The vocoder is one of those mysterious technologies that’s far more widely used than understood. Here I explain what it is, how it works, and why you should care.
Casual music listeners know the vocoder best as a way to make the robot voice effect that Daft Punk uses all the time.
Here’s Huston Singletary demonstrating the vocoder in Ableton Live.
You may be surprised to learn that you use a vocoder every time you talk on your cell phone. Also, the vocoder gave rise to Auto-Tune, which, love it or hate it, is the defining sound of contemporary popular music. Let’s dive in!