Courtesy of Tom Cosm
Ever wanted to get your vocals to sound like Daft Punk? They’re using a vocoder. Here’s a great intro video from Tom Cosm and some of my key take-aways:
- Vocoders modify one sound with another. You need a track for a carrier (the external signal that gets sent to the vocoder) and a track for the modulator (usually the vocal track)
- Tom recommends using Operator with a simple sin or saw wave as the carrier. Keep the carrier clean and don’t don’t get crazy. Note: I had good luck with the Ableton instrument Big Bright Saw Lead in my recent track, Kick Like a Ninja. Vocoder seems to work best if you use a carrier with a lot of frequencies.
- A unique aspect of this tutorial is that Tom demonstrates visually how vocoding works using Photosounder.
- Vocoders can be used creatively to blend any two sounds. Tom demonstrates using Operator as a carrier and a drum loop as the modulator.
How do you use vocoders?
