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About Vocal Designer
“Vocal Designer” human vocal modeling technology is a further evolution of the “vocoder.” Here’s a simple
explanation of the vocoder.
What’s a vocoder?
The “vocoder” was invented by the physicist H. Dudley in 1939 as a technology for compressing a voice
communication signal. Subsequently, musical instruments based on this technology were developed,
allowing you to play melodies and harmonies using a human voice. Of course, the audio source can be
anything (not just a human voice) but because the vocoder has its basis in the sound-producing structure
of the human voice, we’ll be talking about it in terms of how a human voice is produced.
If we ignore diff erences of loudness, pitch, and variation between individuals, the waveform produced by
our vocal cords is essentially identical regardless of what you’re saying (e.g., “ahh” or “eeh”). We can distin-
guish spoken or sung words because of the various resonances (formants) created by our vocal tract (the
shape of our throat and the movement of the larynx and mouth) and additional sounds called “fricatives,”
“plosives,” and “sibilants” that are added in varying ways over time. The eff ect of the waveform created by
the vocal cords actually has a rather minimal eff ect on what the listener hears.
A vocoder analyzes these time-varying changes, electrically synthesizes the
shape of the throat and movements of the mouth (the formant movements),
and uses these formants to modulate a musical signal (the carrier) rather than
the waveform produced by the vocal cords. The vocoder “voice” produced in
this way was closer to that of a robot in a science fi ction movie rather than the
voice of an actual human.
Vocal Designer uses cutting-edge modeling technology to bring about a revo-
lutionary leap in the accuracy of this synthesis, succeeding in generating a
“human voice” that is incomparably more realistic and natural than the sounds
produced by vocoders of the past.
Play like you’re singing
Vocal Designer is constructed so that elements other than pitch are expressed by your voice via the mic.
You play the keyboard to control the pitch.
Vocal Designer won’t produce sound if you are only vocalizing into the mic or only playing the keyboard.
This means that in order to take advantage of Vocal Designer, the timing at which you play the keyboard
and vocalize into the mic is extremely important. When you’re performing a rapid passage, you will prob-
ably fi nd it best to hold down the keys (or press the hold pedal
➞
p. 39) and use your voice to play the
rhythm.
Unlike on typical synthesizers, the volume is controlled by the mic. Use your voice to draw the curve. Using
your voice, you can produce a range of expression that you might even fi nd extreme.
The most important technique for taking advantage of Vocal Designer is to
“Play like you’re singing”
Resonances (formants)
produced by the vocal
tract (shape of the
throat and larynx) and
movements of the mouth
Vocal cords (carrier)
