Just curious about what you guys and girls like to use (mainly for vocals, a la Kraftwerk, The Knife, Daftpunk and the other usual suspects).


Thanks and happy new year everyone!!

 

Between all vocoders I've tried:

- Image-Line Vocodex
- Izotope Vocalsynth

 

how bout that Vocoder by Softube ?

 

Well, I wasn't impressed that much. The sound itself is not bad but it takes time to dial in the sound that you want. And not playing so well with MIDI

 

Regarding harmonizers, I did some tests yesterday between waves harmonizer, izotope's nectar and antares harmony engine and this is what I found:

Waves harmonizer is the best sounding to me but sadly doesn't take vibrato very well.
Antares Harmony sounds very robotic even if you move the glide and naturalize knobs, but I think that is the point with some of the Antares products, they give you "that" sound, that a lot of people like in pop, trap & reggaeton records.
Izotope's is the overall winner to me, it sounds good and it takes vibrato very well and it is built in a whole channel strip. However, if you are going to use any of the releases in the sister site, avoid the latest version, go to the previous one, the latest has some problems in the harmonizer.

 

Vocoder plugins are the only effect that I think hasn't been emulated nearly as detailed as old hardware vocoder synths. Am I wrong? All the demos I've hear from XILS, Polyverse, Izotope, Image-Line, Arturia, Reaktor from NI...have a more sterile sound that what you hear in Daft Punk. I'm sure you can make great songs with those plugins, it's just the quality of the sound isn't as rich I think they could be.

 

I tried many, usually in all the known modes - tracking, MIDI and sidechain:
Xils 5000
IL Vocodex
Melda MVocoder
Arturia Vocoder V
Izotope Vocalsynth
and many other that I don't remember.

Some are old but still great, each one has its strenght points, but my favourite is Xils 5000, because it has plenty of options though it's a bit hard to get used with its interface.
I would like also to mention Polyverse Manipulator, very powerful.

 

Last edited: Jan 1, 2023

Devious Machine - PitchMonster <-- my fave

 

Virta by madrona labs has a vocoder...
but it's so much more

 

virta+
waiting for orange 2 thought

 

Usually you cannot compare "wet" in the mix sounds with a single dry one, real or emulated.
Even with just one Fx, a chorus, reverb or anything, a sound can change dramatically, the only way is to compare side to side an original with the emulation, something that Schneider did, though there is no explicit endorsement (I think).

 

Simply TAL-Vocoder and Full Bucket Music Vocoder FBVC.

The first is modelled after the Roland SVC-350.
The second is modelled after the Korg VC-10.

Both are free. Both complement each other perfectly. And both are excellent, depending on the kind of voice you want to obtain.


Otherwise I also use Xils V+, but it is not free at all and it emulates the Roland VP-330 (not only its vocoder part but the whole instrument). And honestly I don't see a big difference between the Xils V+ vocoder (expensive) and the TAL-Vocoder (free). I still use Xils V+ especially for its String-Synth part where it is unbeatable.

So I would say: Try TAL-Vocoder and Full Bucket Vocoder FBVC, both free, and I bet that you won't be deceived.

 

I like vocoders a lot so I tested all Vocoders I could find a few years ago and I was surprised to find how great the free TAL-Vocoder sounded, so I used it on a track. My second option was Waldorf Lector, but it ended up on another track where it fit better. In the mean time I found Xils 5000 and Full Bucket Vocoder to sound very good, too. Xils is excellent. Also, IL Vocodex is quite good. They all sound differently so one should try as many as you can for a particular track. You might just find that TAL-Vocoder fits the bill perfectly like I did.

 

Antares Vocodist is probably the deepest and most allround vocoder plug-in, but maybe not the ultimate one if you are looking for a vintage analog emulation (although it does that as well).

I mainly use iZotope Vocalsynth, but I don't just use it for the vocoder. It's quite simple and sounds good, and since I'm not a vocoder connoisseur, it works fine for me.

 

I think the best one is Arturia Vocoder V.
Antares Vocodist is very good too and simple to use.

 

Thanks everyone. Lots of great insights, mini reviews and feedback

 

Same. For some reason Vocalsynth esp with clean MIDI presets just works. And it's supposed to be more of a vocal FX tbh. Too bad it's iZotope style again not developing a good product.. I have a feeling it will end up as a legacy.

What bothers me is the max +/-2 max pitchbend (iirc)

 

I tend to abuse Melodyne for those sorts of effects. But I'm interested in the consensus on a vocoder because I've been wanting to play with a good virtual one.

 

The ones with built-in carriers. Loved the orange one, loved IL Vocodex even more until every version crashes Studio One,
for some reason. I don't like having to route stuff but did and Tal Vocoder is the one for me.

 

Polyverse - Manipulator