Bendy Vocoder Epic

topic posted Sun, May 29, 2005 - 10:11 AM by  Reactor
Hi people,

I'm Dave the singer in the band Reactor. The last track on our debut album is a dark and bendy vocoder epic called 'Reaching Out'. It uses the traditional 'voice through chords' vocoder technique with one crucial difference. All the notes in the chords are independent lines which bend in different directions to make the chord changes. It's very trippy!

www.reactor-site.com/clips/rea...t_clip.mp3
(1Mb)

You can buy the album and get loads of free stuff at www.reactorsite.com (video, mp3s, sampled instruments, gallery etc)

Hope you like it!
posted by:
Reactor
United Kingdom
  • Re: Bendy Vocoder Epic

    Sat, June 4, 2005 - 7:54 PM
    Damn! I'm a long time vocodist, but that was one of the most beautiful pieces of vocoding I've heard in awhile! If you don't mind me asking, what synth and vocoder (or software) are you using?
    • Re: Bendy Vocoder Epic

      Sat, June 18, 2005 - 4:15 AM
      Hi Genshi,

      Thanks very much! That's much appreciated

      It's actually quite an old tune. The lines that make up the chords were made on a simple synthvox pad sound played from an Akai S3000 but any sampler would do. The main thing is you need each line on a seperate MIDI channel so you can pitchbend the parts by different amounts.

      That was then fed through the Opcode Fusion vocoder (an old PC plugin) - with the voice - and tweaked a lot, until it sounded good. There's a big chorus of BV's on the last bit too - and a fat, bendy FM bass sound from an SY77.

      I think the chord structure is the biggest factor in the overall mood of the track - but hopefully the bendy vocoders heighten the tension and strangeness. That was the plan anyway...

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