Modifying the human voice in recordings has been around for a long time, from ways to modify acoustically, to ways to modify electronically. There has been a rich pilot of modifying vocals in recordings from Daft Punk to Kraftwerk, from Peter Frampton to Roger Troutman, from Stevie Wonder to the Beatles. Vocal modification takes our vocal performances to another level. The vocoder is another unique instrument that helps our vocals to bring about a different kind of richness in vocal recordings. Vocoders are constructed by taking a carrier signal, which can be a keyboard, a synthesizer or a guitar, and they modulate a signal, which is usually the human voice. They meet in the device itself that contains multiple band-pass filters. Those multiple band-pass filters were originally designed to decode the human voice in times of war. But once war was over, creative minds took some of these devices and looked at ways to entertain people with them. I want you to see how these band-pass filters come together to make this interesting vocoder sound. The uninitiated ear might think that the vocoder and a talk box sound alike and are the same thing. As you look at the construction of a vocoder and we listen to the vocoder sound, you'll find out that they're two different devices that are worlds apart. I have enlisted Lamar Mitchell to give us a look at a vocoder once again. We'll be looking at the EVOC 20 in Logic. So we're back with Lamar Mitchell. Hey, Lamar. >> Hey, what's happening, Charles? >> Cool, when we left we had just finished our talk about the Talk Box. And we were venturing into some of those artists that were exploring other vocal modifier tools, like the vocoder. I think of Teddy Riley with the vocoder, Herbie Hancock with the vocoder. What is a vocoder? >> Well, the vocoder is an electronic synthesizer which has the capability of taking words, it has a carrier and a modulator. So we could take words that have been spoken and modulate them on top of a musical melody or a chord structure. And superimpose it to make it sound like that voice has sung that phrase. >> So the carrier is what, like a synthesizer sound? >> The carrier is the melody, right, and the voice is the modulator. >> And the voice goes through some type of a filtering process? >> Yeah, yeah, a series of phonetic filters that enable the synthesizer to either emphasize or de-emphasize certain phonetic frequencies to integrate the two together to output the sound. >> Wow, so- >> Or for robots [LAUGH] >> Yeah, from my research, it seemed like it was mid-band frequencies stacked one after another, the vocals going through that. It lives in a gated signal and then the gate is opened up by the carrier that says I am a synthesizer and I will marry myself with your voice. Something like that, right? >> I have to open up my robot's head again. [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> But I'm pretty sure that's what's inside of it, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, Logic now, so you don't have to- >> And Daft Punk uses that instrument? >> Yeah, correct. >> Wow, you have one there? I have one here, actually what I have is, I have it inside of Logic, and I want to show you how I'm using it inside of Logic. It's very basic, it's the EVC bar, it's the built-in plugin that comes into Logic. I'm going to switch to my camera. >> Okay, you can switch the camera and we can see it? >> Yeah. >> You're a genius. >> Okay, so this is the vocoder and Logic. And basically it has this synthesizer section built in here on the left-hand side, so I've kind of custom designed my little synthesizer sound. And here you see the frequency of filters here that this, actually it's your cut-off, your low pass filter, your high pass filter over here. >> It looks like there are ten filters there, those yellow lines are the ten different filters? >> Right, and you can open it up. But I've basically had to filter off everything under 200 just to- >> So the right-hand side is the higher frequency spectrum and the left-hand side is the lower frequency spectrum? >> Correct, just how we're used to looking at things and equalizers. >> Right. >> Top you can see I have it side chained into my input one, coming into my Vtech audio mic pre here, which is an emulation of a 1073 mic pre. So that's being tied into my sound interface coming into input one. So my signal here, I put it on vocal, right, to tell the thing that I'm going to be speaking into it. And pretty much, those are the parameters. If you want to go to some of the presets, they have presets here that you can just go right to. But I kind of designed my own, just to give it that 70s sound that I know. >> Now the original vocoders were hardware devices and you're currently playing a software device? >> That's correct. >> What does it sound like? Okay, so I'm going to switch back to my other camera here, just so that I could play it comfortably. [MUSIC] [INAUDIBLE] I'm just talking to the microphone and it's like talking to [MUSIC] [INAUDIBLE] You hear the sound. Sounds like I'm singing, but I'm not. >> [LAUGH] It sounds like the group from the 70s, Kraftwerk. >> [LAUGH] Kraftwerk, Daft Punk, all kind of mixed in there doing that vocoder thing. >> [INAUDIBLE] >> Uh-oh, there it goes, no, no- >> No copyright infringement. >> That's what I was going to say. [LAUGH] >> I just [INAUDIBLE]. >> [LAUGH] >> [INAUDIBLE] Okay. >> That's really cool, that's really cool. So yeah, that's why I was using my robot to pull it out, any big part out of my closet, write it to Logic, and there's reasons. Basically every dog now has some kind of built in vocoder plugin. >> Wow, so if I'm not a great singer I can pull this thing out, get a microphone, have a synthesizer, work on some melodies and make a record, put it out, everybody will dance to it. >> I'll dance to it. >> [LAUGH] >> Or you can email. [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> I'll Dropbox it and [INAUDIBLE]. >> Really, we could email you and you'll do the vocal parts for us? >> Yes. >> Be careful what you ask for. [LAUGH] >> Hey, this is where I'm at, that's where Charles and I used to work. I used to live in New Jersey and Charles had this really, really, elaborate studio in New York City. And I just had to get either my car or a train and schlep all kind of gear up, now with this Dropbox technology and the- >> Yeah, its amazing. I've got mixes that are waiting in my Dropbox right now. It's really incredible, it really is. >> So yeah, that's how I've been doing a lot of feeds now, just working via Dropbox. A lot of my clients, they email me a produce track or Logic track and we'll knock it out and send it back. >> Right, well, Lamar, we really appreciate the look at the talk box and vocoder that you've given us for this lesson. It's really awesome and much appreciated. >> Yeah, thank you. >> Looking forward to some new works from you and looking forward to some new works from your boss. And we'll see you in Boston soon, right? Yeah, yeah, there's some surprises coming up this fall, so look forward for him and us out there. >> Great. >> Yeah, yeah. >> We really appreciate it, Lamar, and we'll see you the next time. >> All right, man, thank you. >> All right, thanks.
