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-- creating vowel-like sound out of your synths

creating vowel-like sound out of your synths

Is it possible to create the aproximation of vowel sounds through a softsynth? I thought I saw something about this in the dance music manual but can't seem to find it again. In any case, I think it was just a short reference to it.

Formant filters.

and a vocoder

wait... dc vocoder is a vocoder with a formant

heh

david

Vowel filters... are just a bunch of filters that gets controlled by one single macro-command.

If you're using Ableton live, I suggest you try the following:

make an fx rack on a synth or audio channel. Insert 4 parallel autofilters on it, set them all to bpf. Take the cutoff of each autofilter, and map it to the exact same macro of your rack. Then, edit the macro, insert different cutoff ranges for each. Insert a 5th dry signal into your rack after that. You should slowly get close to the vowel sound that you want.

The sound isn't exaclty the same as with a standard vowel filter, but it's also interesting. In fact, vowel filtering requires exponential cutoff ranges, while macro-mapping in Ableton only accepts linear controls. But this technique helps you out, and soon you will discover that you can make any kind of complex sound based on plain simple effects.

There's an article about vowelling that got released in the Sound on Sound magazine a few years ago. A PDF version is available somewhere on their site. Google it. Beware, it's extremely complex.

Whatever you want to achieve, Reaktor, Pure Data, and MAXMSP will be your friends.

Laurent

quote:

Originally posted by Lolo Vowel filters... are just a bunch of filters that gets controlled by one single macro-command. If you're using Ableton live, I suggest you try the following: make an fx rack on a synth or audio channel. Insert 4 parallel autofilters on it, set them all to bpf. Take the cutoff of each autofilter, and map it to the exact same macro of your rack. Then, edit the macro, insert different cutoff ranges for each. Insert a 5th dry signal into your rack after that. You should slowly get close to the vowel sound that you want. The sound isn't exaclty the same as with a standard vowel filter, but it's also interesting. In fact, vowel filtering requires exponential cutoff ranges, while macro-mapping in Ableton only accepts linear controls. But this technique helps you out, and soon you will discover that you can make any kind of complex sound based on plain simple effects. There's an article about vowelling that got released in the Sound on Sound magazine a few years ago. A PDF version is available somewhere on their site. Google it. Beware, it's extremely complex. Whatever you want to achieve, Reaktor, Pure Data, and MAXMSP will be your friends. Laurent

Very helpful post - I'll experiment with that.

Maybe this is the referenced article?

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar...es/synthsec.asp

this is the article, yup! Read on, guys, interesting stuff in there

L.

quote:

Originally posted by Lolo Vowel filters... are just a bunch of filters that gets controlled by one single macro-command. If you're using Ableton live, I suggest you try the following: make an fx rack on a synth or audio channel. Insert 4 parallel autofilters on it, set them all to bpf. Take the cutoff of each autofilter, and map it to the exact same macro of your rack. Then, edit the macro, insert different cutoff ranges for each. Insert a 5th dry signal into your rack after that. You should slowly get close to the vowel sound that you want. The sound isn't exaclty the same as with a standard vowel filter, but it's also interesting. In fact, vowel filtering requires exponential cutoff ranges, while macro-mapping in Ableton only accepts linear controls. But this technique helps you out, and soon you will discover that you can make any kind of complex sound based on plain simple effects. There's an article about vowelling that got released in the Sound on Sound magazine a few years ago. A PDF version is available somewhere on their site. Google it. Beware, it's extremely complex. Whatever you want to achieve, Reaktor, Pure Data, and MAXMSP will be your friends. Laurent

Thanks for this. Very interesting and something I will definately experiment with.

I often think I need to give myself more time to experiment and try all kinds of different things. This is often how great sounds and FX are created by "accident." Problem is, once i start working on a new tune, I don't like to experiment much as it interrupts the flow of making the actual track.

I need to set some time inbetween tracks where I won't allow myself to start a track but instead, just play around and try things out.

Reason 4.0 !

Cool trick lolo..

This is a piece of cake in reason. Though thor has an very cool native formant I made a plucky combinator patch using 4 filters and rotary 1 controlling the filters (having a limited range for each filter).
Sample
Combinator
Have fun

Sugar Bytes has a synth called unique that does that sound your looking for.

thanks for reminding me about sound on sound... totally forgot about that site and will be browsing through all their articles soon. It seems like most of their synth advice is located in the "synth secrets" series that lasted until 2004???

I tried fooling around with formants in massive but its not the smooth effect i was looking for.

I can only suggest a few fx that I know.

MDE-X by Korg probably one of the best fx collections ever made in terms of hidden features. It's based on the fx racks that korg used to make in the 90's (I remember inserting the vowel filters with lfo mod on Innerspace's JP8000). Now it's software, and it has lots of fx. Essential buy, really. It even comes free with their keyboards.


Sugar Bytes WOW, idem ditto for the sound. But nothing more than filters :-)

Can this be done with a Virus ?

quote:

Originally posted by Subtle Can this be done with a Virus ?

I don't have one, but I remember that on the virus A, TDM, and Powercore (I had those and got rid of them) there was no vowel filter, unfortunately.

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