The Song Fight Bulletin Board

Teplin wrote:

Billy's Little Trip wrote:Is a vocoder the effect so many pop songs use these days to give their vocals then weird synth sound?

Sometimes. I think the effect you're thinking of is actually autotune on extreme settings. But here's a good example of vocoder in a pop song.

We were just talking about this last night in the chatroom. (Which, by the way, is still going strong, and you're all missing out if you don't check in every once in awhile.)

Yeah, that's the sound I mean. Wonder when that fad will end? Soon I hope.

Death Cab for Cutie are staging a mock political protest against its use, for whatever that's worth.

You guys are talking autotune, not vocoder right? I love vocoders, since they're usually used creatively, as opposed to autotune which hides the singer's lack of singing prowess. I avoid autotune, even though it shows in my sometimes weak vocal performances ... but I find it drains the life out of the voice.

An overzealous autotune can sometimes sound (whether intentionally or by accident) like a vocoder sometimes.

But the use of a vocoder isn't necessarily indicative of creative powers at work.

What!? There's people out there who don't loooooove vocoders? I'm not even being sarcastic. wtf.

Vocoders are tight when used in choice fashion. If every fucking vocal you have is vocoded, it, to me, is just as annoying as Autotune.

For anyone still confused:
Daft Punk/Chromeo/"California Love" by 2pac - Vocoder
Kanye West/T-Pain/Weezy - Autotune

Autotune has taken over the role of vocal coach, apparently. I only ever use it to create really dope little synthy blips and shit. Just record a crazy vocal track (the crazier, the better!) chop it up into little bits and pieces, autotune the whole track, pick the notes you want it to train on and VOILA you have created a REALLY FUCKING COOL vocal track that sounds more like a synth.

Haven't employed it on a songfight song yet... but you'll probably hear it soon because I love it.

But yeah. Hate it when used how it's "supposed" to be used, but can actually be pretty fun and powerful if you fuck around with it a bit.

Weezer? I've never heard anything odd in their vocal sound.
edit: Never mind, fluffy caught my mistake.

Pretty sure phetal meant Lil Wayne.

Someone should pull a 2pac on Little Wayne... I can't stand that shit. Is that mean?

ujnhunter wrote:Someone should pull a 2pac on Little Wayne... I can't stand that shit. Is that mean?

To be honest I thought The Carter III was a pretty good album. Sometime in the last year I gained a newfound respect for mainstream artists whose music is just RIDICULOUSLY stupid but at the same time, unique. The Carter III feels that way to me... so did Kanye's new album 808s and Heartbreaks, and then I realized that he basically liked what The-Dream was doing and made a more pretentious, almost messianic version of Love/Hate. Fuck Kanye.

But I see where you're coming from and I would never try to persuade you otherwise because, like I said, it's RIDICULOUSLY stupid.

I've had the song California Love in my head all day because of you, Phetal. 8)
Not the rap parts, just the chorus. I hope no one today has accidentally heard me saying, California...knows how to party, Califor-ornya...knows how to party, In the citaaaaay....of L.A. In the citay yaay of good ol' Watts....
....I even mimic the synthy vocoder sound.

http://www.dskmusic.com/blog/?page_id=3

These look really good. Has anyone tried any of them?

Ken

ken wrote:http://www.dskmusic.com/blog/?page_id=3

These look really good. Has anyone tried any of them?

Ken

I just downloaded a few and played with them. Some decent samples tied to a limited and buggy front end. Sometimes the sliders get stuck if you slide them down too far. You can't set the maximum number of voices. I would much rather have the samples on their own, to use with my own sampler (at least include those as an option!). Still, there are several instruments in this collection that I don't already have samples for, so I'll keep them around.

ken wrote:http://www.dskmusic.com/blog/?page_id=3

These look really good. Has anyone tried any of them?

Ken

I like a lot of the stuff at DSK. Whoever the programmer is seems to crank out a few new ones every year. I usually check them out and keep the ones I like. I have a couple of the drum machines, there are a couple of those that use samples from old hardware drum machines that I like. I also like the sample based units that emulate real instruments. The straight forward synthesizer plugins are okay and usable, but I found them to be standard fare and not much different from synthesizer plugins I already had.

I D/Ld the harmonica vst. I'm curious how it sounds, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:I D/Ld the harmonica vst. I'm curious how it sounds, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

That's one of the ones I tried... of course it's going to be hard to make any vst sound like a harmonica being played by a real person, but I really liked it for a weird reed organ sound.

Billy's Little Trip wrote:I D/Ld the harmonica vst. I'm curious how it sounds, but I haven't had a chance to try it yet.

The GUI doesn't seem to have any controls, but when I went to my piano roll screen to program the notes I noticed I could draw in some of the controls. There is a control called soundfont oscillator. When I set my draw tool to step option and put some up and down steps on some held notes it gave it a quavering effect like a hand fluttering on the back of a harmonica. It was'nt to bad when I layered it on top of some guitar. I also add a flanger plugin, which helped. I think it would take some intense tweaking to get an aggressive blues sound out of it, but I think it would work for a folk song.

MixMeister BPM analyzer

More of a DJ tool, but also useful to build a song around a non-metronomed take. Simple & free.

Note: it gives the average bpm of a track; if you have tempo changes chop up the mp3 at the change points and feed the parts to the app.

UpStereo

Sick of having to turn up the volume when your entry comes up while listening to a fight you're in? Try this. It's free.

The Ozone demo I'd d/l'ed will probably have expired by the time I enter a fight again, so I'll be using this instead, I'm sure.

Yeah, I know I should be learning how to better use compression and EQing and parametric whosikajiggers and spectral analysis and stuff... and I'll finish mixes well before the deadline so's I can actually listen to them for a couple of days and figure out what's wrong with 'em too, instead of doing it all at the last minute, nay, the last second.

Yeah, right.

Wow. Just a bunch of cool instruments and eqs for mac and pc.

http://kunz.corrupt.ch/?Products

ken wrote:Wow. Just a bunch of cool instruments and eqs for mac and pc.

http://kunz.corrupt.ch/?Products

WOW!!! Seriously folks, go check this out. I just played around with the VSTi's that replicate the SH-101 that I have and the Juno-60 that I would like to get, and now I'm thinking I don't need the hardware versions anymore. The SH-101 copy is awesome. Haven't checked out their other stuff yet, but those two synths alone are great to have as VSTi's.

The Canadian Metal Pack!

http://www.kvraudio.com/get/3932.html