| > Vintage vocoders are preferred for sonic quality, but a good
| > one in good shape can be $1K or more. The vocoding effect is
| > available from some digital units (the Boss SE50, Boss SE70,
| > Korg Wavestation AD).
|
| I'm not concerned with price, but with the articulation. I tried
| a Boss unit with a vocoder effect and couldn't understand a word.
| I've heard vocoders that were very clear. I remember playing an
| old Roland vocoder in 1980ish that was a keyboard with just a
| vocoder (it still turns up, it has the built in waveforms of
| voices going "ah"). It was great but, like an idiot, I didn't buy
| it.
The ENSONIQ DP/4+ devotes a microprocessor to each of four frequency bands,
and has an articulation setting for each band. Up to two parameters per band
can be modified in real-time by MIDI data. For a digital effects processor,
many of the DP/4+ effects sound very good to my ears compared to their analog
counterparts. Alas, I have not yet hooked up the vocoder, so I cannot comment
on its sound quality. The manual seems to indicate that they have done a
good job of addressing the articulation aspect of vocoding.
Brian Willoughby