MIXING & EFFECTS

Fruity Vocoder

Fruity Vocoder is an advanced realtime vocoder effect with a wide range of adjustable parameters and zero latency.

The vocoded sound is referred to as modulator. The sound used for vocoding is called carrier. A classical example is having a voice as a modulator and a synth as a carrier to create the effect of a "speaking synth".

The vocoder works by detecting the levels of certain amount of frequency bands and based on that information, filter the carrier. This makes the carrier obtain the characteristics of the modulator sound.

In this vocoder plugin, the left channel is considered modulator by default, and the right one, carrier (i.e. the vocoder can process only mono sounds). The channel assigment can be changed from the MIX section. There are many ways to create that combination, for ex., using panning, single channel mute, Fruity Send effect, insert tracks chaining (FL Studio Producer Edition only) etc.

Parameters

FREQ section

Min/Max - Those wheels set the frequency range processed in the vocoder. Cutting off high and low frequency regions that are not present in the modulator sound helps you achieve higher quality result with less bands.
Scale - Lets you adjust the scale of the frequency (linear or logarithmic). The best value for this property varies with the type of modulator sound (voice, instrument, noise etc.).
Invert (INV) - This switch inverts the modulator frequencies.
Bandwidth (BW) - This wheels sets the bandwidth of the bandpass filters used to filter the carrier sound. You can think of wider bands as producing softer sound. The best value differs with the different source sounds.

ENV Section

Sets the envelope follower attack and decay. This is the fade in/out times for the envelopes of the frequency bands tracked in the modulator sound.

Attack - Sets the "fade in" time.
Decay - Sets the "fade out" time.

MIX Section

Allows you to mix the source sounds of the carrier and modulator in the final result (use the sliders), or hear the left (modulator) or right (carrier) channel soloed (click the LCD switches).

You can swap the left and right channels assignments (decide whether the modulator is taken from the left and the carrier from the right one or vice versa) by clicking the L and R labels at the top.

Bands Display

Displays the bands and their volume levels and the sound plays. You can adjust the volume of the individual bands by dragging up/down the sliders in the view.

HOLD - Press this switch to hold the current band levels (i.e. "pause" the vocoder's band volume detection). You can automate this switch.
Bands - Allows you to select from 4 to 128 bands to be used for vocoding. The more the bands, the higher the output quality (unless you are looking for some kind of special effect), however, more bands consume more processor power. Also note that unlike the FFT-based the vocoders on the market (which usually use 256, 512 or more bands), Fruity Vocoder uses a more precise detection system, so you can achieve better results with much less bands (and no latency, unlike FFT vocoders!) than usual.
Filter - Allows you to set the filter order. Higher order allows for "steeper" frequency band edges.

Plugin Credits: Didier Dambrin