Vocoders and Vocal Chops

In this chapter, we’ll learn about special effects that can be applied to vocals. These effects can make your songs distinctive and memorable. We’ll discuss how to create vocal harmonies and how to use vocoders to modulate your vocals with an instrument. Lastly, we’ll look at how to create vocal chops.

In this chapter, we’ll cover the following topics:

• Understanding vocoders
• Understanding MIDI
• Using vocoders
• Using Vocodex
• Creating vocal chops

Understanding vocoders

What are vocoders? If you’ve heard a voice that has been transformed to sound like a robot, then you’ve probably heard a vocoder. They sound awesome and are my favorite weapon to wield when making music. Vocoding is used extensively in electronic dance music, especially in the house, electro, and dubstep genres. If you’re unsure about what a vocoder effect sounds like, consider checking out the following songs:

• Daft Punk – Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger
• Don Diablo – You’re Not Alone ft. Kiiara

Vocoders create effects that modulate an existing sound. The input sound (usually a vocal) splits into frequency bands and is analyzed for its frequency level and content. We call this the modulator. The vocoder breaks this information down into a series of band pass filters to be used later. In other words, the vocoder figures out what frequencies were used in the vocal.

A second sound (usually...

Understanding MIDI

In order to use vocoders, we need to first know how to use Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI). MIDI is a way for software and electronic devices to pass music information from one device to another so that the new device knows what notes to play. In Chapter 3, Composing with the Piano Roll, we discussed how to record MIDI information to the piano roll. Once entered, notes in the piano roll act as MIDI information that can be passed between instrument plugins.

Passing MIDI information between plugins is useful in a few scenarios:

• Passing MIDI information is how you can communicate with hardware instrument devices. Hardware instruments use MIDI to give and receive information to and from your computer. If you want to play notes directly from FL Studio to or from your hardware device, you use MIDI. FL Studio has documentation and video tutorials to help connect your hardware MIDI devices at http://support.image-line.com/redirect/MIDI_Out.
...

Using vocoders

In this section, we will prepare MIDI for use in plugins. Then we’ll route the MIDI notes into additional instruments and effects, such as vocoder effects. Although we’ll specifically discuss vocoders in this chapter, any plugin that uses MIDI as an input will follow the same steps.

In our examples, we assume that you are using a vocal audio sample to feed into the vocoder. However, you do have the option of using any other sound instead of a vocal, such as a guitar, and this can be used to create interesting effects.

Harmonizing vocals with Pitcher

To illustrate vocoding, we will use a built-in FL Studio plugin called Pitcher, which comes with FL Studio Signature Edition and higher. Although it’s not advertised as a vocoder, it has vocoder features, and most closely resembles how you use other vocoder plugins on the market. Let’s learn how to use Pitcher:

1. Load up a vocal sample in the playlist. Either use an existing...

Using Vocodex

Vocodex is a traditional vocoder and allows you to modulate a vocal. It is used a little differently than most vocoder plugins though, as it doesn’t require MIDI Out to operate. Instead, you can directly use an instrument sound in the mixer.

Let’s begin using Vocodex:

1. To start, you will need to already have a vocal and an instrument playing chord MIDI notes routed to the mixer. We already did this in steps 1–6 in the preceding section on Harmonizing vocals with Pitcher; go through those steps first if you haven’t already.

   In the Vocoder mixer channel that we created earlier, mute any other effects and add the Vocodex plugin, as shown in the following screenshot:

   Figure 9.9 – Adding Vocodex

2. Select the FL Keys mixer channel and the Vocal mixer channel and route them to the Vocoder channel by right-clicking on the Vocoder mixer channel arrow and selecting the Route to this track only option...

Creating vocal chops

In this section, we’ll learn how to create vocal chops. Vocal chops are chopped-up fragments of vocal samples. You hear them most often in electronic dance music, and they are often applied to vocal samples after being processed through a vocoder.

If you’re unsure what vocal chops are, consider listening to some of the following songs, which use vocal chops:

• Porter Robinson & Madeon – Shelter
• Skrillex – First Of The Year (Equinox)
• Skrillex – Summit (feat. Ellie Goulding)

In the upcoming section, we will assume that you are creating vocal chops, but the same techniques can be used to chop up any audio sample. For example, you can just as easily slice up a guitar or drum audio sample.

If your aim is simple, you could slice and dice samples on the playlist just by cutting up a sample manually with the slice tool.

On any sample in the playlist, you can quickly chop up the sample by...

Summary

In this chapter, we learned about some plugin effects that you can apply to your vocals. These effects can enhance your vocals and give your songs a distinctive quality.

We learned how to route MIDI notes to other instruments and effects. We also learned how to generate harmonies for your vocals using Pitcher. We learned how to use vocoders, such as Vocodex. Finally, we learned how to create vocal chops and slice up your samples using Slicex.

In the next chapter, we will explore glitch effects and create our own instruments and effects.