[ddots-l] Re: vocal effects

BlankI thought that Yamaha Pitch fix was somewhat accessible. I had heard that 
if you insurt Yamaha pitch fix as a soft synth, you could then change pitch 
through midi. Is this not true? 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Bryan Smart 
  To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 10:51 PM
  Subject: [ddots-l] Re: vocal effects

  Most software vocoders are terrible. The only one that I've ever found that 
is only half way decent is the one from Prosonic. You can only change its 
settings from the track inspector, and because of how audio is routed in Sonar, 
it is extremely difficult to render its output to an audio track with out a lot 
of external signal routing. Even then, it doesn't have a lot of high frequency 
response. Its still probably the best that you'll get, though, since the rest 
have crappy filterbanks that require lots of compression for the input, so the 
result is that the vocoded voice has lots of noise in it. Basically, you'd do 
better to just go buy something like an Electrix Warp Factory. They're only 
about $200.

  For pitch correction, you can use the V-Vocal processing in Sonar through a 
Hotspot clicker set, I think, but I hear that you can only operate just a few 

  Antares Auto-Tune is also available for pitch correction. You can only 
operate the VST version, and you can only change its settings through the track 
inspector. You can only use the automatic correction (where you give it a 
single scale, and all notes that are sung are forced to that scale). What 
you're hearing on the radio lately (Urban radio, that is), is mostly MIDI 
controlled pitch correction. This is where you play a note on your keyboard, 
and anything that is sung into the mic is forced to the pitch of the note that 
you're playing. I don't know any blind person that's been able to get this to 
work with Sonar, because Sonar has traditionally been unable to route MIDI 
control to audio effects (only soft synths). I think that has changed in Sonar 
7, but I haven't tried it yet to know if it works. Once again, my solution was 
to buy external gear. I have a TC Helicon Voiceworks, and it can do pitch 
correction (both automatic and MIDI controlled), as well as being an automatic 
or MIDI controlled four-part harmonizer, and effects unit.  The Voiceworks 
makes a good front-end for a vocal channel, since you can plug a mic directly 
into it, use the built-in gate and compression, apply pitch correction, add 
four-part harmony, enhance the vocals with effects (like tempo-synced delay or 
reverb), and record that directly into Sonar. You can get one of those for 

  The only software harmonizer that I've found which is worth anything is the 
Steinberg Voice Machine, and it has too much latency to be usable in real-time. 
You can, though, record a vocal track, record a MIDI track with chords, and 
then, once everything is recorded, have the Voice Machine produce harmonies 
from the vocal on the audio track by using the MIDI control data that you 
separately recorded. For me, though, it is such a slow and frustrating process 
to produce synthetic harmonies that way, since you can't hear what you've done 
until long after you've recorded the control data. You'll constantly be 
re-doing the control track. Plus, the harmonizer algorithms sound like old 
Digitech stuff from the early 90's. It sounds very much like a computer voice 
singing, with all of the computer harmony voices being perfectly 
quantized/locked with each other. By comparison, the Voiceworks humanizes the 
harmony voices: they start singing notes at slightly different times from each 
other, they can slightly vary their pitch to simulate subtle human 
imperfection, and can slightly randomize the speed and timing of their 
vibratos. Plus, the pitch shifting just sound more real and less like chipmunk 

  You won't find a talkbox plug-in that sounds anything like the screaming 
style of Peter Frampton, or the synthetic sound of Roger Troutman. If you want 
to scream, then go buy a Rocktron Banshee. The Banshee is an all-in-one pedal 
with integrated amp and driver. If you want to sound like Roger, you need lower 
gain, so you'll have to buy a traditional talkbox like a Hile, and use an 
external guitar amp to drive it.

  Sorry, but you're going to have to spend a fair amount of cash. The good news 
is that all of this hardware that I've mentioned is accessible.



Behalf Of Craig Spencer
  Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 4:05 AM
  To: ddots-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Subject: [ddots-l] Re: vocal effects

  Hi everyone,

  Are there any accessible vocal effects VSTs that work with Sonar and CT?

  One that includes a vocoder and a talkbox and where you can manipulate the 
notes of a melody using a midi track.  Something like what they are using in 
today's music.  



  I am not just talking about freeware but one that we may have to pay for.  



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12:17 PM

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