Moog Vocalizations
Does anyone know what that piece is called? I'm no classical music buff, so I wouldn't know one from another, but that Wendy Carlos version is really nice with the "vocoder" effect in it. And any idea where I could find it?
Little Phatty Stage II #3602, MoogerFooger CP-251 #1785
MF-103 12 Stage Phaser #6093, MF-104m Analog Delay #0301
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MF-103 12 Stage Phaser #6093, MF-104m Analog Delay #0301
--
My band: www.facebook.com/InstantMorning
Wendy Carlos mentions in Secrets of Synthesis that the use of the custom Moog 10-band vocoder in Clockwork Orange wasn't received very well, especially when used in a composition like the Beethoven 9th. She goes on demonstrate a later vocoder which is much cleaner and articulate.
Secrets of Synthesis is a disc I listen to frequently, because IMO it's the best example not only of Wendy's one-of-a-kind body of work, but also dissects how she got there--digital (additive) Synergy as well as Moog modular.
Can't recommend it highly enough.
Secrets of Synthesis is a disc I listen to frequently, because IMO it's the best example not only of Wendy's one-of-a-kind body of work, but also dissects how she got there--digital (additive) Synergy as well as Moog modular.
Can't recommend it highly enough.
On "Arabesque No.1" from the album"Snowflakes Are Dancing" you can hear two fine examples of 'vocal' sounds that Tomita used: One, of course, is the wonderful whistling patch that he created by feeding white noise into a highly resonant low pass filter. (I'm currently working on a Voyager version.) The other sound is created, if I remember having read this right some years ago, by manipulating a band pass filter's cut off frequency with a sequencer, which is being stepped by the keyboard. Side note: I heard this track regularly in 1974 on an FM radio station in Columbus, Ohio. The DJ would play this first and follow it with Todd Rundgren's "Born To Synthesize". Ahhh. Those were the days!
Best,
dml
Best,
dml
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nicholas d. kent
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The vocoder dates back to the 1930s, but they were not manufactured as a piece of musical gear until the mid 70s, several years after "A Clockwork Orange".
What Carlos did was assemble a vocoder out of 22 Moog modules. First the modulating signal was feed a signal into the first custom modified fixed filter module. That one took a signal and split it into individual bandpass bands with individual outs for each band (rather than a mix out on the standard version). Each out went to one of 10 envelope followers. Each one of them went as control voltage to one of 10 VCAs. Then the second custom fixed filter band was used to split the carrier signal into 10 bands. Each of those was the audio input for one of the 10 VCAs. The outs of the VCAs all got mixed and you get vocoding.
Listen to "Well Tempered Synthesizer" the second classical album before "A Clockwork Orange". There are some great vocal-like sounds that aren't vocoded. I think Carlos was using multiple bandpass filters to do formants - which can create vocal type sounds if the multiple filters are adjusted correctly. It's much more limited and near impossible to say words, but one can coax vocal-like sounds out of it that will sound like different vowels depending on how the filters are set.
Tomita eventually got a vocoder but did not have one initially and did not use it that much when he got one. Early on he used a Mellotron fed through his Moog to shape and filter it then through FX. He told a friend that's his own voice on "Venus" but wouldn't say what he did exactly. The whistling has nothing to do with vocoders. He's using a resonant filter and noise. It's cool to see a youtube video of him doing it -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByF33mXYyJY
TONTO did some impressive synth-vocals. Malcolm Cecil wanted to keep it a secret when I asked him. They would have been using it before commercial vocoders and he says it's not vocoder. It sounds a little Sonovox-like to me but I'm pretty sure he says it wasn't.
The Sonovox and it's sort of relative the Talkbox involve taking an audio signal and letting it pass out through someone's mouth. Like with a speaker attached to a tube into someone mouth (talkbox), or like vibrating a persons throat with like an electric larynx type device used as a speaker rather than mic. A lot of radio station IDs and talking machines in cartoons (like the steam engine in Dumbo from the 1940s) used a Sonovox. I remember the Captain Scarlet theme song.
Kraftwerk used real vocoders really early. I think they were he first to use them in pop music. Though they also used a number of sample technologies. (speak and spell, automated announcement systems, etc.)
What Carlos did was assemble a vocoder out of 22 Moog modules. First the modulating signal was feed a signal into the first custom modified fixed filter module. That one took a signal and split it into individual bandpass bands with individual outs for each band (rather than a mix out on the standard version). Each out went to one of 10 envelope followers. Each one of them went as control voltage to one of 10 VCAs. Then the second custom fixed filter band was used to split the carrier signal into 10 bands. Each of those was the audio input for one of the 10 VCAs. The outs of the VCAs all got mixed and you get vocoding.
Listen to "Well Tempered Synthesizer" the second classical album before "A Clockwork Orange". There are some great vocal-like sounds that aren't vocoded. I think Carlos was using multiple bandpass filters to do formants - which can create vocal type sounds if the multiple filters are adjusted correctly. It's much more limited and near impossible to say words, but one can coax vocal-like sounds out of it that will sound like different vowels depending on how the filters are set.
Tomita eventually got a vocoder but did not have one initially and did not use it that much when he got one. Early on he used a Mellotron fed through his Moog to shape and filter it then through FX. He told a friend that's his own voice on "Venus" but wouldn't say what he did exactly. The whistling has nothing to do with vocoders. He's using a resonant filter and noise. It's cool to see a youtube video of him doing it -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ByF33mXYyJY
TONTO did some impressive synth-vocals. Malcolm Cecil wanted to keep it a secret when I asked him. They would have been using it before commercial vocoders and he says it's not vocoder. It sounds a little Sonovox-like to me but I'm pretty sure he says it wasn't.
The Sonovox and it's sort of relative the Talkbox involve taking an audio signal and letting it pass out through someone's mouth. Like with a speaker attached to a tube into someone mouth (talkbox), or like vibrating a persons throat with like an electric larynx type device used as a speaker rather than mic. A lot of radio station IDs and talking machines in cartoons (like the steam engine in Dumbo from the 1940s) used a Sonovox. I remember the Captain Scarlet theme song.
Kraftwerk used real vocoders really early. I think they were he first to use them in pop music. Though they also used a number of sample technologies. (speak and spell, automated announcement systems, etc.)
You're talking about the melody in the slow section of "Venus"? It's also at the beginning of the album, doing the "countdown" before "Mars," right? That's a great sound.
The four Walter Carlos "classical" albums are all great -- it's interesting listening to them progressively, if not in a row, to hear the development of their technique.
The four Walter Carlos "classical" albums are all great -- it's interesting listening to them progressively, if not in a row, to hear the development of their technique.