The vocal effects of Daft Punk

Marc added some extra flavor <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mastodon.social&#x2F;@marcedwards&#x2F;114454783708869207" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;mastodon.social&#x2F;@marcedwards&#x2F;114454783708869207</a><p>&gt; <i>This article is the longest piece I’ve published on Bjango’s site, and it took a couple of years of research. I purchased around 25 pieces of music gear. I emailed Imogen Heap, and to my surprise, someone from her team got back to me and confirmed the exact harmonizer used on Hide and Seek.</i><p>&gt; <i>It’s been a huge effort, and I’m confident it contains a lot of information that is not widely known. For those of you who are into Daft Punk, I hope it’s interesting.</i>

It is unreal to me the amount of impact Daft Punk had with only four studio albums.

Very cool OP listening to the original samples compared against the different harmonizers and vocoders.<p>The Sennheiser VSM201 sounds so clean, I really like the analogue sound. The TC Helicon Talkbox Synth also sounds nice.<p>For the harmonizers, the Digitech Studio Vocalist EX sounds the best to me, but I also like the Korg ih Interactive Vocal Harmony for its spacey vocal effects.

This is a really great deep dive, I wish I could upvote more to reward this kind of quality work.

Reading the title I thought this was about extraordinary singing techniques. But nice article anyway.

I was a bit surprised by this article as it actually contradicts the account I always heard, which was their main vocal effect was a Roland VP-9000. If you listen to e.g. Harder Faster the effect is somewhere in between a vocoder &amp; autotune, so I assumed that was the VP-9000. That said, this guy has clearly done his homework (pun intended) so I&#x27;m inclined to accept his version of events.

If you have a vocoder, running a drum machine through the modulator won&#x27;t sound all that much like daft punk, but will probably sound familiar. And maybe become part of your sound.<p>If you don&#x27;t have a vocoder, Behringer recently released one as a Eurorack module for $99. It&#x27;s fine.

Tangentially related if you make music in the box and want some simple Daft Punk breakdowns to experiment from:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;reverbmachine.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;daft-punk-homework-synth-sounds&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;reverbmachine.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;daft-punk-homework-synth-soun...</a> <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;reverbmachine.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;daft-punk-discovery-synth-sounds&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;reverbmachine.com&#x2F;blog&#x2F;daft-punk-discovery-synth-sou...</a>

Outstanding article, don&#x27;t skip the youtube videos!

I love, no luuuurrve, this article. Just fantastic research and fantastically useful for a music project I&#x27;m workin&#x27; on.

Speaking of Daft Punk: I have been so intrigued by their decision to never show their faces, and always use masks.<p>Anyone here has any good article, or explanation, or theory, of why is that the case?

Ah, the Sennheiser VSM201. Just a $30K vocoder. Seems like it was $25K when it released in 1977, but also didn&#x27;t get to sell even 50 units, so quite rare.<p>I guess you can get similar results with cheaper hardware, but if you have money and you have it around... ¯\_(ツ)_&#x2F;¯

Obligatory post of the legendary Bode Vocoder demonstration: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=5kc-bhOOLxE" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=5kc-bhOOLxE</a>

I went down a similar rabbit hole at the start of my PhD and I wish I’d written more of it up. One of my theories is that they combined effects quite often. For example, “harder better faster stronger” seems more likely to be a talk box recorded for a single note, then looped, then run through an AutoTune rack unit with MIDI inputs to repitch it. I mention this a little bit in a talk I have at ADC 2022 <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;uX-FVtQT0PQ?feature=shared" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;youtu.be&#x2F;uX-FVtQT0PQ?feature=shared</a>

Any good software vocoders out there?

Tangentially related; here&#x27;s a great example of the classic daft punk vocal synth: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=0mXLNnZvGJw" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=0mXLNnZvGJw</a>

But... Skala?!