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Moog Spectravox: full overview, how vocoders work and exclusive downloads
🕑 Added 2019-04-29 20:37:57 +0000 UTCHi!
Steve Dunnington from Moog did it again. He took technology from the 1930s and re-spun it in an extremely interesting and compelling way.
When I heard this year's Moogfest project was a vocoder I was a bit disappointed, but the vocoder in Spectravox is just an entry point into a world of madness possible with a synth that has 10 filters... (30 if you count the vocoder part...) and the synth portion of Spectravox, in my opinion, delivers big time. It's deep, bassy and rich: the filters make it sound quite unlike anything out there.
On the vocoder side - whether you like vocoders or not, I think how they work is fascinating, and entirely analog, based on Homer Dudley's patent from 1939. My video walks through the idea if you're interested, but the crux of it is just a few band pass filters tuned to specific frequencies, fed into envelope followers which control another set of filters. How simple and brilliant. More in the video.
I included two jams at the end of the video, and they're attached here for your convenience as Patreon exclusive downloads:
Jam #1: A drone-style jam that goes through a few different textures possible with an oscillator and noise passed through multiple filters at modulated at LFO and audio rates.
Jam #2: A rhythmic jam based on a mad patch by my workshop table buddy (and long time Patreon supporter...) Stefan. There are quite a few rhythmic sweet spots to explore in this one... and the percussive way the filters ring is really nice. This reminds me of the filters in QPAS, which also uses State Variable Filters.
It was a real treat meeting some of you at the workshop - and if you're going to be in Berlin for Superbooth and want to say hi and chat feel free to reach out.
While we're on the topic of Superbooth - if there's anything you'd like me to check out there let me know - even in real time as new things are bound to come up...
Finally, a welcome thanks to all the new Patrons and an even bigger one to all of you who continue to support - trips like this and the one to Superbooth aren't cheap and wouldn't happen without this little thing we have going on here.
Feel free to reach out with questions/comments/feedback/topics you're interested in me covering.
Yours,
Ziv (singing in vocoderish on YouTube as "Loopop")
Comments
Hi David, thanks very much taking the time to write and sharing - if you liked that drone you may like my Lyra 8 video as well... Regarding Moog mass manufacturing the Spectravox - for obvious reasons if I had any inside info I couldn't share it. Speaking purely speculatively I don't see the two as competing with each other - the limited number of bands on Spectravox don't make it a clearly legible vocoder - I see it more as an instrument and effect than traditional vocoder. Will they make it? It's really up to you and others asking them to I think - that's what happened in the past for other (but not all) workshop instruments. Thanks for your support!
Ziv, Since Moog issued the 16 Voice Vocoder in the last year, a very different beast than the Spectravox, does this kill the chances for the Spectravox entering production? Your drone jam left me remembering a few of the presets in Soniculture's "Geosonics" (for NI's Kontakt) and the ambient sound recording by Chris Watson that are the foundation of each preset. He made several recordings of sand and grass vibrating in the wind that are quite haunting in much the same manner as this drone. While these ambient recordings capture a level of detail that are unlikely to be captured in the mechanics of fingers on knobs or human breath on a microphone, I find my own reaction both to your drone and the Watson recording fascinating - it is exactly the same in both instances: a bit of fear, goosebumps and a tensing of the diaphragm. These are probably holdovers from a childhood spent in the snowbelt countryside outside of Buffalo, NY where such sounds were precursors to temperature drops, whiteout conditions and a sea of frozen waves - snowdrifts across the fields and roads taller than me (at age 9 or 10).
Yes, the smd parts were already placed, we just did the through-hole components. That's already plenty of work, haha.
Jason Hoffman
I’m jealous! How cool. It looked like all the surface mount components were already placed-or did part of the process not get included? Were you left with all the passive components (faders, pots, jacks and switches)? Were there any discrete transistors like I kind of want to imagine a Moog having under the hood?
