_The art
of sound design
Montgomery Birds
El Choop
My favorite preset is Montgomery Birds.This is a lush pad sound paired with a field recording of morning birds I recorded in my hometown of Montgomery, Wales. I took an experimental approach here importing in a field recording and not expecting it to be musically ‘useful’. I designed a pad sound using the Vocoder V’s synth section and when layered with the field recording it sounded great. Of course some modulation and effect processing was necessary to smear them both together. The typical reverb and delay combo is present but with some Auto Pan and the ensemble parameter dialed to about 50%. The Auto Pan creates movement to the sound and the ensemble parameter provides a chorus like richness that sounds so lush and velvety that I used it on most of my presets! For enhanced playability I routed the modulation wheel to two parameters; band shift and Auto Pan rate. As you move the modulation wheel you can hear the Auto Pan getting faster as the timbre simultaneously morphs. Although the marriage of tweeting birds and an ambient pad isn’t exactly original, I really love this preset. There’s something to be said about hearing the birds from your hometown in a musical context. I know that to anyone else these birds aren't so special, but I hope they enjoy the preset regardless.
El Choop - on Vocoder V
The synthesizer section of the Vocoder V is seriously impressive. It’s strong, bright, and emulates that thick analog sound accurately. It’s interesting to have a sample’s envelope trigger the synth, and when you have it set to 50/50 dry wet (vocoder/synth) you get a balanced blend of sampling and vocoder synthesis which can be a powerful hybrid of sounds. As I’m not a vocalist I’ve not experimented with vocoders before and after using this one I’ve been converted, it turns out vocoders aren’t just for vocalists. The modulation section is also impressive. I came across some compelling results by routing the input source’s envelope to parameters such as reverb size and delay rate. Routing like this is particularly good for a vocal performance because the intensity of a reverb or delay is directly related to the input vocal source. If you sing a long note the reverb on your voice gets bigger in size, or the rate of delay will alter in real time - very cool.
As I'm learning a new instrument or piece of software I try not to have a specific sound in mind, this is so I can let my curiosity lead me and, hopefully, get results that I wouldn’t usually get. It’s only when I've used an instrument for a good few hours that I can then have a sound in mind and work to it. With the Vocoder V I loved making generative sequences by dropping similar sounds in each of the sample playback slots and launching them randomly. For instance, I imported 4 C notes from a 303 style acid synth, each with varying timbres and lengths. Then I set the sequence mode to random so each time the Vocoder V was fed a MIDI note an acid note would be launched randomly. The result of this is a seemingly generative 303 acid line that is recoganized each time it sequences. I then paired this with the Multi Mode Filter within the effects section and applied some LFO modulation to make it morph and change like as a real 303 would.
Existz
Jean-Baptiste Arthus
I wanted to use this speech from the movie eXistenZ when the main character loses their mind and says some...interesting things. I used a noise oscillator to have an aggressive but intelligible voice, and a classic square one to add body to the voice.
Jean-Baptiste Arthus - on Vocoder V
I really appreciate the level of intelligibility, with both the switched noise and high frequency level knobs you can easily adjust the ratio between vowels and consonants. The integrated sample player is a nice way to have direct results without the need to set up a sidechain track.
For some presets, I looked for dialog from movies I like, then I used text to speech to generate the voices and I processed them through the Vocoder V. I divided voices sound into two categories; the tonal ones that can be played with chords, using clear oscillator tones and little modulation, and on the other hand, the SFX ones sounding like metallic robots or hostile aliens using FM, OSCs shaper, and modulations.
Don't Forget Me
Simon Gallifet
In this preset I wanted to use the follower envelope to activate the delay effects only when the vocoder stops speaking. This technique allows having a vocoder that on the whole is very wet by the effects without losing the intelligibility of what is being said. The mod wheel slowly adds low mids and stereo width.
Simon Gallifet - on Vocoder V
Arturia has again succeeded in reproducing a legendary instrument by adding features to make it easier to use. I am referring in particular to the sample player which allows you to have ready-to-use vocoder presets. This makes the Vocoder V easy to use and inspiring during the composition process. Audio effects as well as additional modulations such as the envelope follower greatly increase the sonic possibilities.
I created the presets by experimenting as much as possible with the vocal sample pack that Arturia provided. For example, I found interesting results when the "gain" of the sample + "Voice" are increased to the maximum. This allows saturation to be created within the 16 bands giving interesting color and warmth.
Invited
Maxime Dangles
Creating this preset was more of an experimental approach. The thing I wanted was to make something in an analog way. I love the analog sound revival popularised by things like Stranger Things. It's vocal sample based, you can't really understand any words and if you listen to the dry sound, it's horrible. But I simply take advantage of the simplicity of the vocoder to make it sound great. Just one saw wave with a bit of chorus, some envelope follower modulation on the pitch coarse - job done!
Maxime Dangles - on Vocoder V
I'm not a vocoder specialist, but I feel there aren’t too many good vocoder plugins in the market. I was impressed by the quality of the sound during my very first time on it. I liked how easy it was to understand and how it was possible to make some other kind of sound than you expect with a vocoder. I did some nice basses, pads and leads with it. I can't wait to explore more with external sound now...
I try to find a good balance between typical vocoder sounds and more experimental ones. I didn't want to make just a robotic voice sound. I used vocoder on my modular and other synths, and I like how creative it became. I also recorded some stuff from internet videos which was fun! Creating textures from a voice so that it doesn’t sound like a voice anymore - I like this way of working...
Thibault Morel - on Vocoder V
This vocoder is really unique. The two oscillators offer such liberty for sound design I’ve never found elsewhere. The patch bay is a unique feature that gives lots of possibilities, particularly with drums - you can transform your signal and not recognize it, but in a good way! And the envelope follower is really nice to add texture to your voice!
Thanks to my singer Sarah, I had the opportunity to record lots of samples and destroy them in a good way. I tried to add some backing vocals with the vocoder on some tracks we’d already recorded, and that’s where the magic began. Tweaking this synth is really easy and really helpful in developing ideas. We discovered a whole new approach for the voices in our mixes.
Bouss
I created this sound using some bass samples. I wanted my bass to be alive, and the patchbay did it! The oscillator parameters are basic, but a little envelope follower on the OSC2 coarse, and a patchbay that excites high frequencies thanks to the lower frequencies - and here we have a speaking bass sound!
Do You Dance
Solidtrax
We really think the Chord effect in combination with the Ensemble is what gives this preset it's mellow and lush character. We let the modwheel control the Bands Shift and FM amount, to shape the sound and texture with it, we really think this works wonders!
Solidtrax - on Vocoder V
Even though we haven't used Vocoders a lot, we quickly started to appreciate the endless possibilities that Arturia Vocoder has to offer. We really like to manipulate drum loops with it, it instantly creates something completely new, something that you can layer with the original drum loop perfectly, to make it stand out some more and give it a unique texture.
Like we mentioned earlier, we mostly like to create a drum loop and load this up in Vocoder and create something musically engaging and interesting. So we didn't have something specific in mind most of the time, we let Vocoder take charge basically and simply tweak until we are satisfied with the result.