vocoder
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Arturia's MicoFreak gets a vocoder mode and limited-edition makeover
When Arturia announced the MicroFreak in January of 2019 I said “there's nothing stopping Arturia from adding more oscillators down the road through firmware updates.”
Novation launches MiniNova compact hardware synth with 'VocalTune' (video)
Phones, tablets and huge TVs not your thing? Then thank the stars it's not just the gadget-mega-brands releasing products today. Maker of fine music gear, Novation, has just revealed its latest offering too -- the MiniNova. The more astute among you might have worked out from the nomenclature that this is a compact synth, but we're assured it has full-size features. There's 37 ivories (ok, plastics) for you to tickle, while the sound and effects engine has the same DNA as the maker's flagship UltraNova. You may have noticed that goose-neck microphone up top, and that'll come in handy with the new "VocalTune" and vocoder features. It'll land in your studio with 256 preset sounds, but there's space for another 128 of your own creations. Sound like something you can get down with? Then if you sing a song to the tune of £300 ($629 MSRP / $400 at dealers), you'll be able to call one your own from October. Excitement-stirring demo video after the break.
Onyx Ashanti's beatjazz music machine does everything, looks good too (video)
Onyx Ashanti has sent us over a demo of his beatjazz controller, and we have to marvel at the direction he's taken with this custom electronic music machine following more modest efforts. Onyx's 3D-printed interface receives inputs from a voice / breath-operated synth in the headgear, while the two handheld controls incorporate accelerometers, joysticks and pressure-sensitive buttons. Using this kit and his own software, Onyx is able to create live digital music with an amount of control you would only expect from desktop-based production software. We've embedded two videos for your attention after the break -- a demo of his latest flashy build complete with lightsaber-like effects, and an earlier live performance that really shows what the beatjazz controller can do.
Book review: How To Wreck A Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop
How To Wreck A Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop by Dave Tompkins (Stop Smiling Books; $35) World War II increased the rate of human innovation to a pace unseen in any other period of history. New technology from the era includes everything from synthetic rubber to the atomic bomb to magnetic audio tape, which the Germans successfully kept secret until the war's end. After the Nazis fell, Lt. Jack Mullin of the US Army Signal Corps shot footage outside of Hitler's home, grabbed one of the Fuhrer's piano strings for a souvenir, and brought two AEG Magnetophons (along with fifty reels of Farben recording tape) back with him to the states. He then sold a recorder to Bing Crosby, revolutionizing broadcasting and music-making in the process. Another device that made its debut in World War II only to be later adopted by the entertainment industry is the Vocoder. Speech synthesis was the brainchild of a Bell Labs employee named Homer Dudley. Dudley surmised that human speech consisted of two things: the carrier (the noise that your vocal cords makes) and the formant (the sound formed from the carrier by your mouth, throat, and sinuses). Dudley went on to develop something called the Voder (Voice Operator DEmonstratoR), which used a carrier tone generated by a radio valve and a formant created by hissing air to create artificial speech. Hear a demonstration (and learn about how the Vocoder was used to defeat the Axis powers) after the break.
Mechanical piano hacked to talk, says nothing you'd be interested in
It's not exactly the Baroque Vocoder we were hoping for, but an Austrian composer has hacked a mechanical piano to recite text -- and recite text it does (even if you need subtitles and some prompting from the voice-over to understand what it's saying). The video itself is a little skint on technical details -- even if the "wow!" factor remains pretty consistent -- but apparently composer Peter Ablinger took a recording of a child reading the Proclamation of the European Environmental Criminal Court and converted the frequency spectrum to MIDI, which he was then able to play back using the chordophone pictured above. The gang at Hack A Day seems to think that the actual conversion was done in the Pure Data software package, and who are we to argue? We're just wondering how Black Moth Super Rainbow will ever fit this thing onto their tour van. See for yourself after the break. [Via Hack A Day]
DIY Robot Voice Modulator makes it that much easier for you to cover Styx
Yes, you could just run out and buy a vocoder, but they're kinda pricey and this way is so much more fun! Using an IKEA clock, a fluorescent desk lamp, an HT8950 voice modulator, a condenser microphone and some miscellaneous stuff you're crafty self is bound to have just laying around, you can make one of your own! Doesn't look terribly complicated to us, but then, we love things that are terribly complicated. Get to it, sirs -- hit the read link for full instructions. Dōmo arigatō.[Via Make]
NTT DoCoMo demonstrates simpler vocoder for mobiles
The actual process of encoding and decoding voice for transmission over the air is probably one of the less appreciated sciences (arts?) in the phone game, so we've got to take our hats off to NTT DoCoMo for circling back and taking another look at the process. It seems our favorite FOMA carrier has gotten together with DoCoMo Communications Laboratories USA (who else?) to lay the groundwork for a new vocoder that takes about half the processing power as methods currently in use, allegedly without sacrificing call quality. It's far past the theoretical stage, too: HTC Zs were used to demonstrate the tech at Wireless Technology Park 2007 last week in Japan. Of course, less processing power means less juice drain, so we're happy to throw our support behind this little initiative.
Early custom Kraftwerk vocoder on the auction block
You wax faux-nostalgic about the heyday of early robo-Kraut-rock, your early signed pressing of Radio-Activity is rivaled only by your original Neu! Super / Neuschnee 7-inch, and you got a belly laugh at that one scene about the record the nihilists once cut in The Big Lebowski. Kraftwerk fans, today is your lucky day. The original one-of-a-kind prototype vocoder Kraftwerk pictured on the rear cover art of and used to record "Ananas Symphonie" and "Kristallo" on their 1973 release Ralf & Florian. As of the time of this writing it's already up to five grand, so if you want yourself an extremely expensive piece of history for electronics and electronic music, you'd better get a move on, schnell.[Via Music Thing]
