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Mastering the Ableton Vocoder : Traditional Effect Chain

Ableton’s Vocoder is an incredibly versatile effect, much more than just a vocal processor. With countless creative possibilities, it can shape your sound in lots of interesting ways. In this guide, we’ll cover the traditional classic "synthetic vocals" setup for Ableton’s Vocoder and explore some of the devices key features to help you get started with this powerful piece of kit. Ableton Live's Vocoder comes packaged with the Standard and Suite versions of the software.

What is a Vocoder?

First, some basics to help understand the basics of using the Vocoder. A vocoder is a classic audio effect that combines two separate signals called a Carrier Signal and a Modulator Signal. The Carrier signal is the source of the output's pitch. This is often something harmonically rich, like a synthesizer playing a saw or square waveform. The modulator signal is the part of the sound which contains rhythm and lots of dynamic motion - often enough, this is a human voice or drums.

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The Traditional Vocoder Setup - Audio Signal and Modulator Signal

First, let’s begin with a fresh Ableton Live set and build everything from scratch and walk through the steps of a 'traditional' vocoder setup - where a microphone or incoming audio signal is being augmented by a synthesizer. Follow these steps to set up the Ableton Vocoder:

  1. Add Vocoder to an Audio Track
    Drag and drop the Vocoder effect onto the track carrying your vocal input or whatever audio you plan to use as the modulator source.

  2. Switch to External Mode
    By default, a Vocoder uses its internal settings to generate a signal from white noise. To use the traditional setup, switch the mode to External and use another synth as our carrier.

  3. Set Up the Carrier Signal
    In a separate channel, add a harmonically rich synth sound. In the video example, we use Ableton’s Wave table set between a saw and square shape. Choose a bright, harmonically rich sound, in order to provide clarity to the modified sound.

  4. Route the synth output to the Vocoder
    In the Vocoder’s Audio From dropdown, select your synth track as the input.

  5. Mute the Carrier Track
    To avoid hearing the raw synth sound, disable the channel's output by turning off the track. Now, the Vocoder processes the input using the synth as the carrier signal.

Enhance

The Enhance toggle, found in the upper left corner of the interface, normalizes the volume and dynamics of the incoming carrier signal which can create a brighter, clearer output. A full, dynamic spectrum of audio from the carrier ensures that whatever bands of audio the modulator are acting on have adequate energy for effective modulation and both elements of the vocoders' signal can be heard clearly.

Unvoiced - Vocoder's Internal Noise Generator

The Unvoiced knob found in the lower left corner of Vocoder's interface adds a layer of white noise to the signal. This can be helpful in for re-introducing airy transient noise that naturally muffled by the vocoder effect. This is important because certain sibilants such as the 's' and 'f' sound are dampened and compressed by the effect, which can cause speech to sound less intelligible and articulate. The Unvoiced knob allows these airy transient fricatives to pass through in order to preserve the dynamic fidelity of human speech. The Sensitivity control (Sens.) determines Vocoder's sensitivity for the unvoiced detection algorithm.

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A related control — the toggle between 'Fast' and 'Slow' can be found in the lower left as well. This toggle controls how quickly Vocoder switches between the Voiced and Unvoiced detection.

The Frequency Bands

At the center of Vocoder's interface are a series of band pass filters and related controls which can be individually adjusted by clicking. This filter section defines the overall tone of the Vocoder output and can be thought of similarly to an EQ. The number of adjustable filter points can be defined with the Bands control. A higher number of bands yields more fidelity in the processed sound while fewer bands produces a more electronic, robotic sounding tone. The highest and lowest points of the spectrum are defined via the Range controls. Having a wide range works fine for most combinations of carrier and modulator. But sometimes certain combinations will have a boomy or shrill tone that can be compensated by altering these cutoff frequencies.

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To the right of the Range controls is the Bandwidth (BW) control, which adjusts the individual filters' bandwidth. At lower percentages, each filter narrows toward a single frequency. At 100%, one instance of a filter ends where the next begins. Increasing the bandwidth past 100% expands the overlap between filter bands. The tone of the output can be drastically changed by experimenting with the bandwidth of the filters.

Under the bandwidth control is the Precise / Retro toggle, which changes the tonality or voicing of the filters. When using precise, each filter has a consistent amount of gain and bandwidth. In Retro mode, each filter narrows and amplifies at higher frequencies, which produces a brighter tone.

Gate controls a gate instance for each of the defined bands. This means that depending on the incoming signal, individual bands of audio can be gated out of the processed signal below a certain threshold. This can create an exaggerated effect where some only some bands of audio ring out.

The Level control determines the gain is applied to the processed signal. Level is a simple way of controlling the overall volume of the Vocoder's output.

Vocoder Tone Controls

On the right side of the interface are several important controls for shaping the overall tone of the band filters.

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The Depth knob introduces the carrier signal into the modulator. This is different from the Dry/Wet control because at 0% Depth, while none of the carrier's sound is present in the signal, the modulator signal is still being played through the defined filter bands. As the Depth exceeds 100%, this filters out the low end of the modulator until only the higher portion of the signal is present. Depth defaults to 100%, which is a balanced blend of the carrier and modulator signal and a good starting point for the more 'classic' Vocoder sound. Tuning the Depth down slightly into the 80% range yields a very rich, full vocal sound that relies more on the low end of the vocals than the synthesizer.

Attack and Release Controls

Attack control and Release controls how quickly the Vocoder responds to amplitude changes in the modulator. Setting the attack control to be very fast will emphasize transients in the modulator, but can cause distortion and artifacts when the modulator's amplitude changes quickly. A higher release time means that higher amplitudes in the modulator will 'ring out' over more time.

The Formant knob is similar to a cutoff knob for all the active bands simultaneously. Turning the Formant knob moves the midpoint of the defined Range upward or downward through the spectrum. This can help to define the overall timbre of the effect by shifting all the bands upward or downward together.

The Vocoder has 3 different processing modes found in the upper right corner of the interface which control how the carrier and modulator signals are processed:

  • Mono mode: Both the carrier and modulator are treated as mono sources.

  • Stereo mode: The modulator remains mono, but the carrier is processed in stereo.

  • L/R mode: Both the carrier and modulator signals are processed in stereo.

As expected the Dry/Wet control determines the balance between the clean 'dry' signal and the processed signal.

Sound Design with Ableton Vocoder

Now that we have a basic understanding of what the Ableton Vocoder is and how it's main controls work, we can go beyond the traditional applications of the device and move on to some of the more experimental and creative applications of this versatile and dynamic Vocoder in the follow-up video 'Ableton Vocoder Sound Design'.

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