 The Rotator is a VST plug-in that uses modeling technology to accurately reproduce the sound of a rotating speaker. Such speakers (also known as "Leslies" after the company who manufactured them) are widely used with organs to give a more animated sound and the "speaker" is commonly associated with the Hammond organ.
Basically, baffles in the cabinet are spun around on motors and this has the effect of (literally) throwing the sound around to create a rich stereo effect. As the baffles move, not only does the sound move but, due to the Doppler effect (the phenomena that causes ambulance sirens to change pitch as they drive past), a subtle pitch shift is also achieved.
The result is a thick, stereo chorus sound that has been an integral component in many prog rock, gospel and other classic organ sounds. It cannot be reproduced using simple chorus units and other attempts at recreating this unique sound in musical history have been nothing more than simple autopan effects. Until now...
The DC Vocoder is a high quality 50-band vocoder that offers outstanding intelligibility. The top panel allows you to set the levels for the incoming signals and the overall output level. The Formant control allows you to 'gender-bend' the output - higher settings sound more feminine; lower settings sound more masculine.
The Spectrum Analyzer panel shows the frequency spectrum of the signal which, in conjunction with the 50-band graphic equalizer panel below, allows you to radically alter the tonal balance of the vocoded signal. With the graphic equalizer panel, you can create an almost infinite number of vocoder sounds.
The bottom panel is actually a simple built-in, 6-voice synthesizer that can be used as a carrier signal to be vocoded. This synth can be used as a 'drone' with pitches for each of the six voices set using the keyboard graphic. However, the synthesizer can also be played in real-time using MIDI. It is also possible to use external audio sources as the carrier signal.
The DC Vocoder is not just 'another vocoder' - it represents the culmination and perfection of vocoding techniques from the early, pioneering years of electronic signal processing to the present day.
The DecaBuddy is a multi-channel harmony generator capable of taking a monophonic audio signal and generating up to 4 harmony voices plus a unison voice that can track the audio input. Harmonies can be pre-programmed or, more conveniently, can be "played" via MIDI.
The various controls allow you affect the tone of the harmony voices. Random introduces a random delay in each of the voices. Formant allows you to "gender bend" the harmony making it more feminine or masculine. For really precise harmonies, the harmony voices can be quantized and each voice may be panned and mixed. To thicken the sound up, the Dual function creates a stereo harmony voice.
The Pitchright takes incoming audio and retunes it so that the output is perfectly in tune. It can be applied to vocals or just about any audio source that needs pitch correction.
If the performance is generally satisfactory, you can select which notes will be processed and brought into tune using the keyboard graphic shown on the left of the panel - by clicking on notes on the keyboard, you can select which notes will and will not be processed. You can also use a series of preset scales to assist with this and given the real-time performance of the processor, you can switch between these "on-the-fly" using either the panel switches or "hotkeys" on your Mac/PC keyboard.
The Ratio, Smoothing and Calibrate parameters allow you to control how the pitch correction will be applied and the effect can be anything from subtle to robotic. The effect can be temporarily disabled using the Inhibit key.
While it is possible to use an ordinary compressor for tightening up and adding punch to a stereo mix, it is very common that low frequencies can cause "pumping" effects on the overall signal. However, by splitting the signal into 4 different frequency bands, each frequency region can be separately processed. This is achieved on the QuadComp using a series of crossover filters. These filters are constructed as linear phase FIR filters in order to produce a signal path which is perfectly free of phase errors.
At the top of the panel, you can set the crossover frequencies for the 4 bands. Each band has controls for Threshold, Ratio, Attack and Release and as these are adjusted, so the compression curve is shown graphically. The Gain control allows you to compensate for level changes that may occur.
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