Im not sure they are up there with the classics but the electrix warp factory and the FAT Procoder(aka MAM/Next VF11) are said to be pretty good. They are between £100-£200

Or you can get a Roland SVC350 for a bit more...apparently they sound amazing

If only that Eiosis was a bit cheaper-but at £180 w dongle I think its quite steep for a novelty plug...damn I want one!

FWIW I personally thing the Orange Vocoder is rubbish-thin and weak-but ok for washy pad sounds...the Akai one is 'acceptable' but in my experience it wasnt easy to get anything useable out of it...

What vocoder are Anathema using in the song "Closer". It looks like a Roland the singer is playing and vocoding with, which I would think is the SVC350? Here is some live footage of them performing it.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=s52JJx50RJU&feature=related

difficult to tell-the singer could just be using a synth feeding a rack vocoder somewhere else...the SVC350 is the rack version of the Roland VP330 vocoder synth...

I ended up getting the ELS (thanks Hans )
for anyone on the fence, I couldn't be happier. Absolutely awesome quality.
I agree with DrGonzo... spend the $$ now for quality, so you don't kick yourself later.

to asnwer my own question


first, I dont think there are much high class vocoder around. surprsing somehow...coz a vocoder is one of the most ressource consuming applications in music technology, so it would make sense to have a hardware device here..


new (> 1995) hardware vocoders:
a quite extensive list here:
http://filters.muziq.be/type/vocoder

new+big vocoder à la ELS (yes, I want loads of controls)
- Doepfer Vocoder // no: wont buy Doepfer again, not reliable enough, bad support
- EMS vocoders // actually, afaik you can still order new EMS vocoders.. prolly the best yet most expensive choice

- Freeform Analogue Technologies PCP330 Procoder // any1 knows this one?

IMHO, I'd choose the OrangeVocoder over the Eiosis ELS any time... I have both and OV is just so much more precise and doesn't sound like a tin can like the ELS does. The ELS is great when it comes to 80's Kraftwerk type sounds though.

I'm curious to see the new OV 10th anniversary edition in action, apparently it's coming out this week...

--th

Orange Vocoder is dead. The Akai is good. The Vocov is free and very useable when you get your head wrapped around the whole procedure.

Far from it. Not sure where you get your info from, but this is straight from the horses mouth: http://www.prosoniq.com/news/ov-10ae

Orange Vocoder rocks!!

I'll check out the other ones as well though, thanks for the tip!
--th

Maybe I spoke too soon, but they don't look like they changed it since 1999. I tell you, Time Factory is frakkin' awesome though. Especially for doing irrational bpm changes on vocals, with no artifacts.

from what i can see the new OV revision is going to be AU only anyway

Yeah, they are indeed a bit behind with their PC products...

Their Mac products are totally awesome though. I'm on both platforms, so AudioUnit is fine with me and I don't really care whether a product is Mac only.

--th

I was obsessed with this topic for a while and I tried them all, Orange included.

As expensive as Elosis was, it clearly blew away anything else. Really. A tiny time A/Bing each contender and the Elosis easily won. It just has so many cool features and a stunningly beautiful sound... plus that EMS style UI is sweet.

I also liked Vokko and bought that too. $20! Great little VST.

Mark

Well, I'm kind of a vocoder fan myself and I recently tried the demo of the latest Eiosis version and I still didn't like it. It is lacking the presence of Orange and was difficult to control in a mix (clipping all over the board). The synth is barely usable and the intelligibility of the vocoded sounds is very low.

I will definitely check out the new Orange as soon as they have a demo, and I will continue to check out the Eiosis products in case they update it to live up to what I believe is the de facto standard. No pun intended and this is 100% my personal opinion - I realize that there is a good deal of personal preference involved in choosing a good vocoder...

Cheers
--th

heard from reading a interview of one of those trance pro's (maybe it was van buren, can't remember now though) that the orange vocoder was wonky as heck to control.

Never gave me any problems on the Mac, but I recall that the first version of Orange was quite unstable on the PC. Version 2 fixed that (and added MIDI control) but I prefer working on the Mac as I switched to Logic sometime ago.

And the cracked version wreaked havoc on my PC back then, btw...

--th