Tracks Interact 4: Ableton Live Vocoder

http://www.berkleemusic.com/school/course/advanced-music-production-with-able...

In this series, Berkleemusic.com facilitator Loudon Stearns covers five ways tracks can interact with audio effects using Ableton Live.

The Fourth installment, Vocoder, shows how a Vocoder can be used to create an interaction between tracks. This example uses spoken word as the modulator, controlling a set of band pass filters, and an orchestral texture as the modulator, the signal running through the filters.

You can study with Loudon Stearns at Berkleemusic.com in the Advanced Production with Ableton Live, and Composing and Producing Electronic Music courses.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Ableton
• Ableton live
• Live
• vocoder
• berklee
• berkleemusic
• berkleemusic.com
• loudon
• loudonstearns
• loudon stearns

[jjohnson3030]

So for the Below threshold, downward expansion with a low ratio pretty much acts like a gate?? They don't sound the same though, right? When would you use one or the other?

[LoudonYukon]

@jjohnson3030 Yes you are correct it is similar to a gate, but more accurately described as a downward expander, it is sort of a gentle gate. You can think of a gate as an extreme downward expander, like a limiter is an extreme downward compressor. I tend to use downward expansion more then gating as it is a more natural sound, doesn't cut off tails of cymbals, s sounds on words, and reverb tails as much as gating does.

[TribalSMD]

you need to put a eq before your vocoder. if you turn up the high freq and cut of a lot of the low freq you will understand much more. i did a robot speak rack, where i have my settings. you can understand any word, even if you use a bad mic. i can send you this rack if you want, i would love to share

[LoudonYukon]

@TribalSMD Hey Tribal, great tip, I often put an EQ before the Vocoder, works great! In this instance the goal isn't to create a typical robot voice, the modulator is chordal, where a robot voice usually uses a monophonic modulator. Instead I wanted a strange wash to be used in delays(check it out next week completed). I used a second chain with EQ and distortion to create a "megaphone" type of sound that is paired with the vocoder. The rack stuff is the really cool part about this I think.

[VVooDz]

Really informative video, thanks.

Don't quite understand the reason for the dislike click.

Maybe they missed the like button? Though I wish people would point out what they disliked about someone's video.

[jjohnson3030]

@LoudonYukon Awesome! Very informative, thanks!!!

[MarcioYTchannel]

@djqnrg oh, lolz...



[MarcioYTchannel]

@TribalSMD hey can you share it?

[djqnrg]

@MarcioYTchannel lol yeah man I own the internet. but search ftw and see how many other versions 'they' come up with. fk the world being one of them...

[TribalSMD]

@LoudonYukon thats cool

[MarcioYTchannel]

@djqnrg ftw => for the win

have you learned how to use internet allready?

[djqnrg]

@MarcioYTchannel

ftw?