Vocoder patch

Hey guys,

is it somehow possible to do a vocoder patch?

my idea is this:

mic audio out -> make noise ears in; gate out -> cv in of a VCA
cv keyboard pitch out -> v/oct in of a VCO -> filter in; filter out -> audio in VCA

i guess i need at least a 6 band filter in this case right?
or can i use any type of filter like a MMG from make noise, polaris etc.?

Hope someone can enlighten me

Disting has a vocoder algorithm. That’s how I have done it in the past.

Hi Stolis and Farkas,

Stolis: Interesting that you came with this post, I was thinking of starting with a post as well, however I am looking for an external (decent) vocoder, any ideas?

Farkas: Oh that's good to know about the Disting, though I had read once the entire manual, I can't remember I saw the vocoder functionality, I might use my Disting Mk4 for just that purpose :-)

Kind regards, Garfield.

@GarfieldModular I seriously considered picking up a used Roland VP03 because it sounds pretty good, and I don’t have space to add a Behringer VC340. The Disting MK4 algorithm worked fairly well with very few concerns. I don’t need a vocoder too often, so it does the trick for me.

Hi Farkas,

Thanks a lot for sharing your opinion on this matter. Hmm... yes... I noticed the Behringer VC340 as well besides it size, isn't there anything else on the market that can be newly purchased? I noticed the Novation MiniNova as well but are that the only two currently? Which one would be the better one the MiniNova or the VC340?

Thank you very much and kind regards, Garfield.

I would love to have a VC340. It really has that classic sound found on so many great albums.
I have not had much experience with the Novation gear in many years, probably since 2005, but I remember thinking the sounds were fairly high quality in that era of virtual analog.
Let your ears be your guide. :)

Hi Farkas,

"Let your ears be your guide" is naturally a very good hint :-) So if I would follow up on that motto then it would be the VC340 from what I heard from examples on the Internet.

I was just wondering if I am not overlooking anything, if there is an interesting non-Behringer vocoder then I wouldn't mind to give such device a chance as well.

Kind regards, Garfield.

I thought the Arturia Microfreak vocoder examples I heard were really good. It also has the MI Plaits oscillator firmware and CV I/O if I’m not mistaken. I believe I also saw something about a Microfreak collaboration between Arturia and Noise Engineering. Might be worth a look.

Hi Farkas,

Ah yes, I forgot the new functionality on the MicroFreak, indeed it has vocoder functionality now as well. Hmm, not sure about the MicroFreak itself. I will give it a few thoughts.

Thank you very much for reminding me about the MircoFreak and kind regards, Garfield.

There is a vocoder in Mutable Warps and Flame apparently have a vocoder module in the works for release in spring or so.
For a small external solution, there's also the Roland VT-4. It does have a few other nice features. But TBH I sold it quite quickly because the user interface makes the Disting feel intuitive. YMMV and such...

EDITED Feb 5th 2021, 07:14

Hi Senor-Bling,

Ha, ha, you are not going to believe this (and I feel a bit ashamed too)...

I have a Warps already! So, I am going to check this weekend the vocoder functionality :-) Thank you very much for mentioning the Warps and shaking me awake!

The Roland VT-4 is a nice little device as well, thanks for the hint, will check it out.

Have a great weekend and kind regards, Garfield.

Ha, cool! Yeah, sometimes it's hard to keep track of every option in all those multifunction modules with their Easter eggs and alternative firmwares... :)

Hi Senor-Bling,

Indeed :-)

I just tried it last night... hmmm... the funny thing is those 3 vocoder modes on the Warps don't really impress me, they are kind of okay-ish but that's about it. The real fun thing is though... if you put the Warps in the Crossfolding mode it suddenly becomes very interesting, totally distorted too. The end signal is then send (in Warps) to a wave folder. I liked this much more than those Vocoder modes :-)

Looks like at the end only the Behringer - VC340 is left as a serious option...

Thank you and kind regards, Garfield.