So I discovered Imogen Heap this past weekend (why hadn’t i heard of her before?). On the song “hide and seek”, she is using a piece of equipment apparently called a harmonizer, coupled with a vocoder to achieve the sound. Here is a video link of her playing it live (i prefer the studio version of the song, but at least in the live version you can see that she is playing a keyboard)
What I was most curious about on this video though, is that she is actually playing the keys on the keyboard, to change the notes on the harmonizer. I had NO idea this kind of thing was possible! I figured to achieve that sound in the studio, producers had to spend hours of copying/pasting with melodyne or somesuch program.
My Question: Is there a vst that will allow us to do this effect? (and play the keys to change the notes in realtime?)
or is this more of a hardware only kind of thing?
I did a search for some vst harmonizers but what I have found so far isn’t so versatile. You just set the tones and they stay at a set interval from the input source.
I think it sounds straight like a vocoder (being a big fan of them). You could achieve a similar sound with f.ex. Akai’s DC Vocoder (vst-plugin). Pretty impressive song too, haven’t heard it or her before. Thanks for tipping us.
i read an interview in which she said she used a harmonizer and a vocoder. i think it’s like this : mic —> harmonizer —> vocoder
The reason I ask about the harmonizer specifically, is because i think my girlfriend would really like to use it for her singing, but i’m pretty sure she doesn’t want her voice to sound like a robot
i found another interview where she describes its function:
“Out of the corner of my eye i spotted my harmonizer (a little box that you hook up to a keyboard via midi so you can play in the notes you want your voice to transpose to in real time)”
usually i’m not impressed by artists who use this kind of live recording/looping, but her use of fading parts of it in and out makes the song very dynamic even though it’s just a technology assisted vocal solo
I put my friend’s voice through an Electrix Warpfactory Vocoder, with a Kawai SX-210 on the synth input, reverbed the result and mixed it back in with the clean vocal.
Similar sort of thing to Imogen Heap, but not quite.
(there are vst and standalone versions either)