The video demonstrates using the Spectravox to vocode, as a filterbank, as a synth voice, as an effects processor and more.
The Moog Spectravox is an analog spectral processor based around a 10-band filter bank. Spectravox can create lively drones and colorful tonal sweeps on its own, or add resonant depth and “psychedelic spectral movement” to any external sound. Connect a microphone, and Spectravox becomes a 10-band analog vocoder, with innovative integrated modulation of all of its filters.
The Spectravox was originally introduced as the Engineering Workshop project at Moogfest 2019. A key difference in the updated design is that the sliders of the original have been swapped for a row of pots, making room for additional patch points.
Here’s an index of the examples in the video:
00:00 Sneak preview of examples
00:45 Explaining How Spectravox Works
02:04 Spectravox as a Filterbank
04:14 Vocoding a DFAM
05:11 Spectravox as a Synth Voice
07:17 LFO to Spectrally Shift my Voice
07:41 Turning Drum Sounds into Hellscapes
09:35 Completely Remapping My Voice
11:09 Turning my voice into a bassline & snare
12:59 Integrating Eurorack
Watch the video and share your thoughts on the Spectravox in the comments!
Baby Audio’s new Humanoid plugin promises “extreme hard tuning” and vocal transformation.
Originally designed to correct pitchy vocals as transparently as possible, automatic tuning plugins are now just as frequently used as extreme, creative effects.
So, now Humanoid, Baby Audio has dispensed with the idea of creating a ‘natural’ sounding processor and built something that specializes in hard tuning and freaky robotic voice manipulation.
The Pitch section enables you to set a scale to which your vocals will be tuned. There’s also a Note mode that gives you the option of setting the desired pitch manually by clicking on a graphical musical keyboard, or you can ‘play’ Humanoid from your MIDI keyboard.
It’s over in the Synthesize section that things get a little more unhinged. Push the Transform dial to the max and your voice will be turned into – the sound of a synthesizer. More moderate settings will add a more subtle electronic flavour.
There are 64 factory wavetables and you can also import your own, meaning that there’s plenty of scope for tonal variation.
Further processing can be applied via the Filter and Effects sections. The former features high- and low-pass filters plus a sweepable mid band, while the latter offers widening, vibrato and stutter effects.
Humanoid runs on PC and Mac in VST/AU/AAX formats. Its regular price is $129, but you can currently purchase it for $79. There is also a free trial, which you can download from the Baby Audio website.
Tasty Chips shared this video demo of their GR-MEGA Granular Workstation – a granular hardware synthesizer, sampler, effect, sequencer, and spectral time stretcher.
They describe it as “a sound design powerhouse, our top model, and the culmination of the journey we started 8 years ago with the GR-1: the world’s first real granular hardware synth.”
The GR-MEGA is a sample-based device. Record audio with the built-in inputs, and then you can granulate your source samples.
The GR-MEGA is 4 layer multitimbral, and massively polyphonic, and has a wide choice of engines ranging from a traditional sampler with slicing, to a spectral phase vocoder and granular. It’s capable of 128 grains per voice, which can add up to a total of 5000 grains simultaneously.
