Now… What's a vocoder?
“Vocoder” stands for “Voice-Encoder”. It is an electronic device that shapes a synth's waveform - or guitar sound - using your voice's envelope. It was mainly used to make robot-like voices and pads but can also be used to filter other sounds like drum loops. Early hardware vocoders used 11 bands. Modern ones generally use 24 up to 40 bands but some high-end software vocoders can go up to 512 or 1024 bands. But true funkateers will favorite the grittier and fatter 11-band analog vocoder, like this Roland SVC-350 pictured above, used by Midnight Star - among lots of others… Famous brands were EMS, Bode, Moog, Korg, Electro-Harmonix, Roland… The best modern analog vocoders are the X-32 from the french company Analog Lab and the M.A.M. VF-11. Most famous piece of emulated software vocoder is Vokator, from Native Instruments.
Who invented it?
It’s Homer Dudley who first introduced his “Voder”, back in 1928! But it didn’t really make it to the music market until 1970, when Bob Moog and Wendy Carlos design their own. The vocoder became pretty popular in music in the late 70’s and early 80’s.
Who used it?
Famous people/bands who used the vocoder are Earth Wind & Fire, Herbie Hancock, Kraftwerk, Midnight Star, Jean-Michel Jarre… As far as charts are concerned, you heard it in “Let’s Groove” (EW&F), “Rock It” (H.Hancock), “Zoolook” (JM Jarre), “Kelly Watch The Stars” (Air), “Sex Crime” (Eurythmics), “Operator” (Midnight Star)…
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