Love my vocoder - MiniFreak V Vocoder

[francoise]

Fun with the MiniFreak V Vocoder
Minifreak V
Addictive Drums
Ample Sound Jaco Pastorius bass in palm mute

Endless possibilities

The Summer Bee
Augmented Mallets
Guitar: MiniFreak Vocoder
Addictive Drums
Ample Sound Jaco Pastorius in palm mute mode

[aaron_aardvark]

francoise,
Fairly recently, I saw Arturia advertising that MiniFreak had a vocoder, so I hunted around to see if the plugin MiniFreak V had a vocoder, and found no evidence of it. But now you’re saying it does! Both of your songs sound nice. Now I will see if I can update the MiniFreak V to try it out (even though I already have Arturia Vocoder V, and at least one other vocoder). I will be posting a new song on this forum in a few minutes; maybe you can check it out.

[francoise]

Hi Aaron, how are you?

I only have a MiniFreak V plugin and these songs are using the vocoder over a drumtrack.
“The new vocoder engine is also available in the updated MiniFreak V plugin, a software instrument that can be used standalone or integrated with the hardware instrument.” - musicradar

I will certainly check your song. But it will be from a non rock perspective. I hope people more expert will answer.

[aaron_aardvark]

I must have spent 2 hours trying to get my microphone to work with the MiniFreak V vocoder with no success. It most likely made it more difficult because I only have the trial version of MiniFreak V, and one of the cheaper versions of Cubase (AI10.5). I looked at multiple videos and read the instruction manual quite a bit. Glad you were able to make it work. While MiniFreak V is capable of other sounds that are good, I ended up fiddling with my Vocoder V for about an hour last night: it has many built in vocal samples, which makes it way easier to have vocals effected by the vocoder; using a mic for your vocal phrases can be done, but I didn’t have great luck making my own. If you’re into vocoders, you might try out the trial version of Vocoder V.

[francoise]

Ok, I did not use the vocoder with a microphone!
I sent a drum track to the MiniFreak vocoder in Cubase 14 (Elements).
The two tracks I made were made in this way.
It’s not my voice; I have a more pleasant voice .

I will try it with a microphone and see if I can help.

[francoise]

Whether with a mike or without, it works in the same way in Cubase 14 elements (maybe in slightly different way with other DAW).

1. an audio track with the mike (a drum track) armed for recording.
2. the MiniF track with one of the vocal (= vocoder) preset eg. 70’s.
   You then have to route the first track to the MiniF track (it may differ with DAWs)
   Then arm the second track (both tracks armed) and record while singing and playing on the midi controller.
   Of course the midi controller is set as a midi source to MiniF.

Et voilà!

The tricky part is the reouting. In Cubase elements it’s relatively straightforward.
In Reaper, there’s something to be disabled else it wil give an unplesant feedback.

An example With screenshots (you can laugh!)
Bad snare mike used.

The yellow button in Cubase is where you sst the source (track 1) to the MiniFreak vocoder.
You can then modify all the MiniFreak parameters to modify the vocoder.

Setting the volume (Niveau) higher helps hiding the source.

[aaron_aardvark]

francoise,
Thank you for the reply! No reason to laugh at your screenshots, they are very instructive. I checked my (trial verson) MiniFreak V and my Cubase AI10.5 operating in Mac OSX 10.15, and mine looks different than yours. Looking at my Cubase instruction manual, it appears the Side-Chain thing is not available in my cheaper and older version of Cubase. I listened to your nice Eaxmple3 recording. Thank you for trying to help me! At least I think I know what the problem is now.

[francoise]

Mucho gusto! I always learn when I explain.
Side chaining was not even available in Cubase Elements 12 or 13.

In Reaper, for those who may be interested.

Track 1: microphone input, arm record
Track 2: miniFreak with vocoder (=vocal) preset.
To avoid feedback, Track2 has to be set (red) to record only midi (eg. the midi keyboard controller), ROUTE: (blue) receive from Track1, enable the midi input from midi keyboard (yellow), arm record and launch Recording.