NAMM 2020 Imitone Pitch to MIDI

Published on Jan 17, 2020 sonicstate

Imitone was featured back in 2014 here.

Also see:
Waves Audio OVox Voice Controlled Software Synth - NAMM 2020
Vochlea Doubler - NAMM 2020 (Use Your VOICE As A MIDI Controller!)
NAMM 2020: Bitwig Studio Vocoder and More
And the Speech Synthesis label

NAMM 2020: Bitwig Studio Vocoder and More

Published on Jan 16, 2020 sonicstate

"At the NAMM show this year Bitwig didn't have any major updates to show off, however they were keen to show us a couple of things that were released late last year. As a Christmas gift to their users they released a vocoder, which allows any of the Bitwig synths to be the carrier and anything to be the modulator. We also took a quick look at their new microtuning plugin and a brief look at the Grid which was announced last year."

Waves Audio OVox Voice Controlled Software Synth - NAMM 2020

Published on Jan 16, 2020 Sound On Sound magazine

"Voice-controlled synth and vocal FX processor with Real-Time Vocal ReSynthesis‎"

Not to be confused with the Vochlea Doubler - NAMM 2020 (Use Your VOICE As A MIDI Controller!)

And three videos from Waves Audio

Published on Jan 16, 2020 Waves Audio

"In OVox, we bring you a next-generation vocal FX synthesizer to transform your vocal productions. Create a limitless palette of rich pitch/tune, harmonizer, vocoder, talkbox, vocal arpeggiation effects and beyond.

Music produced, composed and performed by Egozi"

Playlist:
Introducing Waves OVox: The Next-Generation Voice-Controlled Synth
How do YOU sound with Waves OVox?
How to Produce Unique Vocal Effects: Getting Started with OVox


Details:

Transform your vocal productions with the next-generation voice-controlled synth and vocal effects processor. Create a limitless palette of vocal morphing, tuning, harmonizing, vocoder & talkbox effects and beyond, with depth, clarity, and intuitive control. Available as a plugin or standalone app.

Limitless Vocal Palette

Producers, mixers, songwriters: Say goodbye to boring vocals. OVox gives you an unprecedented menu of vocal synthesis and reshaping options, from the Daft Punk-style vocoder sounds you know and love, to inventive vocal effects as endless as your creativity.

The Magic Under the Hood: Organic ReSynthesis®

OVox is powered by Waves Organic ReSynthesis® (ORS) technology to deliver its unmatched vocal synthesis sound quality.

ORS takes the original vocal signal and breaks it down to its core ‘DNA’ elements—amplitude, pitch, and formant. It then re-synthesizes these elements to create the new vocal sound, which is free of unwanted artifacts and preserves the expressiveness of the original vocal.

Intuitive Control

OVox is instant: no routing required. Simply insert it as a plugin or fire it up as a standalone app – sing, hum, speak or beatbox into it, and hear the magic happen.

MIDI control is optional. You can use OVox with a keyboard or MIDI controller, or with any instrument (for example a guitar) as the ‘carrier.’ Or you can simply use your voice (or a recorded vocal track) to trigger automatic chords, harmonies or scales, using OVox’s automatic Note Mapper.

Pick from Hundreds of Presets – or Dive Deep

Start with hundreds of satisfying presets, then tweak them using the most crucial controls displayed in OVox’s Main View.

Want to dive deeper? Open up OVox’s Expanded View, which unlocks a world of vocal morphing possibilities, including detailed Formant Filter control; nine LFO, ADSR and ORS modulators that can modulate any other control in the plugin; on-board FX; and much more.

The Ultimate Instrument Is You

The human voice is the original instrument—the richest in expression and the fullest in color. OVox turns your vocal—any vocal—into an even more limitless musical playground for you to express your creativity."

https://www.waves.com/plugins/ovox-vocal-resynthesis

Vochlea Doubler - NAMM 2020 (Use Your VOICE As A MIDI Controller!)

Published on Jan 15, 2020 Bedroom Producers Blog

"Demonstrating the Vochlea Doubler Studio Kit at NAMM 2020. This software, in combination with a microphone, turns your voice into MIDI.

With 3 million sounds - What would you create?"

via https://www.loopcloud.com/cloud

Access millions of samples
Audition samples from the entire Loopmasters exclusive sounds catalogue: the biggest library in the world. Our intuitive website lets you preview over 3.5 Million unique samples from your desktop, app or tablet. But most importantly, search for sounds whilst you create. The music never has to stop.

Sound like no one else
Slice, edit and pitch samples with ease using our revolutionary Loop Editor. Create unique patterns, whilst saving all of your edits, effects and pitch information in sample templates. Loopcloud refines your workflow to get you there faster. This is your time; originality will see you now.

Authenticity at your DAW
Forget the imitators, find your sound. Loopcloud automatically connects to your DAW, pulling all of your sounds into the software. And with the new effects rack, you can weave even more personality into your sound. Add filters, reverbs and compression, whilst BPMs bend to your will. With Loopcloud, the possibilities are endless. Authenticity never looked so easy.

All of your sounds - all in one place
Creativity has no time for admin. That’s why Loopcloud organises all of your samples, creating the largest palette imaginable. The storage facility actually indexes and protects your samples from being lost, damaged or stolen. What’s more, it allows you to access your whole collection - wherever you are. Inspiration isn’t at your fingertips, it’s pulsing through your headphones.

Instrumental inspiration
Create signature basslines, percussion parts, arpeggios and much more with the new pitch per region feature. Experiment and play with an extensive collection of plugins, designed to tailor your sound. And, importantly, you can load a range of virtual instruments and effects directly from the software. Every artist needs a trademark - time to tailor yours.

VAX new SD TTS modes

Published on Dec 30, 2019 Polaxis

"Now 3 mode for the VAX DECtalk submodule (using the mode switch):
1) normal mode where the CV or the Sound pot gives access to a specific line of the file (like it uses to be)
2) reading all the lines of the file, the gate triggering the next line of the file. (endless loop)
3) Endless random access on each gate trigger

in this demo, it's looping through the DNA codons table (mode2)
Emy/VAX USB connected to Processing to display the text being uttered"

Polaxis VAX DECtalk

Synthetic Soundlabs Pays a Rare Visit to Bell Lab's VODER Speech Synthesizer From 1939

Update: via Doug: "The console I’m playing is a recreation that was commissioned to me by current Bell Labs President Marcus Weldon. I’m seen here playing it prior to a BL event. Photo by Larry Fast. Also in attendance was Wally DeBacker (Gotye). you can see and hear me play it live on the PBS series 'Breakthrough: History of the Smart Phone' episode [might not be available in your area though]. Narrated by Patrick Stewart, and hosted by former editor of Popular Mechanics, Jim Meigs."

via Synthetic Sound Labs, click through for additional pics.

"For the first time in nearly 80 years, the VODER has been found – well at least some of it. Unfortunately, none of the operator consoles are known to have survived the various archive moves over the years.

On December 15, 2015, SSL’s President Doug Slocum was treated to unprecedented access to the AT&T Archives & History Center in Warren New Jersey to view and record the uncovering of two of the original equipment racks used to train VODER operators in preparation for the Bell System’s 1939 Worlds Fair exhibit."

Check out this post for an old black and white video demo of the VODER when working. You can find a handful of additional posts mentioning the VODER here.

This one was spotted and sent in via M Me.

CLICK FOR MORE »

A Speak & Spell Vocal Effect Plugin?

Published on Dec 10, 2019 once upon a synth

"This is a tutorial and demo of the Soniccharge Bitspeek VST plugin. It's an audio effect plugin which uses technology similar to that used in the old Speak & Spell toys. You can use it to process your vocals to sound like a robot. Or you can use it to inject some lofi vibes into your tracks."

MEA now with phoneme groups (video done with Processing)

Published on Dec 7, 2019 Polaxis

Emy hosting the vintage MEA8000 french speech synthesizer chip.
New Phoneme groups (Voyelles/Consonnes/Syllables/Tous)
Playing with phonemes, inspired by Alva Noto & Anne-James Chaton
Emy’s serial port connected to Processing to display the phonemes in sync.

Speak&SID - CPC MIDI IN SID + AY Synth

Published on Dec 4, 2019 Michael Wessel

"Turn your CPC into a powerful MIDI IN SID + AY Synthesizer!

A new mode has been added to the Speak&SID firmware - the MIDISID mode.

In this mode, Speak&SID can receive MIDI messages over its UART header to which a 10 $ MIDI breakout board is connected via Dupont cables. The Microkorg is used solely as a MIDI controller here (no sounds from the Microkorg). The incoming MIDI messages are then received by the CPC by reading the Speak&SID serial buffer byte by byte, and analyzed and translated into (polyphonous) notes for the internal CPC AY 3-8912 soundchip. At the same time, these notes are also sent to the (ARM)SID chip on the Speak&SID card, which is then also playing the received notes (currently only 1 voice - but for the AY we are using all 3 voices). With a little bit of additional work on the CPC machine code program, all of the SID's capabilities will be controlled via MIDI and/or the CPC keyboard keys in the near future, hence turning a CPC with Speak&SID into a powerful and inexpensive, versatile SID + AY 3-8912 MIDI IN realtime synthesizer. It is even possible to add one more soundgenerator to the mix - the SpeakJet chip is also a 4channel sound synthesizer! Interestingly, as you can hear, the SID and AY sound chip are slightly detuned from each other. Not sure why this is... maybe I need to tune the SID or AY frequencies a bit? Or maybe that's an ARMSID inaccurarcy? Have to try with my real 6581."

Speak&SID CPC - 2nd Demo, Line Out Recording + LEDs!

Published on Nov 9, 2019 Michael Wessel

"This time, a line out recording of Speak&SID CPC. Last video was taken from the camera's mic. Speak&SID's GPIO LEDs are controlled by the CPC, not the firmware. The 4 LEDs, from left to right, are the GATE bits of the corresponding SID cannels, and the 4th LED indicates changes in filter resonance. As the LEDs are controlled by the CPC / SID Player software, it is also possible to turn this LED display into a volume level indicator display, or other kinds of "lightshows". It is easy to patch the ASM for that (all the SID registers are modeled in software there).

In the meantime, the 2nd PCB revision boards arrived. So I should be able to ship out the first Speak&SID cards early December."

VAX reading the complete Apollo 11 Mission transcript.⁣

Published on Nov 27, 2019 Polaxis

"Various DECtalk voices are used to mimic the dialog between Eagle and Houston.
End of lines are used to trigger beeps via the Aux signal.
Morse message is done with Emy in keyboard-Morse mode.
Audio Ring Modulation processed by the Zoom MS-50G.
(the VAX file is available here: https://www.polaxis.be/download/apoll...)"

VAX singing compilation

Published on Nov 16, 2019 Polaxis

"In action: VAX the DECtalk speech engine for EMY in singing mode, reading song files from the SD card.

These files are just text files with phonemes duration and pitch. Many songs are lying around on the web. Check for 'DECtalk' singing or Moonbase Alpha songs...

Can you recognize them?"

Funny, almost thought someone was singing through the system. You can find more posts featuring the Polaxis EMY here.

Ploytec PL2 Logos Prototype Board

Published on Nov 3, 2019 mCKENIC

"My first play with the Ploytec PL2 Logos Text-To-Speech USB MIDI Synthesizer.
This thing is EXACTLY as much fun as I had hoped it would be!"

Polaxis VAX new firmware : reading long text file

Published on Oct 25, 2019 Polaxis

"VAX now can read any text file line by line without intervention.(here connected via the USB to display each sentence - for fun).

Great to add « lyrics» to your music.

Users can choose between one read or an infinite loop.
The Sound pot is used to adjust the delay between characters.

Here playing Greta Thunberg's Speech At The U.N. Climate Action Summit"

Emy firmware update: now with the Speak & Spell sounds

Published on Oct 16, 2019 Polaxis

"Added the beeps and the voice from the Speak&Spell to Emy’s latest firmware. Here in the standalone Terminal version with wireless keyboards.⁣"

11-The Arturia MicroFreak- Oscillator types K: Speech

Published on Aug 30, 2019 AutomaticGainsay

"Here is a demonstration of the 'speech' digital oscillator found on the Arturia MicroFreak."

Arturia MicroFreak videos by AutomaticGainsay

LambdaSpeak 3 - Amstrad / Schneider CPC MIDI IN Synthesizer Demo

Published on Aug 7, 2019 Michael Wessel

Demo comes in at 1:18. This is a follow-up to the LambdaSpeak & LambdaDrum for the Amstrad CPC post here.

"Good news - the LambdaSpeak 3 Serial Interface is now versatile and fast enough to support MIDI IN in real time!

The Akai Miniak synthesizer shown in this video is only used as a MIDI controller, and it is the CPC that is actually producing the sound that you hear, NOT the Miniak.

Hence, LambdaSpeak's MIDI IN DIN socket receives MIDI NOTE ON / NOTE OFF messages from the Miniak, and the CPC is running a simple 'CPC MIDI Synthesizer' machine code program that interprets the MIDI messages and turns them into sound, via the internal CPC GI AY-3-8910 soundchip.

Besides this, MIDI OUT also already works with LambdaSpeak 3, and it can even be programmed from BASIC. Regarding MIDI IN, the CPC is fast enough to do the MIDI real time processing as demonstrated in this video with no latency, provided a machine code program is used.

This 'CPC MIDI Synthesizer' machine code program will be extended soon to also process note velocity, pitch bend MIDI controller, as well as 3 channel polyphony and program change messages for changing the sound.

Stay tuned for updates!

I will put the 'CPC MIDI Synthesizer' program on the LambdaSpeak LS300.DSK on the Github page for reference. Please note that you will require the latest LambdaSpeak 3 firmware to run it."

What Do George H. W. Bush, She-Ra, and He-Man Have in Common?

A giant mother f'ing Speak n Spell is what.

via @deejayiwan

"@matrixsynth George H. W. Bush talking to Jack and Leslie Wadsworth (He-Man and She-Ra), during a 1987 Masters of The Universe Power Tour. Behind them is a giant Speak & Spell. It doesn't get any more 80’s than this.... #AI #synth"

Texas Instruments Speak & Read with 1/4" Output Jack

Note: Auction links are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this auction

"Vintage Texas Instruments Speak & Read with original vinyl case and accompanying book with a 1/4" jack added. Tested with batteries and works great, some very slight cosmetic scuffs here and there and printing fading on the case, and an extra 1/4" output jack has been added for speaker or headphone amplification."

CLICK FOR MORE »

Ice Ice Baby - Old School Computer Remix Featuring Stephen Hawking DECtalk Vocals

Published on Jun 4, 2019 bd594

"Sorry, It has been a while since my last old school computer remix. Can someone tell me what phone number I am dialing? Hint listen to the other end answer the phone. The audio is optimized for stereo headphones. About 60% of my time was spent programming the DECTalk vocals for Ice Ice Baby. It was really tough to keep the vocals in sync. Back in 2009 I used a 8 inch floppy in my Bohemian Rhapsody video and do prefer that sound. However it appears people are more familiar with 3.5 inch floppy drives rather than 5.25 and 8 inch drives. So in the video I decided to Frankenstein a 3.5 Floppy and CD Rom head assembly.

Devices Used:
Stephen Hawking's vocals - DECTalk Express (Paul)
Backup vocals - DECTalk Express (Harry)
DECTalk TTY Controller - MiniComm II
Bass - Yamaha CX-5M Computer
Synth Bass - 3.5" Floppy / CDRom head mechanism.
Drums - Hard Drive Heads
Cymbals - Hard Drive Platters
Hand Claps - High voltage DC automotive spark coil"

See additional posts featuring bd594's creations here.

Ploytec PL2 Logos Prototype Board on Kickstarter

Ploytec has launched the PL2 Logos prototype board on Kickstarter here. You can find two previous videos below this post in the archives here.

"At Superbooth19 in Berlin we showed a sample of the PL2 Logos prototype board. This PCB makes it a lot easier to translate English text to the allophones needed for Ploytec PL2 based speech synthesis (which is CTS256-AL2 / SP0256-AL2 emulation).

On the board, a PL2 synthesizer is already integrated, so there's no need for a separate PL2 (though it's always good to have some of those).

The included USB keyboard allows entering text, and to store / recall text from memory using function keys. Each function key can hold up to 39 letters in up to six rows.

Via the integrated USB MIDI it's possible to capture and playback the MIDI notes triggering the words. On top, you can record the many MIDI notes representing allophones, to a DAW.

Please note: The knob will be most likely missing on the final board, as it never had any functionality and is not necessary for operation.

Risks and challenges

As the technology is basically working, the task to be done is bug fixing, creating firmware update functionality, changing the PCB to potentially fit into an existing case (not included!) and getting a bunch of PCBs manufactured."