hmmmm, was just listening to Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger and for the millionth time wondered how they nailed that perfect robot voice. There's no doubt it my mind it's either a vocoder or something else, doesn't sound like a talkbox... The pronunciations are very clear and easy to make out. I've seen people try to emulate it but never come close. What do you guys think they used to get that robot voice?

Thanks for posting this. I guess that's close, but still no quite 100%. That might be because the tone of the voice is different perhaps? I wish this guy had done the Discovery version (original). I also wish he had recorded it directly, lol.

haha. Mate that sounds pretty identical to me, and I've listened to the original millions of times. Of course you are never going to get it exactly the same unless you sample it, who knows what Daft Punk did to it in processing? they could have done a million different things to it with different effects units which altered it ever so slightly...

there was a video I saw the other day which was some guy explaining how they did it, maybe that would be our holy grail but i didn't watch it....funny i see your thread today asking...wish I could remember where I saw it.....

Yea, you're right about getting it to sound 100%. I wish I could pick one of those up, I saw just one on ebay for $400, lol.

I always thought Daft Punk used a Roland VP-9000, but that talk box sounds pretty good to me.

That sounded pretty good to me.... Did he record the voice before hand...or was he speaking into some mic I couldn't see?

What do you have to do to get that effect in the box? Say with Cubase 5?

I bet they just sang into a cola bottle, baby.

add a little distortion and it's ready...

I disagree. Still think it sounds like talkbox, maybe recorded as single-note phrases and played out with, say, melodyne (?). I do agree though that it is mysterious... Would also really like to know.

It was recorded in real time. Talk boxes don't use mics, they use tubes, and you can see this one hanging down from his mouth, between his arms, as he performs.

You are partly right- Talk boxes do use a tube and it's that output blowing into your mouth that litteraly acts as the modulation for your voice singing into a mic.

BUT, in this guy's video, he's using hte Digitech Talker, which does NOT use a Talk Box tube.

It's really just a handful of presets.

-andrews

got it

It's probably each phrase through the Digitech Talker then sampled and sequenced.

I'm sure the melody was in place prior to vocals etc...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-LJ2...e_gdata_player


This was my try at it a few years ago

I'm glad someone did heh

Nice try, but I don't think they used a talk box for this song...

lol

What's lol?

How come?

The singing in Daft Punk's songs are way too clear, precise, easy to make out (the lyrics) etc. for me to believe they were done with a talkbox.

When I think of a talkbox (or hear one) I think of a talking guitar for example (or guitar that sounds like it's talking) very wet and watery.

When I think of a vocoder (or hear one), it's the opposite. I think of a voice that has been transformed/effected or how do I put it.... Vocoded? lol Vocoders can be very effective while still seeming up front, dry, clear, and precise (of course big improvement on pronunciations when compared to a talkbox).

Even experienced talkbox users still cannot match the clarity of pronunciations through a vocoder or whatever else there is.

Look up videos on youtube.

didn't daft punk use one of the vocoder effects from the ensoniq dp2/dp4? i recall hearing that somewhere anyway.

this was SUPPOSED to be quoted >.>

I disagree, it sounds too "watery" as someone put it, like a lot of typical talk box & vocoder sounds this. Plenty of generic vocoder/talk box sounds can get vaguely close if you use the right tone of voice, but it'll sound shitty in comparison.

This is the closest I've heard, very impressive, just needs a bit of distortion or something somewhere in the mix -

YouTube - Daft Punk - Harder Better Faster Stronger (talkbox demo)

I believe Daft Punk tend to use a DX100 which gives it that tone that's almost like a guitar but less filtered/muddy. The Microkorg has some digital waveforms so I imagine they're being used here. You can hear this sounds like a lot of the sounds they use -

YouTube - Something About Us (Talkbox Cover)- Daft Punk

I don't fully understand the difference between the Talk Box and the Vocoder, I understand the difference mechanically but not if they actually sound all that notably different. It seems the talk box is clearer to me though, but it could just be the patch.

I imagine you'll need a Vocoder with more bands than something like the Microkorgs, which has a pathetic 8, though I'm not sure how much difference it makes when you're not trying to sound like a human voice.

Well the first video you posted is because the guy has the actual song playing over his whole performance just about. So yea, it's gonna sound good no doubt when what you're hearing is the original... I think around 1:20 or something you can hear his playing gets louder than the music and it's really not that accurate at all.

The second video you posted truly amazed me. I've never seen a better (crisp pronunciations) talkbox performance. But even though as clear as it was it still sounded very much like human vocals. I still think daft punk uses a vocoder as opposed to a talkbox for their nitty gritty HBFS sound. Just check out the song Human After All, the part where he goes "mmmmmmmmmmm", I don't think that's possible with a talkbox as saying "mmmmmmmmmmm" requires your mouth to be closed...

Most of their 'vocode' stuff originates from the Ensoniq DP/4+ Vocoder Preset.

Hope this helps.

lol crappy Microkorg Vocoder.

I had a better setting but I lost it. Oh well.

television.mp3 - File Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage

The first video though, he got so close it just sounds like the original is louder. Maybe ask him to post a clip of it on it's own. I disagree it's going to sound good either way. If it was less clear, it would sound less clear overall than the original since a muddier signal is mixed in, but it isn't. You can hear times when he purposely goes off that the sound matches up.

Thanks Don. Interesting. So who here has an Esoniq DP-4? haha

99% sure it's a talkbox, they said so in an interview, 1% chance it was just a very boring dream.

Considering they probably made the talkbox themselves and then processed it...why people want to replicate the exact sound is beyond me, you could make anything, why copy?