A secondary effect is that all of the natural variation in sustained sung notes is removed, which also sounds very unnatural (too perfect to be human). When you listen to a vocal processed by Auto-Tune with Retune Speed set to zero, the robotic quality you are hearing is the instantaneous change in pitch between notes. If you know what to listen to, it is relatively easy to tell the difference. Can you elaborate on the sonic differences between Auto-Tune and vocoders, and share your favorite songs that exemplify each? People often describe the sound of the Auto-Tune effect as a kind of вЂњroboticвЂќ voice, but the same term can also describe the sound of vocoders. The vocoder achieves its effect through purely electronic means. It has its own unique sound, compared to a vocoder, since it uses an electro-acoustic system to create its signature effect. So in essence, the Talk Box is a type of vocoder that requires two inputs: guitar and voice. The singer spoke or sang into the tube, using his mouth to modify the sound of the guitar (captured via his vocal mic), creating a вЂњtalking guitarвЂќ effect. A guitar plugged into the Talk Box would have its signal amplified and output via the compression driver, sending sound waves down the tube.

Popularized by Peter Frampton, the original Heil Talk Box contained a speaker (a small horn compression driver) coupled to a long tube that was placed into the singerвЂ™s mouth. The vocoder extracts the вЂњshapeвЂќ of your voice (the formants) from the microphone input using a bank of bandpass filters and applies it onto the carrier channel (вЂњcross-synthesisвЂќ). But by the 1960s, musicians found ways to use it to create the familiar robot-voice effect.ДЄ vocoder requires two inputs: your voice and a вЂњcarrier,вЂќ typically a synthesizer waveform. The vocoder was developed during World War II as a way to encode and encrypt speech. But it was discovered that with certain extreme settings (notably, Retune Speed set to zero), Auto-Tune could be used to instantaneously correct pitch from note to note, in a way that sounds very unnatural.ДЄ vocoder, by comparison is something altogether different. Auto-Tune was originally designed to correct pitch, letting singers sound more вЂњin tuneвЂќ throughout their performance, in a manner that is transparent and natural. In basic terms, what is the difference between a vocoder and Auto-Tune?ДЄuto-Tune and vocoders are completely different animals, although both can be used creatively to impart an artificial, synthetic timbre to a singerвЂ™s voice. Andrew also shares some details about his work developing authentic-sounding emulations of classic analog vocoders that weвЂ™ll see in upcoming Antares products.

We sat down with Antares DSP engineer Andrew Kimpel to learn about the history of these two iconic effects, how they work, and what they sound like.

But while both effects modulate your voice, the technologies behind them are completely different.

To the casual listener, vocoder and Auto-Tune effects sound similar, and the terms are often interchanged when describing the iconic вЂњrobotic voiceвЂќ sounds that have shaped pop music over the decades.

Vocalizer pro vs vocal synth