Getting Started with EVOC 20

In this chapter, we'll take a look at the EVOC 20, which is a polyphonic synthesizer combined with the 20-band vocoder. EVOC 20 is capable of creating classic, digital synth, and FM synthesis sounds as well as the stereotypical singing robot vocoder sounds that you'd hear from Kraftwerk or Daft Punk. So what is a vocoder? Vocoder is an abbreviation for voice encoder. Essentially what it does is it will analyze some kind of modulation input, and it'll do that through the sidechain up here. Usually that's your voice. It could be either singing or spoken word. And it'll apply the characteristics from your voice to the synthesizer section and hence you get the singing robot sounds that are normally associated with a vocoder.

So taking a look at the interface of the EVOC 20, there are three main sections. Over on the left, we've got the Synthesizer section, and here is where we're going to be creating our starting- place sound, and it can either stand on its own or it's going to be the basis for the vocoded sound. In the center, we've got all the vocoder parameters, and so this is where we're going to adjust the analysis of the modulation signal, so of our voice, and adjust the sound of the vocoder. Over on the right we've got the amplifier section. Here you can adjust the output level, add in a chorus effect, adjust the stereo width, and also choose what you're monitoring as well.

So let's check out EVOC 20 in action. I've got a musical example here that has a couple of instances of EVOC 20, some acting as just a synthesizer, some of them acting as a vocoder, so that you can hear the range of sounds that are possible. (music playing)