Vocoders: Kronos vs. R3 vs. M3 vs. MicroKorg

nowtime · Post by **nowtime** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 11:33 pm

I am a big fan of the vocoder on the R3. Liked the one on the MicroKorg as well - it was different, more lo-fi, but got some interesting and fun sounds out of it.

I was wondering if any vocoder fans have any experience with the M3 vocoder or can speculate on the Kronos (not sure , does the Oasys have one?).

My gut tells me the vocoder is an afterthought on the workstations. Not being a big programmer, I would love it if the Kronos has some nice presets with well-thought-out parameter assaignments on the knobs/sliders. (a little experimentation could take care of this; I am more curious about the overall quality of the sound of the vocoders on workstations compared to Korg's lower-priced synths).

jg:: · Post by **jg::** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 1:04 am

http://howtowreckanicebeach.com/?page_id=14

Vocoder fans might like this story, tracing the vocoder history all the way to the 20s and 30s, I believe. I spied it at my local booshop: How To Wreck A Nice Beach. A picture of the Korg VC10 on the front cover, even!

jg::

McHale · Post by **McHale** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 2:56 am

My preference of all the vocoders I have is still the Korg DVP-1. There's a difference between a real vocoder and a vocoder effect.

nowtime · Post by **nowtime** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 4:02 am

Korg DVP-1 - 500 dollars on Ebay. Looks lovely. Would love one someday.

Anyone ever play the R3?

ozy · Post by **ozy** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 10:36 am

nowtime wrote:Korg DVP-1 - 500 dollars on Ebay. Looks lovely. Would love one someday.

500? steep.

In europe you can get one at 250 top 300 (mint condition) euros.

Considering the smaller european merket and the usual "euro markup", make that 300 us$.

It's worth every penny of it though (but enough with the policy of chasing a piece of vintage at lunatic prices just because it's good. If the hardware is worth 250 it's worth 250, stop. Except for real rarities, unavailable spares and the like, where short supply of course forces the price up. the dvp-1 is NOT in short supply).

dokido · Post by **dokido** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 2:30 pm

I have just tryed the R3 in the shop and the fun thing with it is you can sing with the arpeggiator on with the vocoder.

McHale · Post by **McHale** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 6:22 pm

nowtime wrote:Korg DVP-1 - 500 dollars on Ebay. Looks lovely. Would love one someday.

VERY steep. I had mine for sale on CL for $300 and NOBODY made a serious offer. I had one offer of $50. I think I paid $450 for it about 10 years ago. I would think $350 would be an average price for it if on ebay.

-Mc

axxim · Post by **axxim** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 10:42 pm

ozy wrote:
nowtime wrote:Korg DVP-1 - 500 dollars on Ebay. Looks lovely. Would love one someday.
500? steep.

In europe you can get one at 250 top 300 (mint condition) euros....

Hmm that is not easy to get such a price here. I just see one now on ebay for 395 EUR. I was chasing one of this for months, agreeing with the policy, a thing is worth what it should be and not more just because it is vintage (I am vintage too) or because it is "en vogue". Finally I switched to look for a Roland VP-770 and got one for a third of its retail price a month ago.

I must say that even if the VP-770 vocoder itself has not the adjustments for each band like the R3dias and most other vocoders, (including my own ATARI-SW-vocoder which even has sepparate attack/decay controls for each band) its speech analysis section is one of the best I have heard. Even if I would welcome an OS update which would enable to tweak the vocoder settings a bit more, it would not be much to improve on it IMHO.

I doubt that the Kronos will have a more featured vocoder than the R3dias or its ancestors, because it is not what the majority wants or needs.

The proof of it is that the majority of the promotion videos for instruments with vocoders have the similar script: "and here is the vocoder -the demonstrator plays a chord and speaks- 1..2..3..vocoder vocoder..."

ozy · Post by **ozy** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 9:04 am

axxim wrote: the majority of the promotion videos for instruments with vocoders have the similar script: "and here is the vocoder -the demonstrator plays a chord and speaks- 1..2..3..vocoder vocoder..."

vocoder effects should be banned.

They are a tiresome, overused, misused and boring effect.

Come on, what use is a vocal processing instrument which works only if you modulate it with the following phrases:

"1,2,3" or "let's dance, don't stop the motion" or "this is the vocodaahhh" or "bum bum tcha, bum bum tcha"?

[do people, who obsess with a vocoder's 16, 64 or 128 bands, work on their voice, study what prononouciation does to the sound, know which frequencies are involved, use the saturation of Us and Ps, can distort a sound using Rs? Or do they just use the filter tweaking for removing hisses? -Whose main cause is basically bad quality of the whole vocoder, bad mixing, bad room and bad singing? How many people need 36 bands just because they lack cojones and need to "pump" the bass frequencies their voice hasn't? Just asking]

Ban the vocoders!

Only me, should have one (or more)

As for Dvp-1 and vp770.

Roland vintage vocoders are sweet. I never tested the new ones (especially because I haven't place for one more keyboard).

The "preset" "flaw" belies one important truth: it's very hard to get a vocoder filterbank right, musical.

There are not many settings which sound fine. In the dvp-1 and the rolands those settings have been pre-programmed (they are not the same for each basic preset). And that is good work, why waste it?

"Analogue experimentation" is not equivalent to "obsessive-compulsive recalibration of every single parameter of a machine.

I laugh at somebody who buys a VA for "recreating the sounds of rudess or kraftwerk" (no sonic invention), but then "needs access to every single parameter of the vocoder's filterbank".

To make it "exactly like kraftwerk". Some invention...

Oops, OT.

Whatever.

Stop using your vocoders! Sell them!

To me.

axxim · Post by **axxim** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 4:25 pm

ozy wrote:...
Come on, what use is a vocal processing instrument which works only if you modulate it with the following phrases:

"1,2,3" or "let's dance, don't stop the motion" or "this is the vocodaahhh" or "bum bum tcha, bum bum tcha"?
....

Well that is exactly the point that gets me upset about this demos. But I think it is something like the Auto-Tune syndrome.

AK-Jake · Post by **AK-Jake** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 7:24 pm

axxim wrote:Well that is exactly the point that gets me upset about this demos. But I think it is something like the Auto-Tune syndrome.

Agreed. Autotune to get the "Cher" effect is WAY overused. Hell, would T-Pain even sell records if he turned the Autotune off?

On a side note, does anyone know what vocoder Daft Punk used to make "Harder Better Faster Stronger"?

xmlguy · Post by **xmlguy** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 7:28 pm

AK-Jake wrote:
axxim wrote:Well that is exactly the point that gets me upset about this demos. But I think it is something like the Auto-Tune syndrome.
Agreed. Autotune to get the "Cher" effect is WAY overused. Hell, would T-Pain even sell records if he turned the Autotune off?

On a side note, does anyone know what vocoder Daft Punk used to make "Harder Better Faster Stronger"?

They didn't use one. They used a talk box.

SpIdErWeB · Post by **SpIdErWeB** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 7:37 pm

Daft Punk didn't use vocoder but Talk Box...
And Auto-tune isn't a Vocoder neither...

Phil

xmlguy · Post by **xmlguy** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 8:24 pm

SpIdErWeB wrote:Daft Punk didn't use vocoder but Talk Box...
And Auto-tune isn't a Vocoder neither...

Phil

At least not on that track. Daft Punk does use a vocoder on other tracks, and I think they use a wide range of vocal processing too.

ozy · Post by **ozy** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 8:26 pm

whatever.

vocoders should be banned (only two in the world should remain in effect: mine, and my spare one)

pitch correctors should be illegal

cher should be heavily taxed

talk boxes should be restricted to limited zones of the town with strict sanitary regulations, and only after 10pm

there should be a law against chorus effects

ping pong delays should carry a disclaimer.

As for arpegiators, we should bomb the country where they grow arpegiator poppies, overtrow their medieval regime and instal a puppet government, seize the arpegiator crop and sell it only under medical supervision.

WhaWhas...

... whawhas should be legalized though, in order to make their price fall and cut their mafia middlemen off. This way there would no incentive to push cry babies to innocent children.

jg:: wrote:http://howtowreckanicebeach.com/?page_id=14Vocoder fans might like this story, tracing the vocoder history all the way to the 20s and 30s, I believe.

thx jg: really a useful recommendation

hope amazon carries it