Vocoder vst recommendations

[fidox]

Since I didn't use vst vocoders so far and I have some plans for vocal sample remixing.
I'm using Cubase Artist 13.
There are few on sale and for me harder to choose from

-VocalSynth 2 by iZotope - 40eur
-OrangeVocoder Nano - Vocoder by Zynaptiq - 60eur
-Humanoid - Vocal Processing by Baby Audio - 80eur (newest)
-XILS Vocoder 5000 - Vocoder by XILS Lab - 75eur


Any other recommendation, experiences .... under 100 budget.

Thanks
Matej

[valis]

XILS is good, I also like the Waldorf one.

[fidox]

XILS is good, I also like the Waldorf one.

Uh, Waldorf looks nice, bit expensive, I like their products, like Largo 2 and Nave synths

[valis]

KVR had a waldorf sale recently, AudioPluginDeals regularly has it on sale, and if you amass enough 'credit' from purchasing other sales there it's permanently $49.99 (in USD)
https://audioplugin.deals/product/lector-by-waldorf/

And Plugin Boutique has it for $82.00 (USD)
https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/ ... 434-Lector

[Bud Weiser]

for free ...

https://www.fullbucket.de/music/fbvc.html

try it 1st before you buy something ...

next for $35.- is Cherry Audio,- a company I like much and deserves support,-
https://store.cherryaudio.com/bundles/r ... der-bundle



Bud

[fidox]

And Plugin Boutique has it for $82.00 (USD)

Thanks , didn't know that there is sale too.

[fidox]

next for $35.- is Cherry Audio,- a company I like much and deserves support,-

Thanks.
I have one synth from them "Surrealistic MG-1 Plus Synthesizer".
Will check it.

[Sounddesigner]

Waves Ovox is low-priced but sounds high-quality and pretty flexible, even has a built in Arp. Waves has a lot of different plugins for electronic vocals including Vocal Bender and Harmonizer. It's one of their specialties. Waves plugins are cheap and great sounding but the catch is Waves Central and WUP. I am personally willing to accept those things but i know everyone is not.

Reason has a pretty powerfull vocoder to and worth looking at Youtube videos to see, it's called BV-X Multimode Vocoder.

[Bud Weiser]

Waves plugins are cheap and great sounding but the catch is Waves Central and WUP. I am personally willing to accept those things but i know everyone is not.

Thx for mentioning WUP !
That´s why I hate WAVES as a company per sé.
I don´t buy anything again since they rendered my Waves Renaissance Special Edition useless.
At that time, this product was not cheap at all and I bought from a well known german shop, had no internet at all and DAWs ran offline always.
The shop did the offline activations for me and I installed by using the challenge response code they delivered.
Never ever had the idea I cannot update/upgrade anymore and there´s a WUP existing.
When I wanted to upgrade,- Waves´ support said I shall buy all new.

This is a greedy company, which already tried to move over to subscription only (which didn´t work well),- and I cannot recommend buying their software.

And I experienced the same w/ Steinberg (Cubase SX3 and Wavelab 4),- out of the blue, no upgrade possible anymore.
It all came when Steinberg wasn´t that Steinberg anymore I knew from the past where I knew the founders in person.

My experience is, when companies become too big because they get sold to other investors or other, bigger companies in MI,- it all goes south.
NI is the latest example since being sold to https://www.franciscopartners.com/.

And Reason became also crap since it´s not Propellerhead anymore.
I´m still using v10.4 (w/ Rewire) and 11.6 and won´t upgrade,- it´s not worth the cash since their VST3 piece of s##t Reason Rack Plugin never replaced Rewire.

B.t.w.,- the freeware vocoder in my former post is good enough for the most,- Joe Zawinul used the hardware device live and in his studio always.
The VST freeware is a good emulation !

And when it doesn´t have to be native VST,- why not using the SCOPE devices, routing DAW audio track(s) into Scope and back ?
Vocodizer is a great sounding device IMO.



Bud

[LunaMan]

And Reason became also crap since it´s not Propellerhead anymore.
I´m still using v10.4 (w/ Rewire) and 11.6 and won´t upgrade,- it´s not worth the cash since their VST3 piece of s##t Reason Rack Plugin never replaced Rewire.

RRP works great here in Luna (Mac) and now Windows. The only bit that doesn't work is multi output, which Luna doesn't support anyways. But at the moment all my drums are already rendered out as seperate WAVS. Im not allowed to call them stems since a 'stem' is apparantly not a single part but a submix according to the purists. Anyway loving Reason latest version and RRP here.

[Bud Weiser]

And Reason became also crap since it´s not Propellerhead anymore.
I´m still using v10.4 (w/ Rewire) and 11.6 and won´t upgrade,- it´s not worth the cash since their VST3 piece of s##t Reason Rack Plugin never replaced Rewire.

RRP works great here in Luna (Mac) and now Windows. The only bit that doesn't work is multi output,...

That´s not the point.
The main issue is, it doesn´t allow multiple MIDI channel input,- like a NI Kontakt "Multi" p.ex.,- and the "Combinator" doesn´t help too, regardless if it is version 1 or 2.
And you cannot insert 3rd party VST3 plugins in the (VST3) RRP !
In addition, Reason never made it translating MIDI program changes to Reason devices making this application unusable for live gigging.
I´ll stop here even I´ve found tons of stuff not working as expected in Reason.
I use since version 3 and I´m very disappointed from Reason Studios,- but that´s possibly only me because I´m not only a beat and track maker and re-mixer or DJ.
I wanna play w/ these devices and change patches w/o the need for a mouse or using a controller just only stepping or scrolling thru the patches by using a slider or turning a knob.
Transmitting a number and dang,- that´s what I need.

I´m happy at least that works in SCOPE when it comes to permanant MIDI CC assignment.



Bud

[fidox]

It all came when Steinberg wasn´t that Steinberg anymore I knew from the past where I knew the founders in person.

My first version of Cubase was still on floppy disk

Thanks for all suggestions, will check them out.

[Bud Weiser]

My first version of Cubase was still on floppy disk

Yeah, I remember Cubase 3.x for ATARI when I used both, C-Lab/Emagic Notator SL and Cubase.
Outstanding MIDI features still today,- and great MIDI timing !



Bud

[Sounddesigner]

Waves plugins are cheap and great sounding but the catch is Waves Central and WUP. I am personally willing to accept those things but i know everyone is not.

Thx for mentioning WUP !
That´s why I hate WAVES as a company per sé.
I don´t buy anything again since they rendered my Waves Renaissance Special Edition useless.
At that time, this product was not cheap at all and I bought from a well known german shop, had no internet at all and DAWs ran offline always.
The shop did the offline activations for me and I installed by using the challenge response code they delivered.
Never ever had the idea I cannot update/upgrade anymore and there´s a WUP existing.
When I wanted to upgrade,- Waves´ support said I shall buy all new.

This is a greedy company, which already tried to move over to subscription only (which didn´t work well),- and I cannot recommend buying their software.

And I experienced the same w/ Steinberg (Cubase SX3 and Wavelab 4),- out of the blue, no upgrade possible anymore.
It all came when Steinberg wasn´t that Steinberg anymore I knew from the past where I knew the founders in person.

My experience is, when companies become too big because they get sold to other investors or other, bigger companies in MI,- it all goes south.
NI is the latest example since being sold to https://www.franciscopartners.com/.

And Reason became also crap since it´s not Propellerhead anymore.
I´m still using v10.4 (w/ Rewire) and 11.6 and won´t upgrade,- it´s not worth the cash since their VST3 piece of s##t Reason Rack Plugin never replaced Rewire.

B.t.w.,- the freeware vocoder in my former post is good enough for the most,- Joe Zawinul used the hardware device live and in his studio always.
The VST freeware is a good emulation !

And when it doesn´t have to be native VST,- why not using the SCOPE devices, routing DAW audio track(s) into Scope and back ?
Vocodizer is a great sounding device IMO.



Bud

I'll admitt Waves is'nt a easy company to defend cause they have done some shady things in the past, but i'll play a little 'Devil's-Advocate'.

Waves know's a lot of people have problems with Central and WUP hence all the $29 plugin sales. When plugins are super cheap there is little risk and they know many will see it that way. It worked with me as some of their plugins are amongs the best i heard but also amongs the cheapest prices. When Waves threatened us with Subscription-Only i was a little upset but not too angry or worried since i did'nt pay much for them and get years of use, and generally have other alternatives that suffice. But the wrath of the customer-base shamed them and forced them to change their minds.

I'd never pay more than $50 for a Waves plugin cause they are a bit greedy and untrustworthy. I view Waves and Roland as supplimentary tools not main tools, they would'nt be the first that i buy but i especially still find Waves usefull and VERY complimentary.

Some people love the fact that Waves still sell their plugins from 30 years ago, as they can still upgrade or buy new at $29 and still continue to use the plugins they've always used. I don't know of any other Native developers still making their very old plugins available. Waves also has some of the best Tech-Support. They have actual 'Phone Support' and many agents, something that's rare now. I've called them on multiple occassions and got good help and problems solved. Phone is quicker and eats up less time but the industry is getting away from this cause it's costlier.

WUP is'nt anything you have to constantly do and can actually rarely do. I am running plenty of old Waves plugins that were not updated, i have a mixer of v12/v13/v14/v15 plugins running on my system. My old plugins run just fine and i find Waves plugins to generally be rock solid stable as they are VERY experienced coders. They've been coding plugins since 1992 when they released Q10 eq and was the first developers to code plugins for the Protools dsp platform. Waves name is pretty synonomous with the Native platform along with NI, etc.

I did'nt know NI was sold. This is odd since they just bought izotope and Brainworx. Presonous and SSL and many others were sold in recent years. Big Corporations are trying to buy up the Audio industry and impose things like Subscription-Only, one just have to be carefull and pick their poison wisely. I hate ILOK Dongle but also view it as one of the safe havens and counters to Subscriptions.

SCOPE Vocoders are a good option possibly for the OP but not me since the stock vocoders don't work at 96khz samplerate.

[Bud Weiser]

... Waves still sell their plugins from 30 years ago, as they can still upgrade or buy new at $29 and still continue to use the plugins they've always used. I don't know of any other Native developers still making their very old plugins available.

As I said,- mine aren´t available FOR ME anymore except I buy ´em all new.
You know, I bought this "Waves Renaissance special edition" bundle when activation worked via challenge/response.
Since I maintain old computers,- I would be to use that bundle as it is and together w/ an older Steinberg Wavelab v4 version,- which is still good enough for many purposes,- on a Intel Pentium 4/ Win XP machine.
But it´s impossible because there´s no way to activate anymore.

This is the same w/ NI when they discontinued "Service Center".
Tons of devices unusable because there´s no way activating ´em anymore,- and it will continue when the original Native Access will be discontinued soon as it was announced lately in the NI Community forums by "Hajo@NI" (NI employee).

In fact, these companies more or less legaly "steal" what you bought.

To me, it´s correct I´m unable to move on technically when deciding not to upgrade,- but for me it´s also not necessary upgrading all the time.
These "old" and discontinued pieces of software sound the same as they did when they were the latest greatest and when I bought a licence, it should be possible for me to use ´em as long I can use that old OS and the hardware they were designed for in the past.

It´s simply unfair I cannot re-activate old plugins for old hardware via the latest download and activation portals software manufacturers introduce all the time.
I understand online activation is difficult to realize for such purpose, but it should be possible to request an offline activation code for your old plugins and the old hardware WHEN owning a licence.
I see all my valid licences I bought in the past in my Steinberg, Waves and NI accounts.
So,- that s##t is still registered w/ serial numbers and some companie´s account schemes still show the activation codes formerly used.
So what ?
IMO, they simply don´t want to provide this possibility, forcing you to follow their upgrade plans.

Waves also has some of the best Tech-Support. They have actual 'Phone Support' and many agents, something that's rare now. I've called them on multiple occassions and got good help and problems solved. Phone is quicker and eats up less time but the industry is getting away from this cause it's costlier.

Well, me, as a paying customer, I don´t have to wrap my head around manufacturer´s business models and I don´t give a s##t on what´s costier for ´em or not.
It´s THEIR risk they should think about earlier.
In fact, the more buggy software is, the more "support" it needs.
Simply don´t roll out too many products too early and it will work.
I myself, I don´t need "support" very often,- but I agree, telephone support was way better then these "ticket" and/or "bot chat" solutions.

I did'nt know NI was sold. This is odd since they just bought izotope and Brainworx.

AFAIK, "Francisco Partners" 1st bought NI and then iZotope, Brainworx and Plugin Alliance,- and I expect they will buy more.
They are just only tech investors, not music producers, musicians or related in any way,- it´s all about max. profit.
The result is https://www.trustpilot.com/review/www.n ... uments.com.

This is kind of kraken spreading it´s tentacles all over,- see MusicTribe, InMusic etc..
maybe they buy Waves one day too.

I hate ILOK Dongle but also view it as one of the safe havens and counters to Subscriptions.

I avoided iLok since I use software, instead owned the eLicencer and still own the Reason Ignition Key sitting in my Win7 DAW where Reason 10.4 and 11.x are running.
So, in my experience, dongles prevent from nothing ...

Steini discontinued the eLicencer and Reason Studios the Ignition Key,- and now what ?
I was able to sell Cubase SX3 w/ on of my eLicencer dongles to an idealist running it on an old computer.
The other elLicencer became worthless when it became impossible "upgradeing" my Waldorf Wave 3V 32Bit to 64Bit because I missed the "deadline" for.

The majority of my Steini software products is now listed under "hardware" in my account,- all with their serial numbers,- and unusable.
The only usable is real hardware,- Nuendo (RME) 8 I/O, Nuendo (RME) 9652 and Nuendo Timelock Pro.

Yesterday I installed the free Halionsonic and tested some free devices for and guess what,- when logging out from and quitting the running activation assistant,- the products will be de-activated again.
It´s ajoke.

And Reason w/ their new online activation model is a joke too,- so I won´t upgrade anymore.

I simply didn´t buy licence keys,- promising I don´t have to be connected to the internet w/ my DAW machines,- w/ the expectation these will be discontinued one day and will be obsolete with the death of the system drive or any other component of the/a machine only.

That´s why I love SCOPE,- the software keys are bound to the hardware and as long as I have working machines w/ native PCI slots and/or at least PCIe x1, I can run SCOPE on any OS (Win XP up toWin 11) as also any version of SCOPE (v4 ´til v7) 32 and 64Bit.

IMO, this is how it should work always and everywhere.

SCOPE Vocoders are a good option possibly for the OP but not me since the stock vocoders don't work at 96khz samplerate.

Acceptable,- but guess what,- I never used 96k in my life,- just because no one asked for.



Bud

[nebelfuerst]

I have a harddrive full of software, which I bought from companies no longer in business.
Although there are no updates any more, the software still works as expected.


As non-professional musician, some projects take years to complete. VSTs, which refuse to work, as their license server is down, really suck.

The worst case of "rented software" can occur if it's related to expensive hardware, which cannot be used any more, if the rental service goes down.
While the software industry tries to "rent" software instead of selling it, even the young generation seems to learn about disadvantages of this model. (They're lossing game licenses and songs which they "bought" in the cloud some time ago. )