In Summary

Taking the sound of its big sister and injecting it into a smaller, more affordable package, Zynaptiq’s ORANGE VOCODER NANO promises the essence of the Orange sound for producing creators. Here we take it for a spin…

What Does Vocoding Actually Do?

While some might not realise it, they might already be acquainted with the vocoder’s robotic voicings, cropping up on records from the likes of Grandmaster Flash, Kraftwerk, Imogen Heap, Beastie Boys, and even Phil Collins.

It might be known as a creative treatment, but interestingly its flavours actually come from mid-twentieth century military and communication technologies. Initially crafted to condense voice information for encryption and bandwidth reduction along communication lines, these designs fell out of favour, later being revived by synth innovators later on.

Taking a Modulator such as a human voice, existing sounds known as the Carrier get the former’s spectral fingerprint impressed upon them. The modulator is analysed across multiple bands, each feeding corresponding bandpass filters at the same frequencies. The carrier is passed through a bank of filters that respond to the analysed bands from the modulator

This electronic alteration mirrors the acoustic effects of a talkbox, which utilises the filtering attributes of a singer's mouth to transform sounds.

ORANGE VOCODER NANO In Action

In the video we drop Orange Vocoder Nano in across a vocal as the modulator track. This triggers vocoding across Orange Vocoder Nano’s in-built sawtooth monosynth as the carrier. We run through its features including four of its big sister’s vocoder modes, as well as its simple mixer, formant shifter, and subtle stereo chorus. We also show how artists can click directly in the GUI to play the synth for when external MIDI isn’t available, giving composers a taste of Orange Vocoder IV’s sound for less money.

For producers who want the unique, classic tones of vocoding, using a fully-featured professional tool will get the job done eventually, but not after taking on a bit of a learning curve for all the parameters. The impressive sound happens at the end of a pretty complicated process that could be in danger of stalling the creative flow when fast infusions are needed.

For those in need of vocoded monosynth flavours, who were only ever going to use a handful of Zynaptiq’s algorithms, the ORANGE VOCODER IV uber-morpher might be a mountain that they might struggle to climb. Responding to a need, ORANGE VOCODER NANO does exactly what artists want: pain-free vocoding. Not only that, but it’s less than half the price of the ‘big’ one.

ORANGE VOCODER NANO Key Features:

• Four Zynaptiq vocoding algorithms from ORANGE VOCODER IV: Advanced LPC-35 Medium, Online ICA Butter, Speech Model Detailed, and the zero latency Analog Model Live Tight.

• Formant shifter with +- 12 semitones range.

• Monophonic sawtooth synthesizer as carrier, with 24db low-pass filter, legato glide and vibrato via mod-wheel. Controllable via MIDI or on-screen keyboard.

• 3-way mixer for input, vocoder and synthesizer.

• Super-subtle chorus effect for sweetening.

• Supports AU (Mac only), AAX Native, VST 2.4 and VST 3 on macOS and Windows.

• Upgrade path to ORANGE VOCODER IV available.

A Word About This Article

As the Experts team considered how we could better help the community we thought that some of you are time poor and don’t have the time to read a long article or a watch a long video. In 2023 we are going to be trying out articles that have the fast takeaway right at the start and then an opportunity to go deeper if you wish. Let us know if you like this idea in the comments.