The Progression Of Effects, From Primitive Vocoder To Pervasive Pitch Fixes

Since the early days of putting stereo sound to vinyl, musicians, engineers, and equipment manufacturers have searched for methods to manipulate what comes from the speakers.

The 1960s, perhaps the most creatively fertile period in pop music history, was a decade marked by sonic experimentation, as the two-minute single gave way to the LP as an artistic statement, and artists moved far beyond the familiar subjects of girls and cars.

The Beatles, arguably the most imaginative group in pop music history, accomplished more sonic innovation than most, creating new sounds with tape by playing it backward, changing its speed by the technique (invented by engineer Geoff Emerick) known as flanging, and other whimsical methods then considered sacrilege by the lab-coated engineers at Abbey Road Studios.

Never satisfied with the sound of his voice, John Lennon once asked if he might record a vocal while swinging the microphone from a rope suspended from the ceiling. Jimi Hendrix, with engineer Eddie Kramer, likewise pushed the sonic envelope, creating all manner of then-unheard guitar and vocal sounds; wild stereo panning furthered the otherworldly effects of Hendrix's oeuvre.

HISTORY OF VOCAL PROCESSING

While creativity knows no bounds, technology was far more limited in the '60s than it is today. The history of vocal processing, however, begins in the days before rock'n'roll. Homer Dudley, a research physicist at Bell Laboratories, developed the vocoder (voice operated recorder), an electronic device capable of both analyzing sound and simulating speech, in 1939. The vocoder's initial application was as a research tool to study and improve compression schemes for transmitting voice over copper telephone lines.

In 1948, Dudley introduced the vocoder to Werner Meyer-Eppler, a physicist and director of the Institute of Phonetics at Bonn University in Germany. The following year, Meyer-Eppler wrote "Electronic Tone Generation, Electronic Music, and Synthetic Speech." He is thought to be the first to use the term "electronic music."

A similar effect to that of the vocoder is created by the Talk Box, popularized in the 1970s by Peter Frampton. The Talk Box uses the mouth as an additional sound chamber. Air is pushed from the lungs, through the vocal cords, and then from the mouth and nasal cavity to form sounds.

The signal from an amplifier's speaker output is sent to the input of the Talk Box via cable; the output of the Talk Box is connected to a speaker cabinet. A tube, emanating from the Talk Box, is placed alongside a microphone so that it fits in the mouth. The Talk Box replaces air from the lungs with the sound of a guitar, creating a hybrid sound of words and musical notes.

COMPUTER PROLIFERATION

Meanwhile, the computer's proliferation in the recording studio has affected every aspect of that environment. Today, digital recording and editing is the norm; a project that does not employ a digital audio workstation at some point is increasingly rare.

Pitch correction is also a common task: Among Pro Tools' many third-party plug-ins, AutoTune by Antares corrects intonation problems in vocals or solo instruments. TC Intonator by TC Electronic and Pitch Doctor by Wave Mechanics are other software-based systems for fixing out-of-tune notes.

The possibilities for manipulation of sound are seemingly limitless. Beyond pitch correction, many tools exist for the creation of entirely new sounds. GRM Tools (made by Groupe de Recherches Musicales de l'Institut National de l'Audiovisuel) is a set of eight plug-ins for Pro Tools, allowing composers and sound designers to create new timbres, build layered timbres, create phasers and flangers, rearrange audio fragments to create new sounds, add reverb and depth to sounds, and more. PurePitch, by Wave Mechanics, enables not just pitch alteration but creation of harmony parts from a lead vocal or instrument or the addition of vibrato to a flat performance.