Prosoniq have announced OrangeVocoder3, which will be revealed to the public at this year's MusikMesse in Frankfurt, Germany, starting tomorrow.

OrangeVocoder3 is the successor of the highly acclaimed Prosoniq OrangeVocoder plug-in first released in 1998.

OrangeVocoder3 now adds a wealth of new features including advanced MIDI control for the built-in synth, support for loading sound files, virtually unlimited polyphony, mono-mode with glide for classic R'n'B talkbox imitations, freely assignable filter bands, and a real-time 24-band analyzer control.

What's more, OrangeVocoder3 offers 5 different basic sound modes for all types of style, and some very advanced filterbank effects, including a formant freeze function, a filterbank sample & hold option and a voiced/unvoiced detector.

The novel fully automatable "phoneme dial" lets you string together sentences without external speech signals, making this plug in a powerful vocal synthesizer. The phonemes can even be played on any MIDI keyboard, giving you realtime control over all aspects of the synthesis. Phonemes are vocal utterances that provide the basic building blocks of speech - they encompass vowels, consonants, semivowels and diphtongs.

Key features:

• 24-band virtual analog vocoder simulation.
• Bands assignable, assignment can be rotated and shifted with a single mouse click.
• Voiced/unvoiced detector.
• Formant freeze.
• Filterbank reverb.
• Filterbank release and quantize (sample & hold).
• Selectable sound mode for a variety of styles.
• Freeform EQ with realtime 24band analyzer.
• Revolutionary "phoneme dial" for selecting and morphing between predefined utterances.
• Phonemes can be directly played from a MIDI keyboard for realtime speech/singing synthesis.
• On-board synthesizer (2 osc/voice, LFO, pitch/amplitude follower, osc sync/ring mod, SOLO mode with glide, 24db LP filter with resonance and distortion).
• On-screen keyboard for playing without requiring MIDI input, as well as full realtime MIDI control including pitch wheel, modulation and sustain.

OrangeVocoder3 for VST retails at a RRP of 249 EUR, the update from v2.0 will be available at 99 EUR, shipping in May 2004 for VST on MacOS and Windows.

Other formats and platforms to be announced.