Vocoders

The vocoder is one of the most enduring audio processing effects of all time. Ian Waugh explains how to make it sing. And talk, and dance, and mutter, and play the drums...

Although the human voice is the most versatile and expressive of instruments, in true creative style musicians still like to change and modify it. A vocal that sounds in some way different to other vocals will stand out and attract attention to a recording. One of the first commercial recordings to feature voice processing was Sparky’s Magic Pianoreleased by Capitol in 1947. This landmark children’s story is still available today. It used a device called a Sonovox, which was mechanical in nature and worked by pressing two small disks to the performer’s throat. Although it was not a vocoder and it worked in an entirely different way,the results were similar and many people assume the result was achieved with a vocoder.

This feature first appeared in Music Tech Magazine issue 07
Filed under Ten Minute Masters

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