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Vocoding Basics

Lesson 18 from: FL Studio Synthesis Master Class

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Lesson Info

18. Vocoding Basics

Next Lesson: Vocoding Q and A

Lesson Info

Vocoding Basics

Voting is a bit of a fun topic. We have what we're talking about, um, definitely going to explain it. That's what this is saying that we're going to do so little gonna happen, um, were, you know, a bunch of demonstrations of how it works, and we're going to use that mostly practical but that's of explaining out how it all works out, um, how does that matter? There are a lot, and actually, vocal dex is the plug in is kind of special in that regard. I mentioned it's a bit when I was talking about harmer thea today by abbas of this isn't how there are other additives there's, an incident get additive synthesizers, that word so almost done saying that word so many times, but like that aa lot of a lot of third party plugin, manufacturers that make plug ins tend to make them a bit more restricted than some of the ones that president f l and vocal x is one of those ones. That's just not very restricted get to do a whole bunch of stuff while ways and control over almost everything that it can ...

do versus stepping like, uh, native instruments, the mouth, which has, like, three or four, what buttons and it's not something that works after this for me like unless I'm missing like an entire page of like controls and it has to say here's where you do everything that you want to do is kindly go that's what that is I don't I don't know that that's there, but I could hear your marjorie relationship I mentioned that during the fm metal talking about that for sure think signs are examples where we'll do some stuff about things and little sound good and sounds that requests what's happening the next segment but for now vote coding so I'm actually actually begin by sort of I have I have a sort of set up here I've got by my house music sample got salt wave the sol wave is the carrier and then the house was example is the market which is to say that it's getting modulate so what does that sound like sound like this that's? What sounds like it's very kind of robotti sort of violence what does but that's sort of look at all the the stuff we got going here so you could say it's specifically in particularly how all this works vote coding is a very specific process by which the plug in or the hardware is that there are verbal orders it reads the sort of the spectral behavior of the marjah later so this case start here this guy this is the on unmolested by gladys what looks like before it goes into the vocoder way could see in the letter itself it's kind of it's reacting to what's doing but the way that but what happens when it doesn't say get chops up the output of the carrier into a whole bunch of bands I was musing house music thing to see that sort of bands of action here house a zay chained to the bed with which is one of those parameters that matter out house music house music um so chops up of the bands and then the bands are only it's kind of like a lot of frequency splits and this frequency splits on lee let sound through when the motion of the modular kind of passes through it so that when there is a level how was this house how house proud there's a little bit a little bit of motion going on in that particular area inspections of those bands are lit up how's it says the house was a little bit of sibling going on out there and so is up in the higher frequencies so those figures are eliminated and so those bad they're active and you really get the have the original song wavy cue here is well, how how do you see that it's very full spectrum that has harmonics that are the whole the whole thing so when out on leverage particular harmonics are able to come through because there's no, the ones that line up with the bad that active it makes it sound as though the sol wave is saying whatever the modulators is, say, if it's saying the modulator it's, it's obviously designed to work with vocals, folk coating it's was really designed for but doesn't have to be that it could also be, you know, any other kind of sound, just that it's imparting its spectral behavior on to, uh, whatever the carrier is based on the senators we give to the band's. So that's what that's, how that's the most the most basic explanation of a have a code of works that has bands it, uh, basically a big figures to split on the original carrier and that the band's illuminated by the motion of the modulator in the spectrum, uh, they would have questions about that times. So, um, everything about making it sound good is a product of a number of things. There's a whole bunch of stuff that you could do a broken tax like and just the fact that, you know, the band with had a big impact on what we're doing, um, sort of the pitch of everything, they will talk about that in a second, but, uh principally what matters the most about getting the most out of your focus it sound is what you're using is your carrier and what you're using as your modulator we're talking back in the ff found section about how I like to use fm stuff as as carriers because they have a kind of unique movement alter their own so are not only applying the modulated movement to it but we're also applying the ff movement as well and has an extremely different profile first is just having a sol way of this president old time house music although there's something to be said house house music house music house music for just loving it well they have be lily ago music house music house music house music so if you ever I mean that's pretty much like the death punk style right there is that they had they had a lead pat lead since going on beneath you know either their butt holes the wells is vogel for the song and it's kind of play that you know and the harder, better, faster, stronger kind of thing that's how you do that and you know he got up process in the way they make it sound like that, but for the most part it's about what you're using it to carry out what you think later um so for this first example I'm going to keep using the saw wave we'll tell you what we'll show examples of what one of you's the fm for how because of ours later, but this is a very clear way of looking at what the parameters do, um, inside joke attacks. So we saw what we look that when we did the bad with they're with my letter, I was amusing how using it changes, how wide the bands are out, because each of the bands are they are little frequency splits, and then do you have a filter? Maribel filters like you could actually do this manually, and I have done it manually. I have actually made a vocoder in patter by using the peak, the peak control, where it reads input levels. I tied that to very small cuban volume levels, and I did a seventeen band vocoder, and it sounds exactly like a regular book corner, which is why I didn't do much more with that project, because I thought maybe that it was sort of a different if I did it myself, but no, it doesn't. So let's actually just use a plug in that that's for us, because it's an incredible amount of work, but they're actually, you know, splits the have filter, it have edges and that kind of thinking, so how? Why the bands are will determine sort of how they use house music how music how it all behaves this week you in the middle here is the output of the vulcan x so what when I have it on max here way could see that it's very that's a much with so much blurrier kind of application is that really it's zero sharp or define very loose and smooth weird and then all the way down here aside house music how using it's extremely sharp it has that kind of weird belly classy kind of tone which is if you're president from the previous segment where I was talking about the eighth foreman modulation that kind of sounded like vocoder artifact that's what I was talking about that particular how you house music I was using that particular kind of edge that it has to it it's very particularly vocal in general um along with a bed with house used house is how many bands there are by the fault there's forty seven inside broken mexican I was hired by a hundred I was using I was using as low as five how cool is that they even though there are only five bands with huge swaths of just like large cuts that it does actually still kind of sound like he's saying house music has a little bit to do with the fact that we're expecting it so our braids are kind of like in the mode of hearing like I say house music but uh e it was also kind of how well that kind of stuff works used house music I was used I was using I was using so I was able to find the more bands we have so as far as far as getting at the sound exactly like the module better the two biggest parameters that matter for that purpose are how many bands have got and what you're seeing with this it's also this order control here which is mostly just sort of how low cody it sounds house music I was music and it's mostly just about the subtle kind of filter changes between the between the bunch I tried to keep it on tour three house music it's also this guy which is the filter filter fatness would you just kind of see little image next to it that that shows off kind of a more rounded tip for virtues of our flat tip where how lunacy how sharper the filters on either side of the bad how do you think I was music so the board application of this actually is that like if it's you have a lot of been with a really wide band what they could make the foot there less to make a little sharper and it will actually how house you don't go in part that glassy tone on it with the wider band and for some reason you do that how are you how's music house used to house music which can sometimes help for clarity as well oh well, these parameters are some of them are very, very like big changes like the pitch is a pretty powerful you pretty big change but for the most part these are the kinds of things that helped there there are so many ways of of like tiny subtle changes to fix issues because of oh coding is primarily about damage control you have the kind of an idea of what you want to dio you wantto like for like, you know, the death part thank you basically want to sound like you're playing in a robot voice that sounds really, really dope and so you put it on there and you use aside aside like a saw with put the voice on and it doesn't sound like that immediately so that you're gonna have to have you have that day which control the kind of make a salad the way you want this out and there's just so many varying, varying ways of doing all this and that's what most of the primaries before you wait to see you seven knobs but oh my dad is going to get so much deeper bear with me on that particular part so it's like what the pitch change for second so um you it shows it was a foreman changes really with what it means is this is changing the pitch of thie sort of the reading and what I mean by that, is that the sample that were using the back that the house music hubble isn't actually in the vocal nexus, that in anything it's on the playlist, and in the mixer house, using along with the saw, waving the both into mixture inserts in the both the ground into a third and that's, how the broken necks is accessing the sound is coming from it, if that's the case, how I was able to change the picture that so well, because if we did just change the pitch of sample, the effect would be identical, and this is because, um, we could make some sort of logical conclusions about what that behavior would represent if we change, if we have a frequency that exists in a particular part of the spectrum, if he wouldn't turn it down for change, the pitch of it, it would move down the spectrum, it would, it would be in one spot and then a bit lower down it's about that over here, so it means that if there was a frequency and the model, it would show up as a band in one particular position, but if you were to make it lower, it would be a band and lower position, so it means that if you wanted to minnick pitch change we just moved the bands and such although connect is doing is that it's a cool it's it comes in here but we're offsetting it to move it down and now it sounds lower that's all there is to that there's other nominee mill is the ben band with multiplier and basically is determining how hard is trying to adhere to the moderator all the way on the side out using its trying its hardest another way this side it's carrying a bit less and this is sort of like a bit of a saturated thing all the way on this side it's a bit more saturated rounded and smooth out kind of thing is to keep it uh smoother if that's what you want out you get over here it's like the peaks are really trying to like come in and they separate the frequency differences in that kind of thing to make it really satellite launch later so how much you want that to be a thing is up to you and whatever it is it to use against a carrier whatever it is it's using little body later this guy is the unison control and again this is about band application so if there's a two five voices and essentially what this does is that if it's used just like a regular cynthia said but how does let's talk about if you ever how cynthia's and works is that he create more than one voice and then their pitch tetouan department each other as a result of the inside it's already produced a sideways well this would represent inside the huge picture but that we have a point and then we create a clone of that point and they kind of move away from each other so in pitch and that's precisely what the band's dio so we have one big band peek out you think which we don't because it's the kind of house I was smoother thing we can't see it well people on there if I turn out to voices and make it very large you can kind of see that sounds simultaneously low in pitch and then also high in pitch because that's the result of if we spread the unit the voices of the modulator and then I read that and in the end the band spectrum so that and then we could we could also pat it left the rankings but because it is actually separate recorded voice but that's essentially how that works and I use that sometimes but it's kind of interesting effect to apply over here we have time variables which determine how fast the band's react to the bar later and then over here we have the same asses minimum times many times it's because if I turn that off and actually turned all the time labels off sounds kind of weird that's because it could react so fast that it just just distorting not entirely unlike what we discussed about compression of distortion yesterday but it means more or less the same thing I was using so the sometimes were set in a way that the developers felt was combat the minimum before the distortion but you couldn't tell yourself I was you out the house house house and they could also read our mass versus peek if you're into that and then down here we have knobs that control uh how how the way like the release time in the attack time how the curve the velocity curve is interpreted which can change kind of the tone of how to move around and that's it again another way of sort of suddenly suddenly changing things the house for more in depth damage control. And I kind of that kind of uh does anyone have any questions about this so far dr vocals and then using the vocal decks as a good background supporting cast? You could do that you can do the inside. Look, guys, if you wanted to have this elixir here that controls that there is there's the carrier and the modulator by default there is these these filters and arrested by the father could change that because you can't there's these filters on them that was a high pass on the on the the voice house using how you how you use it, how to use it and then there's also a carrier bleed there as well and a long along with that and the the web now here you can sort of control house music you owe you controlling the loudest that kind of thing you could also in the mix er just like route the everything you think that it goes into the into the backs challenges into other channels oh you how are you? I guess what I'm also curious about is ah kind of like imogen heap song um you know what song I'm talking about you know what I was saying? I know what we're sort of with the affect of changing the vote next courts and having that play in the background behind her dry vocals yeah uh could you do that for us do some chords and then had that play out basically is also a song that his artist trustem does call the truth where he did that this exact effect the uh what sounds like kind of like attitude is actually uh oh coating like this was put put them the four chords because I just can't get that do you do I mean, whatever your carriers doing it's gonna get interpreted by by the book of acts and so is whatever your modulated doing you you you you so whatever it is you want to write is about what you can do that do that with pretty easily house using okay, how using how using house music house music how using how you use it, teo indeed now, um the kind of the deeper the deeper aspects of okay backs have to do with sort of why I like broken isis is from pretty much every other book order and that's because almost all of these parameters that exist on the top of here and the drop that man either is also a kind of a menu for that this is kind of like how harm reverse as well where for example, there is a debate with there's, the band with page for the ballot knob and what this does is that it actually is an offset for that parameter per band house using about you so I can say I want these bands to be released I believe that I'll use it and this is really about how using I'll using using I was used to great, extremely detailed profiles and and also solve problems because, like there are parts of our president even suspected the sound better with thicker bad versus thunder bands and one side that's all kind of solution is usually isn't gonna be perfect, so this is how you're able to kind of really, really kind of sculpt in the behavior of the sound and this is also true for, say, the pitch the mars later pitched you on what we said about what it does that it moves bands up it down so we could say that I want these bastard move down you know, these consejo where they are so that way it sounds lower but that we still have the high figures definition of the original profile you wade also make a sound way weaker than whatever the wise, even change of hours almost if he has a particular rally performance, the fact that we move making a band not able to go in a particular movement, which it will mean that it won't sound like same bowel anymore that's not so exact a control and more fitting it isn't really thinking you do what you can do is you could do this and then also change the actual pitch on a mission of here, which we kind of take a whole profile and move around kind of cat thing that's a lot of this also just fern altaie variable, so we could have higher release on like some higher figures and the faster he said lower difficulties with I'm a total but your body that can you you you you, you you! It was also kind of weird ringing sound, so we're on the lower frequencies he's going to do that on the main page you come in here and say I don't want those lower frequencies e u u so here's a a very specific problem and actually have what kind of a lot you know is that like that we need those that lower because he's the kind of shore up you know, the tone of the sound but that ringing is just a little anxious so we come in here and just how do you get released the shortest possible break the whole time in shorts possible? How are you doing? Still kind of theirs that have been coming here in the bad with you make it you know, you thicker because the figure it is about bringing it sounds way and then so they were really scrambled very specific it's off certain problems and just by having per bad control us in paramus. And you know what? Problems are solved by what parameters or something that's best determined by experimentation? Because for most probably now like for that right there and obviously that problem solved a lot faster by just changing the bad with but I wouldn't try that at least time the whole time or whatever before I actually got to that point is still mostly travel on air, but if you do it by trial and error becomes rules that's sort of how we discover things experiment in general uh I was going to mention something about so yeah um before I go try to youtube or are more complicated set up that they were having questions about everything we've discussed so far non deck for good okay so right now we've been doing this with dude saying house music and assault wave let's see what kind of more complicated times we could get from carriers that are less sort of limited actually create uh on fm patch that might be called actually I'll do some of the older stuff actually in give you have you ever looked at my project for base antics or menagerie should be mine why they look at some of that because that's pretty that's pretty complex yeah way made you that letter later their time in the section but for now let's do it from scratch too so we could see how it's built so this is the this is a similar kind of fm profile that I created in the previous segment of the higher harmonic and then extra squat on like I think do do my tab on number one goto mind afire number x number x that's right get this this sound but also what I'm going to do is I'm gonna operated three which is being modulated by operator for that create this culture is I want a link the fm of operated fmr robbery three two months later why quantify why so that why is controlling secondary modulation in the fm and if you've ever seen any any of again menagerie or basically you'll see this fm ex wife a lot because what I said after control is that ex controls main fm of everything and then why it controls the secondary of them this is a very common a very common set up that I use our nation pie it's make some, uh congratulations due to do and I'm like I like I like I changing fm characteristics on the fly like that even if it doesn't terribly consistent it does keep it interesting placed in my opinion appeared I put everything in our audio clips because I am organization master yeah that's right on instead of house music area was actually finds it a little more manageable house music these days I actually like to record my own voice in this kind of use it as a modulator but that's not something I feel like doing right now it's actually use you and me so easy you and me was after the same guy you and me I actually use so easy both these because they have kind of like I'm using the whole word on a lot of a lot of these ideas being president, but if I were usually the song, what I like to do is to chop up, you know, an individual moments of sort of the appropriate bowels of movement that kind of thing and these are not things that I ever do dry like I don't I don't just know the vowels were going to sound the way I want them to I only ever do that when I have the vocally envoy so easy which this guy's not because it's not in the proper mixture insert yeah ok so that um while the cities that we use sound kind of ok from what we're doing with the salt wave now that we have a new carrier it's just totally not while working out it's not totally it's just not being a good deal fact let's go default is what you get when you look at voke attacks just totally empty is because it's now routed and the routing the way that works is up here we have the mongolian arriving with the carrier at it and he rightly get we get a list of inputs that his name what they are I know the insert one like I can't even blame what carrier on you lied come back here and then boom is labeled so it's helpful for that kind of thinking right now that this is the modulator that's a carrier you need so easy and it works because we were we could do the other way around where it's the voices the carrier and then the profile that's being imparted onto it is what the the symptoms doing but the applications for that are less than sort of trying to go for it I was turned off draft draftees means unusual less of you but issue we have here, so if you all of it you know, very interesting kind of sound I'm using sort of the ideas that we discussed the previous is able to try and solve some of the sonic problems and the problems are not so much like, you know, measurably identical things you my experience is mostly just sort of I don't like how it sounds in a certain way, so I'm trying to solve it that kind of thing for example, it sounds kind of dull in the higher higher and on this actually has to do with, um the carrier as much as it does the actual with no cars because you could see in the queue for the carrier the higher figure just a kind of a little bit less than they could pay and I was a little better. So remember that as much as what vocoder the voters process is doing, it does matter what your carrier and what your body later is doing is trying to have all of your problem solving b in the vocoder there are still solutions we had by messing with your rituals that's good they're probably not going to use the so part of so easy because it's very harsh sounding I also noticed that sound doesn't happen unless the coat the modulator and the carrier playing at the same time it's because if the modulator is not play there's no spectrum activity to be read the bands are being active and so the sounds not being let through go go go do things like copying some similar moments of moving around that kind of the oh what hockey is it oh this is um the slip at a tool and I usually I shouldn't even use hiking what's the time because but if I did I think that s yeah that's s for that slip tools pretty great especially for stuff like this because we can we can kind of were able to sort of premium stuff castle holdout halt to turn off snap hee hee hee didn't you know I can't even I can't even have all four here and then uses the bad to win all of the once you have that kind of effect that that's a reasonable tool to use and you can also change if you change the starting and time of the sample with us about toe behaves a bit differently as well which can sometimes be handy it's not the arrangement makes a little more sensitive data and then to go with just the regular thing saying it don't be afraid to heavily edit you know whatyou're when in what your modulators playing in a way e I like some of that let's go right there remember what we did earlier way sounds I am generally quite requires a lot of listening to a set the same sound on repeat a billion times until you eventually get somewhere that you like with it are there any questions about what I'm doing so far as much as we can get some of that sounds pretty okay with the processing barcoding and the security of the carriers in the whole thing some post processing and someone is usually doesn't say make the sounds of usable is because the nature of the prices is that is that terribly clear all time thank you some of us could be solved with the cueing the balancing knows that there's not really any sub presence here either that's because the fm doesn't produce much but also that but I thought that the modulators don't have activity that love quick solution of this is just teo I just put aside went out on the citrus patch extra silent reinforcement and then also I could come here and turned turn the carrier up and keep a low pass pretty far down and now there is some of the basic that's pretty handy that kind of stuff like I said the can soundscan solve some of that but most the time I like I like that sort of short up with some multi bank impression and usually cuban posts because the profiles can change if we leave and solving this is like you're solving some of similar problems that existed when we were doing the big the big mess nero ending ball, but filtering in that kind of thing, is that, like, this is filtering that's happening right now. All these bags are coming to get the form filtering that is shaped like what the modeling of activity that was like, and as a result, this is kind of reducing certain figures presence especially higher for god's presence. Wait that's a little bit better, theo saturation never hurt anybody, and I'm also here, um, a good catholic and you say I did? I did make this fm patch by it self, which is sort of an interesting choice to get certified that this is something that we're going to use as a carrier in a vocoder said that which means that we're never really going to hear the modulator carrying rather and by itself, which means that getting into some really good bye so has almost no meaning in terms of how it was going to behave with a mind like that kind of thing. So it does help to screw around with the carrier. While all the effects arrived, wait square I constantly before, during the fm this is block, I just can't catch a cool way. Taste about how that works out makes make us up work to baste lots of lots of minor, and you can keep doing to make that something that you like. So that process is pretty much is a process, and I apply it to whatever vocoder bases are going. Great. You make make a carrier making pickle bottle later, um, and your carry on your model, the choice. We kind of are principally going determine how everything's out, but like that this year, just depth of screwing around. You can do inside broken necks toe, really mold. The stuff together is important, because it's especially good for again damage control, because there's gonna be a lot of damage.

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Ratings and Reviews

Heather Freinkel
 

Lots of helpful information here but it would be even better if the instructor spoke more clearly. He speeds up and mumbles dramatically toward the end of each sentence making it pretty difficult to hear what he's saying. If you do more classes, please work with a video or speech producer to improve the delivery. Thanks!

Thomas Brogan
 

great stuff!!

rohan Dehade
 

this is the greet

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