I am not sure if you have heard of this effect before but this effect is definitely a simple yet effective trick to shape your vocal into a whole new sound. Let me give you an example. In the song “Anytime” by Don Diablo, you can clearly hear the effect in the second break. Click here to listen to it.
You will notice there is some kind of tonality in the vocal. It sounds like a hybrid of vocal and synths. A vocoder is a synthesizer that produces sounds from an analysis of speech input. Vocoding is the process of using the frequency spectrum of one sound to modulate the same in another. The vocoder acts like a series of gates allowing through those frequencies it detects in the modulator. When a human voice is used to modulate a synthesized chord, for example, it can sound like the synthesizer is talking.
Let me show you how to do it in FL Studio.
Overview:
In order to do the vocoding effect, you’ll need a modulator (vocal) and a carrier (synth).
Steps:
1. Mixing your vocal
Before doing this effect, you want to make sure that your vocal sounds good for a better vocoding effect. You can skip this step if the vocal sample is already treated beforehand.
2. Synthesizer
I use Sylenth1 in this case to do the carrier. I only use a simple saw wave to do the effect as I do not want to complicate things up.
I also apply an EQ to cut off some of the high end of the saw.
3. Vocoder
Before you apply Fruity Vocoder on the mixer track, there are a few things you need to do. Be sure to hard pan the vocal to the left and to hard pan the synth to the right. Do not forget to route both of the vocal and synth to the same mixer track.
You can play with the settings inside Fruity Vocoder to add characteristics to your sound. You can adjust the volume of MOD (modulator) and CAR (carrier) to let either one of them to stand out more in the mix.
After that, you just apply some mixing techniques as the ones you would apply on vocals on the vocoder mixing tracks.
And you’re done.
Isn’t that easy?
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Have a great day.
Your W.A. Production team
PS: You can grab the FLP by clicking HERE