The computer as bandmate is nothing new. It’s just more stable, more powerful, and friendlier than it has been ever before — and that, coupled with growing familiarity, has been making it more commonplace with artists. So just how are artists working with computers onstage when they also play instruments and sing?

Recent guests at New York’s Ableton Live user group have been demonstrating their own techniques for playing Live, live. They work with loops, recording, sampling, live effects, synths – all the things you’d expect – but find ways of navigating all that functionality while still playing their instrument. I was just editing interviews in which electronic artists made the opposite argument, that they preferred producing only electronic sounds with technology. But whatever your desire, you can find a playing technique to accommodate it.

It’s just one set of snapshots from one city — consider it the tip of a very large, very global, very diverse wave of artists getting more comfy with live laptop performance. Here’s how Cosmo D, on cello as part of the band Archie Pelago, and Erin Barra, singing and playing keys, work with software live.

Cosmo D

New York-based artist Cosmo D is doing some wonderful cello and laptop music. Even that’s something that’s becoming more frequent – a good thing, I think, as it means a range of artists will explore ways of working with instrument and machine.

In a video for our friends at the bangbang blog, he demonstrates a simplified version of his set.

And here’s Cosmo D with his band Archie Pelago, jamming away…

If you’re in the New York City area, this ensemble is playing live at the Ableton User Group at Tekserve on Thursday.

Archie Pelago on Facebook

Erin Barra

On the singer side of the spectrum, Erin Barra was also a guest this year at the New York Ableton UG. She’s working on a Live setup that’s a hub of vocal performance and keys, using the computer to host chains of effects.

A Berklee graduate with the chops to match, Erin is a recent convert to Ableton use; her publicist tells us she just dove into the manual last summer and is working on a training certification. The musical idiom is a bit different than the kind of artists’ work regularly featured on this site, but that’s further evidence that the tools aren’t genre-specific.

She walks through her live rig for the performance above in a separate video:

Also, in July she did the first of a writeup for a local New York production and recording outlet, Sonic Scoop, in which she talks more about production. The video is geared at novice and intermediate artists, so it walks through things gradually, step-by-step, and also reveals a bit of her approach to working with Live for vocal processing:

“Insert Scene” by Erin Barra: Creating a Vocal Chain in Ableton Live

It’s great to see artists being brave and patient enough to do this kind of walkthrough. (I say that because I personally find doing screencasts to be a huge pain, though I do promise more in the future on CDM anyway!)

One small nit-pick: I think the Shure SM57 is very, very popular as a vocal mic!

Erin calls herself a “one-woman army,” and deservedly so — playing keys, singing, and operating a computer requires some serious multitasking chops, and she handles her APC with aplomb.

Erin has an album out called Illusions, and a tour of the US on. (Warning: autoplays music.)
http://www.erinbarra.com/

Your Neck of the Woods?

That’s just one city’s recent Ableton user group appearances, and a fraction of the kinds of artists who have appeared in New York alone. Got artists working with laptops — using any software, not just Live — talking in your community about what they’re doing? Want to share your rig? Get in touch.

“Your kids will love this Saw figure.” So, too, must have been the calculation of the person who decided to immortalize the film Saw with little toys and figures containing 30 seconds of voice recording, because this toy is now available in quantity for — wait for it — US$2. A $2, 30-second sampler? Now that’s a bend waiting to happen.

Circuit bending blog GetLoFi in 2008 posted a detailed set of instructions for bending the SAW III sampler. Download the full PDF, and you can make one yourself, using the $2 part from All Electronics.

In the spirit of getting everyone in on the noise-making fun, our friends who organize Handmade Music Austin are making this bend the basis of their August event. As usual, you’ll also get a happy Sunday full of learning, making, sharing, and sounds. Details on the Handmade Music blog, if you’re in the Austin area:
Austin #10

What I love about this workshop is that it’s something a lot of people could do. I’m working on assembling a set of projects for beginners so that, if you are planning an event in your neck of the woods, you have an ample set of supplies. Ideas? Requests? Let us know in comments.

New York, we’ll be back on August 29; I’ll have some details later this week.

VirSyn have announced one of the nicest effects I’ve seen yet on a mobile platform in the form of iVoxel, a vocoder for iPhone/iPod touch and iPad. On the handhelds, it looks like something you could easily hold up to your mouth and rest atop a synth; on iPad, you get a nicely-sized touchable keyboard for control. And they’re clearly hinting at more work to come.

http://www.virsyn.net/mobileapp/

iVoxel isn’t available yet, but it is coming. So, how does this compare to your laptop? You can get VirSyn’s full-blown MATRIX 2 vocoder for EUR119 on sale now, run it on a computer, and get all the advantages of hosting in your existing production software along with more advanced features (which you have to give up on the iPad). That laptop rig is the same one Kraftwerk used, in conjunction with Cubase 4 and a Sony laptop. iVoxel uses the same, superb sound engine – an impressive feat. My guess is – irrespective of iOS, Android, or whatever OS – these devices will really excel once they’re able to provide the same sorts of workflows that the laptop do. The appeal of touch input and the form factor is clear.

Open source pitch correction?

Poor man’s Android AutoTune, anyone?

MicDroid by Ethan Chen is a pitch-correction app for Android. Aside from enabling I Am T-Pain-style effects without iOS, pitch matching could lead to lots of other creative applications – pitch to MIDI, vocally-controlled synths, and more. The code is mostly available under an MIT license.

You can also grab MicDroid from the Android Market, with features like a shiny UI, sharing, recording to SMS, and encoding – and it’s still only in “alpha” state.

The underlying library on MicDroid is called AutoTalent by Tom Baran, and if you’re not terribly (or exclusively) interested in Android, that library is available under GPL2 on any platform. That gives you the ability to create all sorts of creative voice input applications on various platforms. Check out both from GitHub, and if you’ve got an Android, you can give MicDroid a try whether you’re a developer or not:

MicDroid @ github

http://web.mit.edu/tbaran/www/autotalent.html [MIT research page]

AutoTalent free plug-in downloads for LADSPA, Mac AU and VST, and Windows VST – stability may vary

Tom describes Autotalent “as the result of a week of recreational signal processing.” And yes, if you’re a PhD candidate at MIT’s DSP group, “recreational” and “signal processing” can actually go together.

I’m excited to mess with these plug-ins, though, because to me the generic pop music effects you hear all the time are just the tip of the iceberg. Experimental vocals, ho!

Updated: Via comments, Paul Davis points us to a more up-to-date “fork” of AutoTalent, Talented Hack. It features improved detection, MIDI input (for greater control of pitch correction), MIDI output (so you can use this as a pitch-to-MIDI plug), and generally cleaned-up code. It also runs as an LV2 plug-in, which is far more convenient on Linux. But even just having cleaner code alone means it’s probably a smart candidate for swapping into the Android tool (cough, cough).

Effect pedals on CDM? Heck, yes. Electro-Harmonix may have just stolen the show in Nashville with the Freeze pedal alone. Continuing our coverage with Nashville locals and musicians Tony and Jeremy, we have some hands-on videos, images, and impressions of the gear on offer. Don’t miss yesterday’s story on how the trade show helps Nashville recover from flooding. They offered a sobering picture of the state of the show, as well, but that didn’t stop them from finding good stuff to share. -Ed.

Summer NAMM was never the size of its winter counterpart. We were still surprised by the poor manufacturer turnout at the June 18th – 20th convention in Nashville, TN. Absent were heavy hitters like Roland and Korg and innovators like Moog, ZVex, and Dave Smith. Luckily, those that did attend brought some pretty cool new gear. Here are our impressions:

TC-Helicon VoiceLive Touch

The VoiceLive Touch puts the famous TC-Helicon harmonization technology and effects in a unique, stand-mountable package, with the addition of performance-oriented looping. The unit feels very rugged, locking onto the stand to give the performer all of the controls at the right height. The interface is a simple array of touch “buttons” for access to the different DSP units with display duties being handled by a simple LED matrix display. Parameters are accessed and manipulated by a touch slider below the display. The VoiceLive Touch seems designed for quick access to presets in the middle of a gig rather than for delicate parameter tweaking. For ease of use during a set, the vocal harmonizer/looper looks like a winner. TC-Helicon says that while preset management over USB is the name of the game for the time being, a software editor could be in the cards down the road. In the first video, TC-Helicon rep Laura Davidson gives CDM a hands on look at the device. In the second video, a singer-songwriter demonstrates one of the harmonization presets. – JD

Previously on CDM: a preview of the device

Numark Mixtrack DJ USB Controller

The Mixtrack is a solid little device, preset for controlling Traktor for $150. For that price, this looks like an amazing little controller – touch sensitive platters for playback control matched with the full range of DJ-mixer style playback, pitch bend, EQ, and looping controls, many of which are illuminated. It’s class-compliant USB and operates as a simple MIDI controller, so it should work out of the box with any application with a fairly minimal amount of mapping and setup. The Mixtrack supports Mac and Windows with possible future Linux support, “if the customer demand is there.” Ed.: actually, since it’s class-compliant, it will already work on Linux. It’s plastic, but it feels quite solid to lift. The encoders have a nice size and grip, with a just a touch of resistance when turning: you don’t feel like you’re going to pull the encoder off of the front panel when adjusting the EQ. I don’t think the crossfader is going to win any awards when put against a DJ battle-style mixer, but it seems like it will do the job without any complaints, especially considering the price of the unit. While the unit is obviously very portable, it may be just a bit outsized for most laptop bags; but that goes with almost every portable controller out there that isn’t named “micro”. In the video, Numark rep Eric McGregor gives CDM an in-depth look. -JD

Alesis MultiMix8 USB FX

The Multimix8 is another iteration of small mixer/USB interface device from Alesis – 8 channels, 4 with microphone preamps, a high-impedance instrument input on channel 2, and 2 pairs of stereo line inputs. Built-in preset effects with individual sends on each channel, all mixed to a class-compliant 2-channel 16/44.1 bidirectional USB audio interface. Alesis is apparently taking user feedback from their original MultiMix8 USB to improve panel layout and knob spacing, dropping 24/96 support and reducing the power consumption. We were quoted $149 street price, which is only around $10 or so off the predecessor’s street price. -JD

Beat Kangz Beat Thang

A personal highlight for me was finally getting the chance to meet Aja and the Nashville-based Beat Kangz crew. I was impressed with their end-user friendly approach to the marketplace, valuing user feedback on their products. News to me is that Beat Thang Virtual is getting an AudioUnit version within the next two weeks, with VST coming soon after. I think that getting that product integrated with existing DAWs is going to do a lot for them. Of course, the one everyone is waiting for is the Beat Thang Beat Machine. It was there in all of its prototype glory, although Aja said that the first shipment of test units at full production spec were going to be in their hands soon, with some small tweaks to the hardware (particularly with the feel of the pads) ready to go through a final beta test phase. If their goal is to make the ultimate beat production device, I think they stand a really good chance of delivering. The prototype box is solid as a rock, intuitive interface and spec’d out to be an MPC killer. At $1000, it’s hard not to be interested in this box if you do any kind of rhythmic production. In the first video Aja shows Create Digital Music the Beat Thang Virtual. In video two, Aja shows us the Beat Thang Beat Machine. – JD

Akai SynthStation25

What may be the first of its kind, Akai has released a hardware accessory for their SynthStation iPhone software. Unveiled at Winter NAMM, the controller is simplicity itself – It’s an iPhone dock with 25-key keyboard, mod and pitch bend wheels, Octave and Program buttons and 4 buttons for accessing the voices in the SynthStation application itself. Couple this with headphone and RCA outputs and USB interface for MIDI, and Akai is offering a package to give actual musical performance control to their iPhone app. The relative merits of the controller or even the use of iPhones for performance and composition aside, Akai is making a strong move here by being the first to market with such a device. Given the sales of SynthStation in the iTunes store, Akai is betting that there are a significant number of people out there that would want to have an extended musical experience with their app and that those people are going to pony up around $100-$150 for a dedicated hardware controller for it. The release date has slipped on this device at least once already, but they seem to be pushing for July at this point. Interestingly, Akai is going to make their API available to third party developers, wishing to allow opening up the SynthStation25 to other iPhone applications. – JD

Electro-Harmonix Freeze

Shipping in late June, The Electro-Harmonix Freeze sample-and-hold pedal may be my favorite effect unit at Summer NAMM. The concept is deceptively simple: press down on the footswitch and the unit sustains what you just played. Let go and the sustaining stops. In the meantime, you can layer over the frozen part with additional notes. See the video below for a great demonstration. The Freeze seems perfect for experimental music and non-guitar instruments. Homebrew modifications are inevitable.

EH showed off other new products, including the Germanium 4 Big Muff Pi distortion/overdrive (so named because of its 4 germanium transistors), the Neo Clone (smaller version of the Small Clone analog chorus), and tiny Headphone Amp. In the video below, Larry with EH gave CDM a demonstration of these effects as well as the Ring-Thing Ring Modulator. Ed.: Or, as they describe it, to be semantic, a “single sideband modulator.” The unique thing about the Ring-Thing is that you can tune it from an incoming signal and avoid the unwieldy dissonance that come from most ring mods. Of course, unwieldy dissonance is a ring mod’s main charm. But should you want it to sound more musical, you have that option. – TY

Pigtronix Keymaster

Guitar-pedal bad-boys Pigtronix debuted an innovate universal signal router at Summer NAMM called the Keymaster Re-Amp Effects Mixer. Unlike most loopers, the Keymaster has a plethora of input/output options, including xlr and 1/4” in/outs and two pedal-level effects loops. You can run the loops in series or parallel with the option to mix the two loops in parallel mode. The beauty of this pedal is the limitless ways you can use it. Power two amps at once, instantly switch between two amps on the fly, switch between two effects chains, blend two effects chains, put two instruments in the two return jacks and mix them together to a single amp, and any routing you can dream up.

In the video below, Pigtronix founder Dave Koltai gives CDM an in-depth tour of the Keymaster. The second video shows Dave Koltai sampling a variety of Pigtronix’s other innovated pedals, including the Mothership Analog Synthesizer, Philosopher King polyphonic amplitude synthesizer, EP2 Envelop Phaser, and the Echolocution. Great sounds! – TY

Glasstones

Mark Payung’s fledgling Glasstones guitar company isn’t a household name. . . yet. But that may change if the final Glasstones guitars sound as good at the prototype did at Summer NAMM. The secret of the guitar’s long sustain is a patented glass compound that the nut, frets, and fretboard are made of. Supposedly, the highly-dense material better transmits the vibrations of the strings into the wood. Mark excitedly took us over to his friends’ 3rd Power Amplification booth to let us hear the Glasstones prototype guitar through an American Dream amplifier. The American Dream amp features some innovations of its own, including a triangular speaker chamber and switchable output between 22 and 10 watts. Channel one is voiced to sound like a ‘62 brownface Deluxe; channel two, a ‘65 blackface Deluxe.

Of course, it’s always hard to tell what guitars and amps truly sound like unless you’re playing them with your own gear; but this combination under the ideal conditions of the show floor sounded fantastic. (Watch the video below to hear for yourself.) Time will tell if the Glasstones guitar is a game-changing innovation or a fly-by-night novelty. If I were forced to choose, I’d bet on the former. – TY

Tony Youngblood (story, photos) resides in Nashville, TN and hosts the experimental improv music podcast Theatre Intangible. [@tonyyoungblood, Twitter]

Jeremy Dickens (additional reporting, photos) is a native Nashvillian musician, engineer, sound designer and and producer with works on dPulse Recordings, Sony Digital and his own Discrepancy Recordings imprint. [@logickal, Twitter]

Want follow-up coverage of any of this gear? What strikes your fancy? Let us know in comments.

Just how rugged is your microphone? Mats St̴lbr̦st, editor of the Stockholm-based Studio, took testing to a new extreme last year. He did violence to the legendary Shure SM58 Рthe sub-$100, vocal dynamic mic. It was used to hammer nails. It was dropped several meters. It was frozen. It was dunked in water. It was driven over by a car. It had beer poured on it. It was placed in a microwave atop a pizza. And the thing kept on working.

We covered the gory abuse back in October 2007. Little did we know then that the test wasn’t over. It seems Mats and company buried the SM58. The SM58 has been there, underground, for a year, even enduring a harsh, Swedish winter. To complete phase II of their test, the folks at Studio unearthed the poor mic, washed it (running it under a tap, of course, not doing it properly), and gave it another test. Surprise: still working.

Incidentally, the SM58 and variants make a fantastic gift for a musician. Even if they’ve already got one, they could probably use another.

Shure SM58 Product Page – and yup, positive they do not endorse this sort of thing, but if it keeps working like this, who needs a warranty?

Here’s the new video. May not be suitable for squeamish audiophiles:

And the original torture test:

Sound files promised in Studio 01-09, but that issue doesn’t seem to be up yet. (Selected from the dropdown.)

Got an SM58 – or other mic – that’s taken some abuse? Send us photos!

CDM’s resident game composer W. Brent Latta continues pouring over the epic choral sampling library that is EWQL’s Symphonic Libraries. In case you weren’t already impressed with its 9 DVDs of sounds, in this episode, Brent constructs actual words out of samples — the holy grail of synthetic vocals. -Ed.

WordBuilder is arguably the most significant piece of technology in the Choirs package. Sure – in terms of raw samples, there has never been a choir library this substantial. But more important is the ability to actually get the choir to say exactly what you want them to, without resulting to bland “Oooohs” and “Aaaaahs” or resulting to bland, pre-recorded phrases such as “Hallelujah”.

That said, our look at WordBuilder will be brief, only because the application is so deep that to fully explain its use and application would exceed the scope of a review and lead into something more of a tutorial.

As we discussed in the earlier episodes, we’re using Choirs along with Logic Pro 7 – thus we use WordBuilder in standalone mode. We fire up Logic, WordBuilder, and 4 instances of our Choirs Kompakt plugin (SATB), and begin our foray into building words. The first thing to understand about WordBuilder is that while a monophonic note-line will be routed in (from your controller or sequencer), WordBuilder will transmit much more MIDI data at output. Consider the word “sly”. The composer things of this as a single word or syllable, however WordBuilder must break this individual word into multiple segments, “s”, “l”, and “y” – each to be routed (with the same note value) to a different sample. Thus we can see that WordBuilder is a sophisticated MIDI processor, and harnessing its power is no small undertaking.

The incoming note from your controller or sequencer will have a velocity value that will be passed into each segment in WordBuilder. However, we can change the velocity of each segment on the fly in WordBuilder, if we so desire. Even more useful is the ability to set transitions between segments and phrases. As noted in the documentation, “singing the word ‘alone’ might need to be noticeably different than singing the phrase ‘a loan’, even though the sounds of the letters are the same and the notes on the staff identical.” WordBuilder allows the user several ways to specify transitions between phrases, the most flexible being “Text Entry” mode, where entering symbols into the text field will specify the type of transition between segments. “had a lit-tle =lamb” would yield slurring on the first word, staccato on the next 3 words, and a normal transition on the final word.

As a side-note, it should be mentioned that we can solo specific words or phrases to further hone and refine our performance. As we select a given syllable in the text field and click ‘Solo’ in WordBuilder, we then loop the particular notes in our sequencer, or simply play them in repeatedly from our controller.

Perhaps the most important functionality of WordBuilder – aside from assigning the actual text to be sung – lies in its ability to ‘learn’ the timing of the lyrics to be sung. There are two basic approaches: Change Speed, which actually adjusts the duration of each phonetic segment, and Draw Only, which merely indicates the length of each syllable in the timeline. Each one is useful in its own right. Change Speed is the most efficient way to get the choir to sing the lyrics with the melody you’ve written, though it is not necessarily precise enough to simply ‘set-it-and-forget-it’. Draw Only doesn’t change the actual duration of the segments – that type of adjustment is up to the composer. What it does is give you a guideline, a foundation from which you can adjust and tweak the syllables to your hearts content. Personally, I’m the impatient type, so I’m going to be working with the Change Speed mode, with manual tweaking after the fact.

One nitpick I have with the documentation for WordBuilder – it constantly references the different colors of segments and notes, but the manual itself is in black and white. I realize that they assume the user will have the application open while they’re reading the manual, but that is a faulty assumption for some of us, who use our commute time (on the bus, mind you) to read through the documentation and our studio time to put it into practice.

It should also be noted that there is one cumbersome quandary in the WordBuilder system that makes it somewhat difficult to get the lyrics to come out the way you want. When a single word or syllable requires multiple notes, the composer must toggle a MIDI CC event – one for “Hold On” and one for “Hold Off”. These toggles are set in the options menu – completely separate from the learned timing system used elsewhere. This dislocation of the hold system from the rest of the timing system is frustrating. Surely there must be a better way to incorporate held syllables over multiple notes within the primary “learning” system. I certainly hope East West refines this feature in the future.

Here is a quick MP3 sample of the Lacrimosa phrase from Mozart’s requiem. As shown in the graphic, one must insert a separate syllable for the note to be held (the ‘a’).

lacrimosa.mp3

WordBuilder is a complex application, requiring proprietary syntax and a great deal of patience. However, it pays off in the end, and your results will be directly proportional to the amount of time you’re willing to spend refining your song. While I wish that it were easier for a composer to get a virtual choir to sing, I honestly can’t think of a more efficient or flexible way of doing it. East West has done an amazing job with this application, and I’m excited to share my results with you in our next, and FINAL installment.

Previously:
EWQL Symphonic Choirs Episode 2: Digging In
Review: EWQL Symphonic Choirs Sample Library, Episode 1 – The Arrival
[Ed.: We're currently correcting an error in the database that caused some mis-encoded characters in episode 1. Thanks for your patience. -PK]

As previously mentioned, the first thing I had to throw out was the concept of plug-and-play. Once the application is installed, the similarity to other sample libraries ends. In order to really take advantage of this app, a second application is used, namely WordBuilder. WordBuilder is the application that allows the user to specify what text is to be sung, as well as the duration and dynamics of the piece. For those who may not grab the concept, it is easiest to think of WordBuilder as an intermediary app – it sits between your input device (usually a MIDI keyboard controller, sequencing or scoring app) and the Choirs Kompakt player. As note information comes in, WordBuilder maps the appropriate sample to each note, taking into account what syllable you wish to play, the duration, the intended sampleset (is it a Bass or a Tenor singing “Aaaaah”), etc. In a way, it is like a MIDI processing unit, adding additional ‘control’ values to incoming notes, and sending out a more complex signal.

After plowing through the first few WordBuilder chapters, I decided it was time to get Choirs setup with Logic Pro, my sequencer of choice, so I could really put it to the test. The manual for Choirs goes into detail describing the possible configurations, depending on what operating system and sequencing or scoring application you wish to use. In short, there are three basic setup styles: Stand-alone (the most commonly used setup) works in OS X and XP, with any sequencer or keyboard that sends MIDI on a specific port. MIDI loopback connections are required for most of these configurations. The second setup is VST MA (VST Module Architecture) and works under Windows or Mac OS X for users of Cubase SX or Nuendo (versions 2 and 3). Lastly, they offer MFX plug-in support for users of Sonar., For me, I would have to go the standalone route, diving into Logic’s Environment to configure the loopback ports…or would I?

On one of my web surfing expeditions, I recalled seeing a Logic and Choirs template referenced on the East West forum. After some sleuthing, I found it on the FAQ page, and shall link to it here for your future reference. It was a HUGE timesaver and got me up and running with Choirs and Logic Pro in less than 10 minutes. Similar setup assistance is available for Cubase, Sonar, ProTools, Digital Performer and Finale. EWQL Symphonic Choirs Setup FAQ

So after flying through that setup, I fired up the SATB template in WordBuilder, which loads the appropriate Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass presets, loaded four instances of Kompakt in the Logic SATB template, each with its respective multi sample set (more about those in a later installment), and went back to the manual to come to grips with the heart of Choirs: WordBuilder.

WordBuilder consists of two primary components: a text window, where the user specifies the text to be sung, and a duration window, where the user specifies the duration of each syllable. In addition, the user can use one of three types of text input: 1) standard spelling, 2) an easy-to-learn phonetic alphabet, and 3) VOTOX, a phonetic alphabet designed by EW specifically for choirs. I quickly tested out standard spelling and found the results to be less than satisfactory, and since I don’t know the phonetic alphabet, I figured it would be just as easy to learn VOTOX. There’s a handy reference sheet in the manual, so memorizing VOTOX isn’t necessary unless you’re typing a whole lot of text. I quickly ran through some of the included “Latin Phrase” presets – these are VOTOX transcriptions of common Latin phrases used in classical choir contexts. VOTOX yielded a much more convincing and accurate sound, so on to the next step.

Unfortunately, the lyrics for Pie Jesu are not among the Latin Phrase presets, so I would have to craft my own text for my first Opus. My first attempt was rather pathetic, so I wont even bother posting an MP3. The syllables transitioned on the incorrect notes and it sounded like a bad virtual choir kind of singing what I wanted them to…but not very well. It was clear that I was dealing with an amateur choir here, and we would need a lot of practice before we were able to sing the whole piece from start to finish. My skills as engineer and composer would be put to the test, and WordBuilder was going to take some significant wrangling to achieve the desired result.

…to be continued. Next Episode: WordBuilder Unleashed

Read EWQL Symphonic Choirs Episode 1

The only real challenge in using vocoders in software is routing, since you need two signals — a carrier and a modulator. People are regularly asking how to do this on the Ableton Live forums, because there’s not an obvious way in Live to sidechain signal. Here’s one tutorial, and it’s friendly to people who have never used a vocoder before:

How To Use A Vocoder In Ableton Live [SonicTransfer]
More Orange Vocoder Tips [SonicTransfer]

Since some of the links are broken, here are the vocoders mentioned in the article. Both are Mac/Windows compatible, but only mda TalkBox is free:

Orange Vocoder Mac, Windows [Prosoniq]

mda Free Effects (Download the whole archive in VST Windows or VST/AU Mac format; TalkBox is in each version — and yes, the free mda stuff now runs Universal on Intel Macs)

Interestingly, this tutorial assumes you want a non-live solution. My preferred method is to set up two channels, one with the vocoder, and another with a live mic input (or other source), then route into the vocoder using the “Audio To” dropdown. I’m working on a tutorial specific to this with some other tips, so stay tuned.

My own vocoder of choice, which immediately suggests breaking out of the cliched vocoding mold with lots of wacky experimental presets and lovely-sounding synth sounds (I’ll share some of mine if I come up with anything nice):

Native Instruments Vokator [also in Komplete]

The vocoder has a long and fascinating history, one that goes beyond the narrow knowledge many people have of it. Wikipedia keeps getting better and better and has an extensive history; Obsolete.com looks at the first vocoders:

Vocoder [Wikipedia]
Homer Dudley’s Speech Synthesisers, “The Vocoder” (1940) & “Voder”(1939) [Obsolete.com: 120 Years of Electronic Music]

Note that Bob Moog and Wendy Carlos get credit for creating the vocoder as we now know it. (The original vocoder sounded quite different!)

The best news, here, however, is that you can build your own vocoder thanks to a PAIA kit designed by none other than Craig Anderton. It’s a traditional 8-band model (none of this new-fangled, 128-band nonsense), but with a “spectral cross modulator” for some additional effects. I would be running to buy one myself if I weren’t dead broke.

PAIA Vocoder

If anyone has one, let us know how it is to work with.

The key with making new vocoder effects is to get out there and experiment; love or hate the song, Imogen Heap’s blockbuster “Hide and Seek” (just when you thought vocoder hits were dead) came out of some happy accidents as the vocoder modulates between pitches. That’s made it hard to perform — and inspired choral a Capella versions — but it demonstrates yet again that the organic effect of struggling a bit with your technology often creates the most satisfying results.

Got more vocoder questions or tips? Send them on in.

9 DVDs – are you serious!?

EWQL Symphonic Choirs arrived at work one sunny, summer afternoon. The packaging was nice – standard software size, with the usual EastWest design aesthetic. â€Å“Hmmm…this box is pretty heavy,â€Â? I thought to myself. I cracked open the seal, and emptied the contents. A couple of user-guides, some registration papers, and a thick, posterboard disc envelope. I mean really thick.

â€Å“How big is this thing?â€Â? I checked the back of the box. 38 gigabytes. 9 DVDs. Let me type that again, in case you missed it. 38 gigabytes. 9 DVDs. â€Å“I wonder how long this will take to install,â€Â? I mused to my co-workers. â€Å“I’ve got a Pioneer DVR108 in my G5 – it should have no problems flying through this installation, right? It reads at 16x…â€Â? I took the package home that night and decided to wait until the weekend to do the installation.

Saturday morning arrived and I decided I would go ahead with the install and start plowing through the user guide. I put the first disc into the drive, opened up Omniweb to grab any software updates from the SoundsOnline website, and cracked open the manual. The installation dialog box slowly ticked upwards:

5 minutes remaining, 7 minutes remaining, 11 minutes remaining, 15 minutes remaining.

I was clearly in for a long wait. â€Å“So…I’ve got 9 DVDs here…I’m thinking I don’t want to sit in front of my Mac for two-plus hours today to wait for this to install. Boy I wish dual-layer discs were in-fashion…â€Â?

And so it was, that I spread out the installation of EWQL Symphonic Choirs over the course of two days. Yes – it took me a weekend to finally get this app up and running on a Dual 1.8Ghz PowerMac G5 with relatively fast drives. I spaced the install out such that I would stick a disc in, resume the install, and walk away to run errands, clean the apartment, play some Ghost Recon, or catch up on e-mail. This is not an installation for the impatient. Now, if you’ve got the time and willingness, you could probably get this thing installed in a couple of hours. But honestly I’ve always been rather fussy about how I spend my time, so this seemed like the best way to do it. After all was said and done, I was up and running by late Sunday afternoon and had skimmed the manual enough to know that not only was the install process rather lengthy – this was not a simple plug-and-play application. I’d had it easy with EWQL RA and Stormdrum – just pick a patch and start jamming! Not so with Choirs. If I was going to get ANY useful results from this library, I was going to have to devote some serious time and study to its use and application.

So back to the manual I go – this time from start to finish.

…to be continued…

Symphonic Choirs Product Page

Process of making Etch-a-Sound [flickr set]
Etch-a-Sound at Cybersonica [flickr set]
Etch-a-Sound on Pixelsumo (blog of the Cybersonica curator, Chris O’Shea)
Project Page, atoyfactory

And the video:

Brilliant work, Seulki Kang and Kenichi Okada!