vocoding

This is one of the stranger official product demos we’ve seen in a while. And strange is good.

First, the beautiful tattooed underground superlegend Kendra demos the Electro-Harmonix V246 Vocoder by doing her best T-Pain.

After a little technical background and some gender-bending discussion, Rick sings the Electro-Harmonix V246 Vocoder song.

Later, Rick demos the Metal Muff.

Yeah, yeah – here’s that “talking piano” video that’s been bouncing around the Internet for a week.

I didn’t feature it here, because I thought Conlon Nancarrow was doing a lot more interesting things, and more musical things, with player piano sequencing back in the 1940s.

And, if you’re going to make a talking instrument, in my book – it’s either got to make music, or it’s got to say “Exterminate!”

But others are obviously seeing potential in this. Or that je ne sais quoi that makes an Internet meme.

Anyway, this video captures a”speaking piano” reciting the Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court at World Venice Forum 2009.

Composer Peter Ablinger basically pixelated sound, at a resolution appropriate to the range of the piano, and used the pixelations as “notes” to sequence and reproduce a lo-fi version of the original sound. Read more…

This is a vintage audio demo of the rare Synton Syntovox Vocoders.

via VoiceEncoder:

Copyright Synton Electronic of Holland, Inc.

All Rights Reserved.For listening pleasure only.

In this official Ableton Live video, Huston Singletary demonstrates vocoding with the Ableton Vocoder.

Vocoders use a multiband filter to apply the amplitude of various frequencies of a source sound, such as your voice, to another sound. Vocoders are probably best known from the voice of the Cylons on Battlestar Galactica and other sci fi robots.

Read more…

This tutorial looks at vocoding with Propellerhead Reason and Record. Read more…