to Harmony-M, which follows the root of the current chord.

The software update can be downloaded from the TC-Helicon website and uploaded via MIDI to Harmony-M.

“Developing RSM pedals has been a multi-year program for us that has resulted in a platform on which we can develop in many directions”, states Duwe. “Our 24-bit hardware, firmware and software system will allow us to model many acoustic spaces, instruments and electronic modifications; at very little cost to the customer. One could easily be misled by the compact pedal form factor, but under the hood of our RSM processors you will find a lot of substantial FX for DJ’s, keyboardists and guitar amp effects loops alike.”

Behringer RSM pedals include chorus, phase shifting, flanging, reverb, delay, echo, octave, dynamic formant eq, acoustic modeling, rotary, harmonizing and synthesis modeling.

All pedals feature:

• Real Sound Modeling with advanced DSP algorithms
• 24-bit A/D/A conversion
• Rugged impact-resistant injection molded cases
• Sealed rotary controls
• Dual outputs for stereo or split-signal applications
• Ultra-bright On/Battery LED
• Battery or DC powered

US List $74.95

At the Winter NAMM Show, DigiTech introduced the Vocalist Live Pro vocal harmony and effects rack processor.

The Vocalist Live Pro can create multi-part harmony by analyzing a musical accompaniment signal. The Vocalist Live Pro accepts MIDI, so you can get musically intelligent harmonies just by playing in a natural accompaniment style.

You can choose harmony shifts in a four-octave range, including unisons, to create up to four-part harmony.

Features:

• Four-part intelligent vocal harmony using guitar or MIDI-based musIQ note detection and harmony engine
• Selectable harmony shifts ranging up to two octaves above or below the lead vocal
• Alternate harmony modes including Fixed Shift, Scalic, MIDI Chordal and MIDI Notes
• Pitch correction with 4 adjustable parameters
• Lead Persona Models with Gender Shifting
• Vocal Pre-Effects including Compressor, De-esser, Preamp, Band-Limiting, and EQ
• Lexicon Reverb and Delay post-effects
• Edit, store and recall 99 user or 99 factory presets
• On board guitar tuner
• XLR mic /line with level adjustment, studio grade preamp and 48V phantom power
• 1/4″ guitar input, 1/4″ guitar pass-through, 1/4″ line in.
• L/R Stereo 1/4″ aux outputs, L/R XLR main outputs, S/PDIF out, ground lift, selectable output routings
• MIDI in/thru, USB for preset editing, backup and exchange
• Footswitch and expression pedal jacks for remote control of presets and effects
• Power supply included

Mu Voice is currently available for the introductory price of $199 ($259 MSRP); demo versions are available. AU, RTAS and stand-alone versions are planned.

Key features:

• Harmonizing: An “intelligent” harmonizer takes into account the musical context of a piece like chord and scale information. You can configure each track by selecting the voicing (1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th voice) and octave.
• Scale/Chord Selection: The chord panel offers a straight-forward interface to select chords and scales. When a scale is selected, the diatonic series of chords is given.
• Chord Scheme Editor: Chords and scales can be added to a chord scheme. After you have created your scheme you can use it to follow chord progressions.
• Mixer: The mixer allows you to mute and bypass some of the channels, to control the gain and apply an additional pitch shift.
• Tuner: Mu Voice comes with a built-in tuner that has a parametric impact. It can operate in “chromatic” or “scale” mode.
• Channel FX: For each track there is an additional set of FX.
• Pan: The panner allows you to spatialize your harmonies and uses interaural gains and delays based on psychoacoustic measurements.
• Humanizing: When the pitches of the harmonies are coupled too tight, they might interfere and be perceived as a single distorted voice. The “humanization” parameter solves this problem by adding very slight random pitch variations and an additional delay.
• Formants: The formants determine the “timbre” or “color” of the voice. When Mu Voice changes the pitch of the voice it maintains the formants.
• Filters: Mu Voice offers a number of filter presets; high-pass, band-pass, comb-filters, notch filters, etc.
• Harmonic EQ-ing: The proprietary spectral analysis techniques on which Mu Voice is based, allow to control the amplitude of each individual harmonic in the sound. This effect was named harmonic EQ-ing. A number of presets are provided that illustrate this unique feature.
• Preset Management: To keep the large number of control parameters manageable, all parameters that are not related to the chord scheme can be saved in presets. You can add these presets to the chord scheme.
  • Full Automation: The progression of chords and presets can be fully automated in two steps:
  • Write Mode: When the plug-in is put in write-mode it records the time instants of your chord progression.
    o Read Mode: In read-mode the plug-in will synchronize itself to the host time so that it becomes fully automated.
• XML based file exchange: The plug-in state, chord scheme and presets can all be saved in an XML format. This makes the configuration of your plug-in readable, editable and portable over all platforms.
• SIMD Optimizations: For maximal performance, Mu Voice is highly optimized using special processor instruction sets like SSE for Intel and Altivec for PowerPCs.

zplane.development has announced the availability of vielklang, a plug-in for instant audio harmonization. vielklang generates up to four voices from a single-voiced audio input. The progression of each individual voice is controlled by sophisticated harmony progression and voice leading models, resulting in musically meaningful harmonization without any configuration efforts.

With vielklang, users can generate and prototype natural-sounding background vocals and brass sections, modify melodies and single-voiced loops in terms of pitch and scale, and experiment with various harmonizations or chords triggered by different MIDI-inputs. It allows the user to synthesize up to four voices, edit harmonies and single pitches, and convert audio to MIDI.

Voice Leading

The four voices don’t simply move in parallel, their individual progression is controlled by a complete set of voice leading rules and sophisticated harmony progression models. This musical intelligence and knowledge lets the user focus entirely on musical issues, rather than technical or theoretical ones. vielklang helps to achieve musically meaningful results without having to bother about root note, scale, tuning frequency, harmony progression and voice leading.

While vielklang can provide instant and meaningful results, experienced users also have the option of changing harmonization parameters like the range (ambitus) or distribution of the voices, modifying root note and scale, editing single harmonies and changing individual pitches in each of the voices.

vielklang’s main features:

• instant 4-voice harmonization of any single-voiced audio input
• integrated voice leading and harmony progression models, resulting in entirely natural-sounding automatic harmonization
• one-click modification of key scales and harmonies
• high quality, formant preserving, flexible pitch shifting
• audio-to-MIDI functionality for all voices
• customizable user interface

vielklang is available for AU and VST for OSX and Windows at vielklang.zplane.de for an introductory offer of Euro 159 / USD 199 until May 31st, 2007. After that vielklang retails for Euro 179 / USD 249