by madeofpalk on 5/5/25, 11:49 AM
Marc added some extra flavor
https://mastodon.social/@marcedwards/114454783708869207> 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.
> 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.
by jedimastert on 5/5/25, 12:58 PM
It is unreal to me the amount of impact Daft Punk had with only four studio albums.
by smjburton on 5/5/25, 2:17 PM
Very cool OP listening to the original samples compared against the different harmonizers and vocoders.
The Sennheiser VSM201 sounds so clean, I really like the analogue sound. The TC Helicon Talkbox Synth also sounds nice.
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.
by Isamu on 5/5/25, 12:40 PM
This is a really great deep dive, I wish I could upvote more to reward this kind of quality work.
by amelius on 5/5/25, 12:44 PM
Reading the title I thought this was about extraordinary singing techniques. But nice article anyway.
by debrisapron on 5/5/25, 8:56 PM
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 & autotune, so I assumed that was the VP-9000. That said, this guy has clearly done his homework (pun intended) so I'm inclined to accept his version of events.
by brudgers on 5/5/25, 3:08 PM
If you have a vocoder, running a drum machine through the modulator won't sound all that much like daft punk, but will probably sound familiar. And maybe become part of your sound.
If you don't have a vocoder, Behringer recently released one as a Eurorack module for $99. It's fine.
by _DeadFred_ on 5/5/25, 4:56 PM
by gen3 on 5/5/25, 3:33 PM
Outstanding article, don't skip the youtube videos!
by brianstorms on 5/5/25, 3:54 PM
I love, no luuuurrve, this article. Just fantastic research and fantastically useful for a music project I'm workin' on.
by simonebrunozzi on 5/8/25, 4:33 PM
Speaking of Daft Punk: I have been so intrigued by their decision to never show their faces, and always use masks.
Anyone here has any good article, or explanation, or theory, of why is that the case?
by tecleandor on 5/5/25, 11:53 AM
Ah, the Sennheiser VSM201. Just a $30K vocoder. Seems like it was $25K when it released in 1977, but also didn't get to sell even 50 units, so quite rare.
I guess you can get similar results with cheaper hardware, but if you have money and you have it around... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
by pea on 5/6/25, 2:23 AM
by xavriley on 5/5/25, 7:34 PM
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
https://youtu.be/uX-FVtQT0PQ?feature=sharedby nprateem on 5/5/25, 3:24 PM
Any good software vocoders out there?
by roblh on 5/5/25, 6:51 PM
by nickisnoble on 5/5/25, 7:03 PM
But... Skala?!