In this article, I will tell you thanks to what means and techniques I managed to transform my shameful singing and, finally, make it an expressive means.
In view of my very dubious vocal abilities, the idea of using a vocoder has been around for a long time, but there was no technical possibility to implement it (although for a short time there was the idea of buying a TC Helicon VoiceLive vocal pedal).
When the technical capacities allowed voice processing in a DAW on a PC, then after experimenting with several free vocoders (for example, TAL Vocoder – https://tal-software.com/products/tal-vocoder) I came to the conclusion that only a robotic voice would not be enough and decided to look for a free alternative to the autotune (there were also several options, for example, Graillon – https://www.auburnsounds.com/products/Graillon.html). After several tests, I eventually settled on the following plugins:
Midi Choir https://vicanek.de/audioprocessing/midichoir.htm
As far as I understand, this is not quite a vocoder in its classical sense (apparently because it is not possible to use an external Carrier source — more on this in a little more detail later). But I liked the sound and decided to work with it. It is stated that the plugin was created for real-time use, but it is worth considering that the delay in signal processing is around 50ms, and therefore it is advisable to press the first notes on the keyboard a little in advance before starting to sing. At the moment, it exists only in versions 32 and 64 bit for Windows.
This developer also has a vocoder – https://vicanek.de/audioprocessing/lavozcantante.htm where you can set any sound as a Carrier (however, the built-in generator is also present).
Voloco https://resonantcavity.com/plugin/
In a word, “autotune”. We set the key, the strength and the method of triggering. There is only a VST3 64 bit version, but both for Windows and for MAC. This is a beta version, so there may be some bugs. In my case, when the plugin is first turned on in the Ableton project, a crackling occurs, which lasts about a minute and then subsides. After that, it works properly, without surprises.
Nuances of vocoder settings
For the vocoder to work, three components are required: 1) Carrier-something that transmits information about pitch and the main tone to the vocoder (a fat synthesizer sound saturated with big range harmonics). I.e., simply put, you need to assign a VST instrument to this track and connect a midi keyboard. But since most Vst vocoders already have a built-in synthesizer, it is not necessary to add a Vst synthesizer separately and it will be enough to transmit only midi information through this channel. 2) Modulator – this track is for voice, i.e. You need to connect a microphone here. 3) Bus, summing up the track-where the vocoder plugin is placed, and Carrier and Modulator are assigned to the incoming channels of this track. It is this track that will reproduce the final sound of the vocoder. At the same time, the Carrier track is panned to the leftmost value, and the Modulator to the rightmost value. However, if the built-in Vocoder synthesizer is used, then panning Carrier and Modulator is not required.
I can also add that it is not necessary to use the voice as a Modulator (drums are very often used), and for Carrier you can use absolutely any sound, not just a synthesizer.
My application
Since Ableton allows you to assign inputs/outputs to any track (and not just for buschannels, as in traditional DAW), there are only two tracks in my project: Carrier and Mic. In Carrier: ‘Midi From’ is a midi keyboard, and ‘Midi to’ is a ‘Mic’track and the graph below shows the vocoder plugin (midichoir in my case). Voloco and Midichoir plug-ins are installed on the ‘Mic’track: ‘Audio from’is a microphone, and ‘Audio to’is already the main stereo output.
With the appearance of the Voloco in the setup, I only mix the Midichoir signal. But the Midichoir does not provide a DRY / WET parameter – the effect can either be turned on or off. What should we do? Ableton has a very useful function of “chains” inside the ‘Instrument Rack’ and the ‘Audio effect Rack’ for audio effects.
You need to select the plugin on the desired track and press Ctr+G (or right-click and select “Group”in the context menu). Thus, our plugin will be inside the Audio effect rack group — we click on the icon with three stripes at the bottom left of it. Now click on the Chain button at the top (next to the Hide button). A scale from 0 to 127 will appear. Right – click on the track with the name, by default, Chain, and select Create Chain. Now we have two tracks. We call the first WET, and the second DRY. If you click on them, you can see that there is a plugin in the WET track chain, and the DRY chain is empty (if desired, you can create a separate processing chain here. You can also create a rack inside a rack). On the scale, we cling to the blue rectangle and stretch it from left to right to the end on each track. Just above this blue rectangle, you can see another thin lighter strip. In WET, we pull this strip from left to right, and in DRY, from right to left: fades will appear on the blue rectangles. Now on the left of the Audio effect rack, click on the top icon with the knob — virtual knobs will appear. At the top of the chain scale, click the Map button, click first on the scale with numbers, and then on one of the virtual knobs. Now we need to map the fader or knob of our midi controller into the Audio Effect Rack virtual knob. If everything is done correctly, now changing the values on the controller from 0 to 127, the effect will be proportionally mixed with our main signal (0 — the effect is not heard, 127 — only it is heard). The beauty of this technique is that it can also be used on instruments, so you can quickly switch as many instruments as you want inside one track.
Monitoring of the incoming signal is constantly enabled on the Mic track, I turn on Voloco with a separate button on the controller, and I adjust the Midichoir admixture with the mapped fader. Clips with vocals are recording to a separate ‘VOC’track, where monitoring is disabled; ‘audio from’ is the ‘Mic’track; and ‘Post FX’is set in the second column. Thus, the ‘VOC’track takes the processed signal (therefore ‘PostFX’) from the ‘Mic’track, but it sounds only after the clip recorded in it starts playing. At the same time, your own voice is always heard thanks to monitoring in the ‘Mic’track. This technique is most often used by looper musicians (as an alternative to the looper plugin in Ableton).
I think that textually everything looks quite confusing and complicated, so you can find screenshots in the attached pdf file, with which, I hope, it will be clearer: