Please respond to K2000@AMERICAN.EDU
To:	K2000@AMERICAN.EDU
cc:	 (bcc: Carl Schroeder/Inso)
Subject:	VAST vocoding



Hey everybody, who said this thing can't vocode?

Ok so it's not real vocoding.  But I have made a series of vocoder-like 
effects using the amp mod family of DSPs.  The idea is to modulate your 
sample with a sine in the amp mods (I used algs 17, 18, 21), using the 
leftover DSPs to suggest formants based on their frequency strengths 
(LOPASS for low, SHAPERS for mid, HIPASS for high...).  The main pain is 
having to set the AMPENV to cut off after your sample, otherwise you'll 
hear the sine run on.  But tune the pitches, combine a your favorite 
layers, and you've got most of the feel of vocoding.  Sort of a tuned 
distortion with some amplitude accents.  Definite machine/alien 
sound great for industrial dance and sound fx.  You could make it all 
the more convincing by varying some of the parameters with auxilary envelopes
(ENV2, ENV3) to follow the original sound/speech - admittedly that's more
open-ended work, and I didn't get into it.

I can send a sample file about 200K in size to anyone interested.  
It's got controllers in 3 sliders which are
mapped to CTL A-C, but that's only to give you an idea of how you
can tweak each DSP for your sample's characteristics.  All the demo programs
work off the same keymap, so you can just move your keymap on top of that 
(you'll probably want to turn up the volume in your keymap), or you
change my keymap to point to your sample.  And don't forget to goto
AMPENV for each layer to cut at the end of your sample. Good luck, hope 
it doesn't dissapoint!

put your head in something VAST!
Carl in Boston

carl_schroeder@inso.com