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Vocoder

A vocoder (/ˈvkdər/, a portmanteau of voice and encoder) is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation.

Early 1970s vocoder, custom-built for electronic music band Kraftwerk

The vocoder was invented in 1938 by Homer Dudley at Bell Labs as a means of synthesizing human speech.[1] This work was developed into the channel vocoder which was used as a voice codec for telecommunications for speech coding to conserve bandwidth in transmission.

By encrypting the control signals, voice transmission can be secured against interception. Its primary use in this fashion is for secure radio communication. The advantage of this method of encryption is that none of the original signal is sent, only envelopes of the bandpass filters. The receiving unit needs to be set up in the same filter configuration to re-synthesize a version of the original signal spectrum.

The vocoder has also been used extensively as an electronic musical instrument. The decoder portion of the vocoder, called a voder, can be used independently for speech synthesis.

Theory

The human voice consists of sounds generated by the opening and closing of the glottis by the vocal cords, which produces a periodic waveform with many harmonics. This basic sound is then filtered by the nose and throat (a complicated resonant piping system) to produce differences in harmonic content (formants) in a controlled way, creating the wide variety of sounds used in speech. There is another set of sounds, known as the unvoiced and plosive sounds, which are created or modified by the mouth in different fashions.

The vocoder examines speech by measuring how its spectral characteristics change over time. This results in a series of signals representing these frequencies at any particular time as the user speaks. In simple terms, the signal is split into a number of frequency bands (the larger this number, the more accurate the analysis) and the level of signal present at each frequency band gives the instantaneous representation of the spectral energy content. To recreate speech, the vocoder simply reverses the process, processing a broadband noise source by passing it through a stage that filters the frequency content based on the originally recorded series of numbers.

Specifically, in the encoder, the input is passed through a multiband filter, then the output of each band is measured using an envelope follower, and the signals from the envelope followers are transmitted to the decoder. The decoder applies these as control signals to corresponding amplifiers of the output filter channels.

Information about the instantaneous frequency of the original voice signal (as distinct from its spectral characteristic) is discarded; it was not important to preserve this for the vocoder's original use as an encryption aid. It is this dehumanizing aspect of the vocoding process that has made it useful in creating special voice effects in popular music and audio entertainment.

Instead of a point-by-point recreation of the waveform, the vocoder process sends only the parameters of the vocal model over the communication link. Since the parameters change slowly compared to the original speech waveform, the bandwidth required to transmit speech can be reduced. This allows more speech channels to utilize a given communication channel, such as a radio channel or a submarine cable.

Analog vocoders typically analyze an incoming signal by splitting the signal into multiple tuned frequency bands or ranges. To reconstruct the signal, a carrier signal is sent through a series of these tuned bandpass filters. In the example of a typical robot voice the carrier is noise or a sawtooth waveform. There are usually between 8 and 20 bands.

The amplitude of the modulator for each of the individual analysis bands generates a voltage that is used to control amplifiers for each of the corresponding carrier bands. The result is that frequency components of the modulating signal are mapped onto the carrier signal as discrete amplitude changes in each of the frequency bands.

Often there is an unvoiced band or sibilance channel. This is for frequencies that are outside the analysis bands for typical speech but are still important in speech. Examples are words that start with the letters s, f, ch or any other sibilant sound. Using this band produces recognizable speech, although somewhat mechanical sounding. Vocoders often include a second system for generating unvoiced sounds, using a noise generator instead of the fundamental frequency. This is mixed with the carrier output to increase clarity.

In the channel vocoder algorithm, among the two components of an analytic signal, considering only the amplitude component and simply ignoring the phase component tends to result in an unclear voice; on methods for rectifying this, see phase vocoder.

History

 
Schematic circuit of Dudley's Vocoder
(based on: Dudley 1940, p. 508, Fig.7[2])
 
SIGSALY (1943–1946) speech encipherment system
 
HY-2 Vocoder (designed in 1961), was the last generation of channel vocoder in the US.[3][4]

The development of a vocoder was started in 1928 by Bell Labs engineer Homer Dudley,[5] who was granted patents for it on March 21, 1939,[6] and Nov 16, 1937.[7]

To demonstrate the speech synthesis ability of its decoder section, the voder (voice operating demonstrator)[8] was introduced to the public at the AT&T building at the 1939–1940 New York World's Fair.[9] The voder consisted of an electronic oscillator – a sound source of pitched tone – and noise generator for hiss, a 10-band resonator filters with variable-gain amplifiers as a vocal tract, and the manual controllers including a set of pressure-sensitive keys for filter control, and a foot pedal for pitch control of tone.[10] The filters controlled by keys convert the tone and the hiss into vowels, consonants, and inflections. This was a complex machine to operate, but a skilled operator could produce recognizable speech.[9][media 1]

Dudley's vocoder was used in the SIGSALY system, which was built by Bell Labs engineers in 1943. SIGSALY was used for encrypted voice communications during World War II. The KO-6 voice coder was released in 1949 in limited quantities; it was a close approximation to the SIGSALY at 1200 bit/s. In 1953, KY-9 THESEUS[11] 1650 bit/s voice coder used solid-state logic to reduce the weight to 565 pounds (256 kg) from SIGSALY's 55 short tons (50,000 kg), and in 1961 the HY-2 voice coder, a 16-channel 2400 bit/s system, weighed 100 pounds (45 kg) and was the last implementation of a channel vocoder in a secure speech system.[12]

Later work in this field has since used digital speech coding. The most widely used speech coding technique is linear predictive coding (LPC).[13] Another speech coding technique, adaptive differential pulse-code modulation (ADPCM), was developed by P. Cummiskey, Nikil S. Jayant and James L. Flanagan at Bell Labs in 1973.[14]

Applications

Modern implementations

Even with the need to record several frequencies, and additional unvoiced sounds, the compression of vocoder systems is impressive. Standard speech-recording systems capture frequencies from about 500 to 3,400 Hz, where most of the frequencies used in speech lie, typically using a sampling rate of 8 kHz (slightly greater than the Nyquist rate). The sampling resolution is typically 8 or more bits per sample resolution, for a data rate in the range of 64 kbit/s, but a good vocoder can provide a reasonably good simulation of voice with as little as 5 kbit/s of data.

Toll quality voice coders, such as ITU G.729, are used in many telephone networks. G.729 in particular has a final data rate of 8 kbit/s with superb voice quality. G.723 achieves slightly worse quality at data rates of 5.3 and 6.4 kbit/s. Many voice vocoder systems use lower data rates, but below 5 kbit/s voice quality begins to drop rapidly.[citation needed]

Several vocoder systems are used in NSA encryption systems:

Modern vocoders that are used in communication equipment and in voice storage devices today are based on the following algorithms:

Vocoders are also currently used in psychophysics, linguistics, computational neuroscience and cochlear implant research.

Linear prediction-based

Since the late 1970s, most non-musical vocoders have been implemented using linear prediction, whereby the target signal's spectral envelope (formant) is estimated by an all-pole IIR filter. In linear prediction coding, the all-pole filter replaces the bandpass filter bank of its predecessor and is used at the encoder to whiten the signal (i.e., flatten the spectrum) and again at the decoder to re-apply the spectral shape of the target speech signal.

One advantage of this type of filtering is that the location of the linear predictor's spectral peaks is entirely determined by the target signal, and can be as precise as allowed by the time period to be filtered. This is in contrast with vocoders realized using fixed-width filter banks, where the location of spectral peaks is constrained by the available fixed frequency bands. LP filtering also has disadvantages in that signals with a large number of constituent frequencies may exceed the number of frequencies that can be represented by the linear prediction filter. This restriction is the primary reason that LP coding is almost always used in tandem with other methods in high-compression voice coders.

Waveform-interpolative

Waveform-interpolative (WI) vocoder was developed at AT&T Bell Laboratories around 1995 by W.B. Kleijn, and subsequently, a low- complexity version was developed by AT&T for the DoD secure vocoder competition. Notable enhancements to the WI coder were made at the University of California, Santa Barbara. AT&T holds the core patents related to WI and other institutes hold additional patents.[23][24][25]

Artistic effects

Uses in music

 
Channel vocoder setting as a musical application; the Dutch captions are "Band-pass filters" and "Level meters"

For musical applications, a source of musical sounds is used as the carrier, instead of extracting the fundamental frequency. For instance, one could use the sound of a synthesizer as the input to the filter bank, a technique that became popular in the 1970s.

History

Werner Meyer-Eppler, a German scientist with a special interest in electronic voice synthesis, published a thesis in 1948 on electronic music and speech synthesis from the viewpoint of sound synthesis.[26] Later he was instrumental in the founding of the Studio for Electronic Music of WDR in Cologne, in 1951.[27]

 
Siemens Synthesizer (c.1959) at Siemens Studio for Electronic Music was one of the first attempts to use a vocoder (rear) to create music

One of the first attempts to use a vocoder in creating music was the Siemens Synthesizer at the Siemens Studio for Electronic Music, developed between 1956 and 1959.[28][29][media 2]

In 1968, Robert Moog developed one of the first solid-state musical vocoders for the electronic music studio of the University at Buffalo.[30]

In 1968, Bruce Haack built a prototype vocoder, named Farad after Michael Faraday.[31] It was first featured on "The Electronic Record For Children" released in 1969 and then on his rock album The Electric Lucifer released in 1970.[32][media 3]

In 1970, Wendy Carlos and Robert Moog built another musical vocoder, a ten-band device inspired by the vocoder designs of Homer Dudley. It was originally called a spectrum encoder-decoder and later referred to simply as a vocoder. The carrier signal came from a Moog modular synthesizer, and the modulator from a microphone input. The output of the ten-band vocoder was fairly intelligible but relied on specially articulated speech.

In 1972, Isao Tomita's first electronic music album Electric Samurai: Switched on Rock was an early attempt at applying speech synthesis technique through a vocoder[citation needed][clarification needed] to electronic rock. The album featured electronic renditions of contemporary rock and pop songs, while utilizing synthesized voices in place of human voices. In 1974, he utilized synthesized voices in his popular classical music album Snowflakes are Dancing, which became a worldwide success and helped to popularize electronic music.

In 1973, the british band Emerson, Lake and Palmer used a vocoder on their album Brain Salad Surgery, for the song "Karn Evil 9: 3rd Impression".

The 1975 song "The Raven" from the album Tales of Mystery and Imagination by The Alan Parsons Project features Alan Parsons performing vocals through an EMI vocoder. According to the album's liner notes, "The Raven" was the first rock song to feature a digital vocoder.

Pink Floyd also used a vocoder on three of their albums, first on their 1977 Animals for the songs "Sheep" and "Pigs (Three Different Ones)", then on A Momentary Lapse of Reason on "A New Machine Part 1" and "A New Machine Part 2" (1987), and finally on 1994's The Division Bell, on "Keep Talking".

The Electric Light Orchestra was among the first to use the vocoder in a commercial context, with their 1977 album Out of the Blue. The band extensively uses it on the album, including on the hits "Sweet Talkin' Woman" and "Mr. Blue Sky".[33] On following albums, the band made sporadic use of it, notably on their hits "The Diary of Horace Wimp" and "Confusion" from their 1979 album Discovery, the tracks "Prologue", "Yours Truly, 2095", and "Epilogue" on their 1981 album Time,[34] and "Calling America" from their 1986 album Balance of Power.

In the late 1970s, French duo Space Art used a vocoder during the recording of their second album, Trip in the Centre Head.[35]

Phil Collins used a vocoder to provide a vocal effect for his 1981 international hit single "In the Air Tonight".[36]

Vocoders have appeared on pop recordings from time to time, most often simply as a special effect rather than a featured aspect of the work. However, many experimental electronic artists of the new-age music genre often utilize vocoder in a more comprehensive manner in specific works, such as Jean-Michel Jarre (on Zoolook, 1984) and Mike Oldfield (on QE2, 1980 and Five Miles Out, 1982).

Vocoder module and use by M. Oldfield can be clearly seen on his Live At Montreux 1981 DVD (Track "Sheba").

There are also some artists who have made vocoders an essential part of their music, overall or during an extended phase. Examples include the German synthpop group Kraftwerk, the Japanese new wave group Polysics, Stevie Wonder ("Send One Your Love", "A Seed's a Star") and jazz/fusion keyboardist Herbie Hancock during his late 1970s period. In 1982 Neil Young used a Sennheiser Vocoder VSM201 on six of the nine tracks on Trans.[37] The chorus and bridge of Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)". features a vocoder ("Pretty young thing/You make me sing"), courtesy of session musician Michael Boddicker.

Coldplay have used a vocoder in some of their songs. For example, in "Major Minus" and "Hurts Like Heaven", both from the album Mylo Xyloto (2011), Chris Martin's vocals are mostly vocoder-processed. "Midnight", from Ghost Stories (2014), also features Martin singing through a vocoder.[38] The hidden track "X Marks the Spot" from A Head Full of Dreams was also recorded through a vocoder.

Noisecore band Atari Teenage Riot have used vocoders in variety of their songs and live performances such as Live at the Brixton Academy (2002) alongside other digital audio technology both old and new.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers song "By the Way" uses a vocoder effect on Anthony Kiedis' vocals.

Among the most consistent users of the vocoder in emulating the human voice are Daft Punk, who have used this instrument from their first album Homework (1997) to their latest work Random Access Memories (2013) and consider the convergence of technological and human voice "the identity of their musical project".[39] For instance, the lyrics of "Around the World" (1997) are integrally vocoder-processed, "Get Lucky" (2013) features a mix of natural and processed human voices, and "Instant Crush" (2013) features Julian Casablancas singing into a vocoder.

Ye (Kanye West) used a vocoder on the outro of his song "Runaway" (2010).[40]

Producer Zedd, American country singer Maren Morris and American musical duo Grey made a song titled "The Middle" which featured a vocoder and reached the top ten of the charts in 2018.[41]

Voice effects in other arts

Robot voices became a recurring element in popular music during the 20th century. Apart from vocoders, several other methods of producing variations on this effect include: the Sonovox, Talk box, and Auto-Tune,[media 4] linear prediction vocoders, speech synthesis,[media 5][media 6] ring modulation and comb filter.

Vocoders are used in television production, filmmaking and games, usually for robots or talking computers. The robot voices of the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica were created with an EMS Vocoder 2000.[37] The 1980 version of the Doctor Who theme, as arranged and recorded by Peter Howell, has a section of the main melody generated by a Roland SVC-350 vocoder. A similar Roland VP-330 vocoder was used to create the voice of Soundwave, a character from the Transformers series.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ ADPCM is not a proper vocoder but rather a waveform codec. ITU has gathered G.721 along with some other ADPCM codecs into G.726.

References

  1. ^ US 135416A, "System for the artificial production of vocal or other sounds", issued 1937-04-07 
  2. ^ Dudley, Homer (October 1940). "The Carrier Nature of Speech". Bell System Technical Journal. XIX (4).
  3. ^ "HY-2". Cryptomuseum.com. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
  4. ^ "HY-2 Vocoder". Crypto Machines.
  5. ^ Mills, Mara (2012). "Media and Prosthesis: the Vocoder, the Artificial Larynx, and the History of Signal Processing". Qui Parle. 21 (1): 107–149. doi:10.5250/quiparle.21.1.0107. S2CID 143012886.
  6. ^ US application 2151091, Dudley, Homer W., "Signal Transmission", published May 21, 1939, assigned to Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc.  (filed October 30, 1935)
  7. ^ US application 2098956, Dudley, Homer W., "Signaling system", published 1937-11-16, assigned to Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. 
  8. ^ US apprication 2121142, Dudley, Homer, "Signal Transmission", published 1938-06-21, assigned to Bell Telephone Laboratories, Inc. 
  9. ^ a b "The 'Voder' & 'Vocoder' Homer Dudley, USA, 1940". 120 Years of Electronic Music (120years.net). 2013-09-21. The Vocoder (Voice Operated reCorDER) and Voder (Voice Operation DEmonstratoR) developed by the research physicist Homer Dudley, ... The Voder was first unveiled in 1939 at the New York World Fair (where it was demonstrated at hourly intervals) and later in 1940 in San Francisco. There were twenty trained operators known as the 'girls' who handled the machine much like a musical instrument such as a piano or an organ, ... This was done by manipulating fourteen keys with the fingers, a bar with the left wrist and a foot pedal with the right foot.
  10. ^ "The Voder (1939)". Talking Heads: Simulacra. Haskins Laboratories. Based on James L. Flanagan (1965). "Speech Synthesis". Speech Analysis, Synthesis and Perception. Springer-Verlag. pp. 172–173.
    See: schematic diagram of the Voder synthesizer.
  11. ^ "KY-9". Cryptomuseum.com. Retrieved 2019-07-31.
  12. ^ "Campbell.qxd" (PDF). Retrieved 2019-07-31.
  13. ^ Gupta, Shipra (May 2016). (PDF). International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering. 6 (5): 805–810 (806). ISSN 2277-128X. S2CID 212485331. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-10-18. Retrieved 18 October 2019. LPC methods are the most widely used in speech coding
  14. ^ Cummiskey, P.; Jayant, Nikil S.; Flanagan, James L. (1973). "Adaptive quantization in differential PCM coding of speech". The Bell System Technical Journal. 52 (7): 1105–1118. doi:10.1002/j.1538-7305.1973.tb02007.x.
  15. ^ Ernst Rothauser. Dissertation and patents on vocoder technology.
  16. ^ "Voice Age" (licensing). VoiceAge Corporation.
  17. ^ "MELPe – FAQ". Compandent Inc.
  18. ^ . Digital Voice Systems, Inc. Archived from the original on 2017-07-07. Retrieved 2008-11-08.
  19. ^ . DSP Innovations Inc. Archived from the original on 2016-04-09. Retrieved 2008-11-08.
  20. ^ "RALCWI Vocoder IC's". CML Microcircuits. CML Microsystems Plc.
  21. ^ "TWELP Vocoder". DSP Innovations Inc.
  22. ^ . Raytheon BBN Technologies. Archived from the original on 2014-04-02.
  23. ^ Kleijn, W.B.; Haagen, J. (1995). "A speech coder based on decomposition of characteristic waveforms". 1995 International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing. pp. 508–511. doi:10.1109/ICASSP.1995.479640. ISBN 978-0-7803-2431-2. S2CID 9105323. {{cite book}}: |periodical= ignored (help)
  24. ^ Kleijn, W.B.; Shoham, Y.; Sen, D.; Hagen, R. (1996). "A low-complexity waveform interpolation coder". 1996 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing Conference Proceedings. pp. 212–215. doi:10.1109/ICASSP.1996.540328. ISBN 978-0-7803-3192-1. S2CID 44346744. {{cite book}}: |periodical= ignored (help)
  25. ^ Gottesman, O.; Gersho, A. (2001). (Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., California Univ., Santa Barbara, CA). "Enhanced waveform interpolative coding at low bit-rate". IEEE Transactions on Speech and Audio Processing. 9 (November 2001): 786–798. doi:10.1109/89.966082. S2CID 17949435.
  26. ^ Meyer-Eppler, Werner (1949), Elektronische Klangerzeugung: Elektronische Musik und synthetische Sprache, Bonn: Ferdinand Dümmlers
  27. ^ Diesterhöft, Sonja (2003), , Seminars Klanganalyse und -synthese (in German), Fachgebiet Kommunikationswissenschaft, Institut für Sprache und Kommunikation, Berlin Institute of Technology, archived from the original on 2008-03-05
  28. ^ (in German). Deutsches Museum. Archived from the original on 2013-09-30.
  29. ^ Holmes, Thom (2012). "Early Synthesizers and Experimenters". Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture (4th ed.). Routledge. pp. 190–192. ISBN 978-1-136-46895-7.
    (See also excerpt of pp. 157–160 from the 3rd edition in 2008 (ISBN 978-0-415-95781-6))
  30. ^ Bode, Harald (October 1984). "History of Electronic Sound Modification" (PDF). Journal of the Audio Engineering Society. 32 (10): 730–739.
  31. ^ BRUCE HAACK – FARAD: THE ELECTRIC VOICE (Media notes). Bruce Haack. Stones Throw Records LLC. 2010.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  32. ^ "Bruce Haack's Biography 1965–1974". Bruce Haack Publishing.
  33. ^ Out of the Blue (booklet). Electric Light Orchestra. Epic, Legacy. 2007.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  34. ^ "In 1981, Electric Light Orchestra Took Us to the Future". National Review. 2021-08-08. Retrieved 2021-10-19.
  35. ^ Richard, Philippe (29 November 2016). "Musique. Space Art, pionniers de l'electro à la française" [Music. Space Art, pioneers of French electro]. Ouest France (in French). Retrieved 28 April 2021.
  36. ^ Flans, Robyn (5 January 2005). "Classic Tracks: Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight"". Mix Online. Retrieved 25 February 2015.
  37. ^ a b Tompkins, Dave (2010–2011). How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop, The Machine Speaks. Melville House. ISBN 978-1-61219-093-8.
  38. ^ . Coldplay "Oracle". 5 March 2014. Archived from the original on 2 May 2014. Retrieved 25 March 2014.
  39. ^ "Daft Punk: "La musique actuelle manque d'ambition"" (interview). Le Figaro. May 3, 2013.
  40. ^ Kanye deconstructed: the human voice as the ultimate instrument
  41. ^ "Zedd And Griff Drop Bubbly Future Pop Jam "Inside Out"". EDM.com. Jason Heffler. 23 October 2020. Retrieved 23 October 2021.
Multimedia references
  1. ^ One Of The First Vocoder Machine [sic] (Motion picture). c. 1939. A demonstration of the voder (not the vocoder).
  2. ^ Siemens Electronic Music Studio in Deutsches Museum (multi part) (Video).
      Details of the Siemens Electronic Music Studio, exhibited at the Deutsches Museum.
  3. ^ Bruce Haack (1970). Electric to Me Turn – from "The Electric Lucifer" (Phonograph). Columbia Records.
      A sample of earlier Vocoder.
  4. ^ T-Pain (2005). I'm Sprung (CD Single/Download). Jive Records.
      A sample of Auto-Tune effect (a.k.a. T-Pain effect).
  5. ^ Earlier Computer Speech Synthesis (Audio). AT&T Bell Labs. c. 1961.
      A sample of earlier computer-based speech synthesis and song synthesis, by John Larry Kelly, Jr. and Louis Gerstman at Bell Labs, using IBM 704 computer. The demo song "Daisy Bell", musical accompanied by Max Mathews, impressed Arthur C. Clarke and later he used it in the climactic scene of the screenplay for his novel 2001: A Space Odyssey.
  6. ^ TI Speak & Spell (Video). Texas Instruments. c. 1980.
      A sample of speech synthesis.

External links

  • . PAIA. Archived from the original on 2011-09-07.
  • Description, photographs, and diagram for the vocoder at 120years.net
  • . Archived from the original on 2016-03-06. Description of a modern Vocoder.
  • GPL implementation of a vocoder, as a LADSPA plugin
  • Object of Interest: The Vocoder The New Yorker Magazine mini documentary

vocoder, this, article, about, voice, encoder, dictation, machine, voice, recorder, vocoder, portmanteau, voice, encoder, category, speech, coding, that, analyzes, synthesizes, human, voice, signal, audio, data, compression, multiplexing, voice, encryption, vo. This article is about voice encoder For dictation machine see voice recorder A vocoder ˈ v oʊ k oʊ d er a portmanteau of voice and encoder is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression multiplexing voice encryption or voice transformation Early 1970s vocoder custom built for electronic music band KraftwerkThe vocoder was invented in 1938 by Homer Dudley at Bell Labs as a means of synthesizing human speech 1 This work was developed into the channel vocoder which was used as a voice codec for telecommunications for speech coding to conserve bandwidth in transmission By encrypting the control signals voice transmission can be secured against interception Its primary use in this fashion is for secure radio communication The advantage of this method of encryption is that none of the original signal is sent only envelopes of the bandpass filters The receiving unit needs to be set up in the same filter configuration to re synthesize a version of the original signal spectrum The vocoder has also been used extensively as an electronic musical instrument The decoder portion of the vocoder called a voder can be used independently for speech synthesis Contents 1 Theory 2 History 3 Applications 4 Modern implementations 4 1 Linear prediction based 4 2 Waveform interpolative 5 Artistic effects 5 1 Uses in music 5 1 1 History 5 2 Voice effects in other arts 6 See also 7 Notes 8 References 9 External linksTheory EditThis section does not cite any sources Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed July 2019 Learn how and when to remove this template message The human voice consists of sounds generated by the opening and closing of the glottis by the vocal cords which produces a periodic waveform with many harmonics This basic sound is then filtered by the nose and throat a complicated resonant piping system to produce differences in harmonic content formants in a controlled way creating the wide variety of sounds used in speech There is another set of sounds known as the unvoiced and plosive sounds which are created or modified by the mouth in different fashions The vocoder examines speech by measuring how its spectral characteristics change over time This results in a series of signals representing these frequencies at any particular time as the user speaks In simple terms the signal is split into a number of frequency bands the larger this number the more accurate the analysis and the level of signal present at each frequency band gives the instantaneous representation of the spectral energy content To recreate speech the vocoder simply reverses the process processing a broadband noise source by passing it through a stage that filters the frequency content based on the originally recorded series of numbers Specifically in the encoder the input is passed through a multiband filter then the output of each band is measured using an envelope follower and the signals from the envelope followers are transmitted to the decoder The decoder applies these as control signals to corresponding amplifiers of the output filter channels Information about the instantaneous frequency of the original voice signal as distinct from its spectral characteristic is discarded it was not important to preserve this for the vocoder s original use as an encryption aid It is this dehumanizing aspect of the vocoding process that has made it useful in creating special voice effects in popular music and audio entertainment Instead of a point by point recreation of the waveform the vocoder process sends only the parameters of the vocal model over the communication link Since the parameters change slowly compared to the original speech waveform the bandwidth required to transmit speech can be reduced This allows more speech channels to utilize a given communication channel such as a radio channel or a submarine cable Analog vocoders typically analyze an incoming signal by splitting the signal into multiple tuned frequency bands or ranges To reconstruct the signal a carrier signal is sent through a series of these tuned bandpass filters In the example of a typical robot voice the carrier is noise or a sawtooth waveform There are usually between 8 and 20 bands The amplitude of the modulator for each of the individual analysis bands generates a voltage that is used to control amplifiers for each of the corresponding carrier bands The result is that frequency components of the modulating signal are mapped onto the carrier signal as discrete amplitude changes in each of the frequency bands Often there is an unvoiced band or sibilance channel This is for frequencies that are outside the analysis bands for typical speech but are still important in speech Examples are words that start with the letters s f ch or any other sibilant sound Using this band produces recognizable speech although somewhat mechanical sounding Vocoders often include a second system for generating unvoiced sounds using a noise generator instead of the fundamental frequency This is mixed with the carrier output to increase clarity In the channel vocoder algorithm among the two components of an analytic signal considering only the amplitude component and simply ignoring the phase component tends to result in an unclear voice on methods for rectifying this see phase vocoder History Edit Schematic circuit of Dudley s Vocoder based on Dudley 1940 p 508 Fig 7 2 SIGSALY 1943 1946 speech encipherment system HY 2 Vocoder designed in 1961 was the last generation of channel vocoder in the US 3 4 The development of a vocoder was started in 1928 by Bell Labs engineer Homer Dudley 5 who was granted patents for it on March 21 1939 6 and Nov 16 1937 7 To demonstrate the speech synthesis ability of its decoder section the voder voice operating demonstrator 8 was introduced to the public at the AT amp T building at the 1939 1940 New York World s Fair 9 The voder consisted of an electronic oscillator a sound source of pitched tone and noise generator for hiss a 10 band resonator filters with variable gain amplifiers as a vocal tract and the manual controllers including a set of pressure sensitive keys for filter control and a foot pedal for pitch control of tone 10 The filters controlled by keys convert the tone and the hiss into vowels consonants and inflections This was a complex machine to operate but a skilled operator could produce recognizable speech 9 media 1 Dudley s vocoder was used in the SIGSALY system which was built by Bell Labs engineers in 1943 SIGSALY was used for encrypted voice communications during World War II The KO 6 voice coder was released in 1949 in limited quantities it was a close approximation to the SIGSALY at 1200 bit s In 1953 KY 9 THESEUS 11 1650 bit s voice coder used solid state logic to reduce the weight to 565 pounds 256 kg from SIGSALY s 55 short tons 50 000 kg and in 1961 the HY 2 voice coder a 16 channel 2400 bit s system weighed 100 pounds 45 kg and was the last implementation of a channel vocoder in a secure speech system 12 Later work in this field has since used digital speech coding The most widely used speech coding technique is linear predictive coding LPC 13 Another speech coding technique adaptive differential pulse code modulation ADPCM was developed by P Cummiskey Nikil S Jayant and James L Flanagan at Bell Labs in 1973 14 Applications EditTerminal equipment for systems based on digital mobile radio DMR Digital voice scrambling and encryption Cochlear implants noise and tone vocoding is used to simulate the effects of cochlear implants citation needed Musical and other artistic effects 15 Modern implementations EditSee also Speech codec and Audio codec Even with the need to record several frequencies and additional unvoiced sounds the compression of vocoder systems is impressive Standard speech recording systems capture frequencies from about 500 to 3 400 Hz where most of the frequencies used in speech lie typically using a sampling rate of 8 kHz slightly greater than the Nyquist rate The sampling resolution is typically 8 or more bits per sample resolution for a data rate in the range of 64 kbit s but a good vocoder can provide a reasonably good simulation of voice with as little as 5 kbit s of data Toll quality voice coders such as ITU G 729 are used in many telephone networks G 729 in particular has a final data rate of 8 kbit s with superb voice quality G 723 achieves slightly worse quality at data rates of 5 3 and 6 4 kbit s Many voice vocoder systems use lower data rates but below 5 kbit s voice quality begins to drop rapidly citation needed Several vocoder systems are used in NSA encryption systems LPC 10 FIPS Pub 137 2400 bit s which uses linear predictive coding Code excited linear prediction CELP 2400 and 4800 bit s Federal Standard 1016 used in STU III Continuously variable slope delta modulation CVSD 16 kbit s used in wide band encryptors such as the KY 57 Mixed excitation linear prediction MELP MIL STD 3005 2400 bit s used in the Future Narrowband Digital Terminal FNBDT NSA s 21st century secure telephone Adaptive Differential Pulse Code Modulation ADPCM former ITU T G 721 32 kbit s used in STE secure telephone a Modern vocoders that are used in communication equipment and in voice storage devices today are based on the following algorithms Algebraic code excited linear prediction ACELP 4 7 24 kbit s 16 Mixed excitation linear prediction MELPe 2400 1200 and 600 bit s 17 Multi band excitation AMBE 2000 bit s 9600 bit s 18 Sinusoidal Pulsed Representation SPR 600 bit s 4800 bit s 19 Robust Advanced Low complexity Waveform Interpolation RALCWI 2050 2400 and 2750 bit s 20 Tri Wave Excited Linear Prediction TWELP 600 9600 bit s 21 Noise Robust Vocoder NRV 300 and 800 bit s 22 Vocoders are also currently used in psychophysics linguistics computational neuroscience and cochlear implant research Linear prediction based Edit Further information Linear predictive coding Since the late 1970s most non musical vocoders have been implemented using linear prediction whereby the target signal s spectral envelope formant is estimated by an all pole IIR filter In linear prediction coding the all pole filter replaces the bandpass filter bank of its predecessor and is used at the encoder to whiten the signal i e flatten the spectrum and again at the decoder to re apply the spectral shape of the target speech signal One advantage of this type of filtering is that the location of the linear predictor s spectral peaks is entirely determined by the target signal and can be as precise as allowed by the time period to be filtered This is in contrast with vocoders realized using fixed width filter banks where the location of spectral peaks is constrained by the available fixed frequency bands LP filtering also has disadvantages in that signals with a large number of constituent frequencies may exceed the number of frequencies that can be represented by the linear prediction filter This restriction is the primary reason that LP coding is almost always used in tandem with other methods in high compression voice coders Waveform interpolative Edit Waveform interpolative WI vocoder was developed at AT amp T Bell Laboratories around 1995 by W B Kleijn and subsequently a low complexity version was developed by AT amp T for the DoD secure vocoder competition Notable enhancements to the WI coder were made at the University of California Santa Barbara AT amp T holds the core patents related to WI and other institutes hold additional patents 23 24 25 Artistic effects EditUses in music Edit Channel vocoder setting as a musical application the Dutch captions are Band pass filters and Level meters For musical applications a source of musical sounds is used as the carrier instead of extracting the fundamental frequency For instance one could use the sound of a synthesizer as the input to the filter bank a technique that became popular in the 1970s History Edit Werner Meyer Eppler a German scientist with a special interest in electronic voice synthesis published a thesis in 1948 on electronic music and speech synthesis from the viewpoint of sound synthesis 26 Later he was instrumental in the founding of the Studio for Electronic Music of WDR in Cologne in 1951 27 Siemens Synthesizer c 1959 at Siemens Studio for Electronic Music was one of the first attempts to use a vocoder rear to create musicOne of the first attempts to use a vocoder in creating music was the Siemens Synthesizer at the Siemens Studio for Electronic Music developed between 1956 and 1959 28 29 media 2 In 1968 Robert Moog developed one of the first solid state musical vocoders for the electronic music studio of the University at Buffalo 30 In 1968 Bruce Haack built a prototype vocoder named Farad after Michael Faraday 31 It was first featured on The Electronic Record For Children released in 1969 and then on his rock album The Electric Lucifer released in 1970 32 media 3 In 1970 Wendy Carlos and Robert Moog built another musical vocoder a ten band device inspired by the vocoder designs of Homer Dudley It was originally called a spectrum encoder decoder and later referred to simply as a vocoder The carrier signal came from a Moog modular synthesizer and the modulator from a microphone input The output of the ten band vocoder was fairly intelligible but relied on specially articulated speech In 1972 Isao Tomita s first electronic music album Electric Samurai Switched on Rock was an early attempt at applying speech synthesis technique through a vocoder citation needed clarification needed to electronic rock The album featured electronic renditions of contemporary rock and pop songs while utilizing synthesized voices in place of human voices In 1974 he utilized synthesized voices in his popular classical music album Snowflakes are Dancing which became a worldwide success and helped to popularize electronic music In 1973 the british band Emerson Lake and Palmer used a vocoder on their album Brain Salad Surgery for the song Karn Evil 9 3rd Impression The 1975 song The Raven from the album Tales of Mystery and Imagination by The Alan Parsons Project features Alan Parsons performing vocals through an EMI vocoder According to the album s liner notes The Raven was the first rock song to feature a digital vocoder Pink Floyd also used a vocoder on three of their albums first on their 1977 Animals for the songs Sheep and Pigs Three Different Ones then on A Momentary Lapse of Reason on A New Machine Part 1 and A New Machine Part 2 1987 and finally on 1994 s The Division Bell on Keep Talking The Electric Light Orchestra was among the first to use the vocoder in a commercial context with their 1977 album Out of the Blue The band extensively uses it on the album including on the hits Sweet Talkin Woman and Mr Blue Sky 33 On following albums the band made sporadic use of it notably on their hits The Diary of Horace Wimp and Confusion from their 1979 album Discovery the tracks Prologue Yours Truly 2095 and Epilogue on their 1981 album Time 34 and Calling America from their 1986 album Balance of Power In the late 1970s French duo Space Art used a vocoder during the recording of their second album Trip in the Centre Head 35 Phil Collins used a vocoder to provide a vocal effect for his 1981 international hit single In the Air Tonight 36 Vocoders have appeared on pop recordings from time to time most often simply as a special effect rather than a featured aspect of the work However many experimental electronic artists of the new age music genre often utilize vocoder in a more comprehensive manner in specific works such as Jean Michel Jarre on Zoolook 1984 and Mike Oldfield on QE2 1980 and Five Miles Out 1982 Vocoder module and use by M Oldfield can be clearly seen on his Live At Montreux 1981 DVD Track Sheba There are also some artists who have made vocoders an essential part of their music overall or during an extended phase Examples include the German synthpop group Kraftwerk the Japanese new wave group Polysics Stevie Wonder Send One Your Love A Seed s a Star and jazz fusion keyboardist Herbie Hancock during his late 1970s period In 1982 Neil Young used a Sennheiser Vocoder VSM201 on six of the nine tracks on Trans 37 The chorus and bridge of Michael Jackson s P Y T Pretty Young Thing features a vocoder Pretty young thing You make me sing courtesy of session musician Michael Boddicker Coldplay have used a vocoder in some of their songs For example in Major Minus and Hurts Like Heaven both from the album Mylo Xyloto 2011 Chris Martin s vocals are mostly vocoder processed Midnight from Ghost Stories 2014 also features Martin singing through a vocoder 38 The hidden track X Marks the Spot from A Head Full of Dreams was also recorded through a vocoder Noisecore band Atari Teenage Riot have used vocoders in variety of their songs and live performances such as Live at the Brixton Academy 2002 alongside other digital audio technology both old and new The Red Hot Chili Peppers song By the Way uses a vocoder effect on Anthony Kiedis vocals Among the most consistent users of the vocoder in emulating the human voice are Daft Punk who have used this instrument from their first album Homework 1997 to their latest work Random Access Memories 2013 and consider the convergence of technological and human voice the identity of their musical project 39 For instance the lyrics of Around the World 1997 are integrally vocoder processed Get Lucky 2013 features a mix of natural and processed human voices and Instant Crush 2013 features Julian Casablancas singing into a vocoder Ye Kanye West used a vocoder on the outro of his song Runaway 2010 40 Producer Zedd American country singer Maren Morris and American musical duo Grey made a song titled The Middle which featured a vocoder and reached the top ten of the charts in 2018 41 Voice effects in other arts Edit See also Robotic voice effects Talk box and Auto Tune Robot voices became a recurring element in popular music during the 20th century Apart from vocoders several other methods of producing variations on this effect include the Sonovox Talk box and Auto Tune media 4 linear prediction vocoders speech synthesis media 5 media 6 ring modulation and comb filter Example of vocoder source source track Demonstration of the robotic voice effect found in film and television Problems playing this file See media help Vocoders are used in television production filmmaking and games usually for robots or talking computers The robot voices of the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica were created with an EMS Vocoder 2000 37 The 1980 version of the Doctor Who theme as arranged and recorded by Peter Howell has a section of the main melody generated by a Roland SVC 350 vocoder A similar Roland VP 330 vocoder was used to create the voice of Soundwave a character from the Transformers series See also EditAudio timescale pitch modification Auto Tune Homer Dudley List of vocoders Phase vocoder Silent speech interface Talk box Werner Meyer EpplerNotes Edit ADPCM is not a proper vocoder but rather a waveform codec ITU has gathered G 721 along with some other ADPCM codecs into G 726 References Edit US 135416A System for the artificial production of vocal or other sounds issued 1937 04 07 Dudley Homer October 1940 The Carrier Nature of Speech Bell System Technical Journal XIX 4 HY 2 Cryptomuseum com Retrieved 2019 07 31 HY 2 Vocoder Crypto Machines Mills Mara 2012 Media and Prosthesis the Vocoder the Artificial Larynx and the History of Signal Processing Qui Parle 21 1 107 149 doi 10 5250 quiparle 21 1 0107 S2CID 143012886 US application 2151091 Dudley Homer W Signal Transmission published May 21 1939 assigned to Bell Telephone Laboratories Inc filed October 30 1935 US application 2098956 Dudley Homer W Signaling system published 1937 11 16 assigned to Bell Telephone Laboratories Inc US apprication 2121142 Dudley Homer Signal Transmission published 1938 06 21 assigned to Bell Telephone Laboratories Inc a b The Voder amp Vocoder Homer Dudley USA 1940 120 Years of Electronic Music 120years net 2013 09 21 The Vocoder Voice Operated reCorDER and Voder Voice Operation DEmonstratoR developed by the research physicist Homer Dudley The Voder was first unveiled in 1939 at the New York World Fair where it was demonstrated at hourly intervals and later in 1940 in San Francisco There were twenty trained operators known as the girls who handled the machine much like a musical instrument such as a piano or an organ This was done by manipulating fourteen keys with the fingers a bar with the left wrist and a foot pedal with the right foot The Voder 1939 Talking Heads Simulacra Haskins Laboratories Based on James L Flanagan 1965 Speech Synthesis Speech Analysis Synthesis and Perception Springer Verlag pp 172 173 See schematic diagram of the Voder synthesizer KY 9 Cryptomuseum com Retrieved 2019 07 31 Campbell qxd PDF Retrieved 2019 07 31 Gupta Shipra May 2016 Application of MFCC in Text Independent Speaker Recognition PDF International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer Science and Software Engineering 6 5 805 810 806 ISSN 2277 128X S2CID 212485331 Archived from the original PDF on 2019 10 18 Retrieved 18 October 2019 LPC methods are the most widely used in speech coding Cummiskey P Jayant Nikil S Flanagan James L 1973 Adaptive quantization in differential PCM coding of speech The Bell System Technical Journal 52 7 1105 1118 doi 10 1002 j 1538 7305 1973 tb02007 x Ernst Rothauser Dissertation and patents on vocoder technology Voice Age licensing VoiceAge Corporation MELPe FAQ Compandent Inc IMBE and AMBE Digital Voice Systems Inc Archived from the original on 2017 07 07 Retrieved 2008 11 08 SPR Vocoders DSP Innovations Inc Archived from the original on 2016 04 09 Retrieved 2008 11 08 RALCWI Vocoder IC s CML Microcircuits CML Microsystems Plc TWELP Vocoder DSP Innovations Inc Noise Rubust Vocoders Raytheon BBN Technologies Archived from the original on 2014 04 02 Kleijn W B Haagen J 1995 A speech coder based on decomposition of characteristic waveforms 1995 International Conference on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing pp 508 511 doi 10 1109 ICASSP 1995 479640 ISBN 978 0 7803 2431 2 S2CID 9105323 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a periodical ignored help Kleijn W B Shoham Y Sen D Hagen R 1996 A low complexity waveform interpolation coder 1996 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing Conference Proceedings pp 212 215 doi 10 1109 ICASSP 1996 540328 ISBN 978 0 7803 3192 1 S2CID 44346744 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a periodical ignored help Gottesman O Gersho A 2001 Dept of Electr amp Comput Eng California Univ Santa Barbara CA Enhanced waveform interpolative coding at low bit rate IEEE Transactions on Speech and Audio Processing 9 November 2001 786 798 doi 10 1109 89 966082 S2CID 17949435 Meyer Eppler Werner 1949 Elektronische Klangerzeugung Elektronische Musik und synthetische Sprache Bonn Ferdinand Dummlers Diesterhoft Sonja 2003 Meyer Eppler und der Vocoder Seminars Klanganalyse und synthese in German Fachgebiet Kommunikationswissenschaft Institut fur Sprache und Kommunikation Berlin Institute of Technology archived from the original on 2008 03 05 Das Siemens Studio fur elektronische Musik von Alexander Schaaf und Helmut Klein in German Deutsches Museum Archived from the original on 2013 09 30 Holmes Thom 2012 Early Synthesizers and Experimenters Electronic and Experimental Music Technology Music and Culture 4th ed Routledge pp 190 192 ISBN 978 1 136 46895 7 See also excerpt of pp 157 160 from the 3rd edition in 2008 ISBN 978 0 415 95781 6 Bode Harald October 1984 History of Electronic Sound Modification PDF Journal of the Audio Engineering Society 32 10 730 739 BRUCE HAACK FARAD THE ELECTRIC VOICE Media notes Bruce Haack Stones Throw Records LLC 2010 a href Template Cite AV media notes html title Template Cite AV media notes cite AV media notes a CS1 maint others in cite AV media notes link Bruce Haack s Biography 1965 1974 Bruce Haack Publishing Out of the Blue booklet Electric Light Orchestra Epic Legacy 2007 a href Template Cite AV media notes html title Template Cite AV media notes cite AV media notes a CS1 maint others in cite AV media notes link In 1981 Electric Light Orchestra Took Us to the Future National Review 2021 08 08 Retrieved 2021 10 19 Richard Philippe 29 November 2016 Musique Space Art pionniers de l electro a la francaise Music Space Art pioneers of French electro Ouest France in French Retrieved 28 April 2021 Flans Robyn 5 January 2005 Classic Tracks Phil Collins In the Air Tonight Mix Online Retrieved 25 February 2015 a b Tompkins Dave 2010 2011 How to Wreck a Nice Beach The Vocoder from World War II to Hip Hop The Machine Speaks Melville House ISBN 978 1 61219 093 8 Midnight is amazing But it sounds like Chris s voice has autotune in some parts I thought Coldplay doesn t use autotune Coldplay Oracle 5 March 2014 Archived from the original on 2 May 2014 Retrieved 25 March 2014 Daft Punk La musique actuelle manque d ambition interview Le Figaro May 3 2013 Kanye deconstructed the human voice as the ultimate instrument Zedd And Griff Drop Bubbly Future Pop Jam Inside Out EDM com Jason Heffler 23 October 2020 Retrieved 23 October 2021 Multimedia references One Of The First Vocoder Machine sic Motion picture c 1939 A demonstration of the voder not the vocoder Siemens Electronic Music Studio in Deutsches Museum multi part Video Details of the Siemens Electronic Music Studio exhibited at the Deutsches Museum Bruce Haack 1970 Electric to Me Turn from The Electric Lucifer Phonograph Columbia Records A sample of earlier Vocoder T Pain 2005 I m Sprung CD Single Download Jive Records A sample of Auto Tune effect a k a T Pain effect Earlier Computer Speech Synthesis Audio AT amp T Bell Labs c 1961 A sample of earlier computer based speech synthesis and song synthesis by John Larry Kelly Jr and Louis Gerstman at Bell Labs using IBM 704 computer The demo song Daisy Bell musical accompanied by Max Mathews impressed Arthur C Clarke and later he used it in the climactic scene of the screenplay for his novel 2001 A Space Odyssey TI Speak amp Spell Video Texas Instruments c 1980 A sample of speech synthesis External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Vocoders How Vocoders Work PAIA Archived from the original on 2011 09 07 Description photographs and diagram for the vocoder at 120years net Mats Claesson s course in Vokator Archived from the original on 2016 03 06 Description of a modern Vocoder GPL implementation of a vocoder as a LADSPA plugin O Reilly Article on Vocoders Object of Interest The Vocoder The New Yorker Magazine mini documentary Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Vocoder amp 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