Freeware "Vocal Keyboard" VST with Formant Shifting

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Hi, Short Factor here.
I'm new to the forum but I have been in digital audio production privately for several years.
I have been pulling my hair out looking for a VST that can do formant shifting (NOT talking about vowel changing, but Melodyne style formant shifting) and I figured I'd give up. I see all those awesome voice effects like Steinberg Voice Machine where you just play keys and it changes your voice to that pitch with formant preservation, but they're so freakin expensive.
But then I decided, why not try and make my own?
Since VSTs like these normally cost like $300+ I thought I would give this out as freeware. Short Factor presents a freeware midi keyboard controlled pitch changer with formant shifting, or I just call it "The Vocal Keyboard". Its actually just the MDA Talkbox with a smoothed saw as the carrier. The input is automatically panned left as the modulator so it also acts as an "Instant Vocoder" effect. However, I added a formant shifter. Cool thing about it is, it sounds much nicer than the usual FFT/Melodyne-ish buzzy annoying formant crap. I call it "sweet formant". You'll just have to listen to it to see what I mean.
I give this out for free because I know people have been looking for this stuff. I hope this helps a lot. As a side note, this is just for fun, I have a good singing voice and I don't need to rely on autotuners to sing good.
Alright, here it is:

Update 1: Organized the interface a bit better and added a "Noise Compensator" with "Amount" and "Hi Pass" sliders, thanks to xoxos's recommendation.
The Vocal Keyboard VST

Credit to the awesome folks who made the MDA VSTs. I embedded two of them in this VST. This can be used for commercial purposes TO MY KNOWLEDGE. I am NOT certain on this but I think it can. It just depends on if the MDA VSTs can or not.

Current features include:
ADSR Envelope per key press.
Input Volume and Total Volume controls.
LFO Rate, Depth, and Attack.
Filter Cutoff and Resonance for either Lowpass, Bandpass, or Highpass.
Switch for pitch to shift to the key being pressed or to be tracked naturally (the latter being very glitchy right now because I used the MDA Tracker, but I will eventually make my own that handles noise better).
Monophonic Mode for legato effects with slide time adjust.
Formant shifter, with two modes; slider for manual formant adjustment or keyboard formant control.

And that's it so far. I'm putting this up here so I can get suggestions for more features that I can implement in it. Thoughts? Criticism? Ideas? Please, asking for help.

Thanks in advance for any support.

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Last edited by Short Factor on Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:09 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Thanks!

Now can someone tell me why I can't download anything from box.net? Third time today!! :?

EDIT: Never mind; I figured it out. I had no idea Avira AntiVir had a web-safety program running! I'll check out this plugin.

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bduffy wrote:Thanks!

Now can someone tell me why I can't download anything from box.net? Third time today!! :?

EDIT: Never mind; I figured it out. I had no idea Avira AntiVir had a web-safety program running! I'll check out this plugin.
Good thing ... I was gonna say that perhaps they know that you "Download Everything" and thus had cut you off today ;-)

Just kidding of course.

I look forward to trying this too. Here is a direct link to the file that Short Factor posted as new members cannot post direct links till they have 5 posts:
http://www.box.net/shared/1ssk7fgdvv


Paul
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a couple of people have used talkbox with synthedit like this :) i liked adding high passed noise to the saw to boost reproduction of high frequencies.
you come and go, you come and go. amitabha neither a follower nor a leader be tagore "where roads are made i lose my way" where there is certainty, consideration is absent.

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xoxos wrote:a couple of people have used talkbox with synthedit like this :) i liked adding high passed noise to the saw to boost reproduction of high frequencies.
Hey... that sounds like a good idea. I'll try that, thanks! It just might work.

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Well, I must say: this thing works quite nicely! Really reminds of me of good ol' Voice Machine (R.I.P.) - great for synthesizing voices! I brought this into and old project and found it really easy to get up and running with this too. Check it:

ShadowsRemix - No Vocal Keyboard

ShadowsRemix - VocalKeyboard On

Just messin' around, but I like what it did for the first phrase, especially. Cool plugin, Short Factor!!! :clap:

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bduffy wrote:Well, I must say: this thing works quite nicely! Really reminds of me of good ol' Voice Machine (R.I.P.) - great for synthesizing voices! I brought this into and old project and found it really easy to get up and running with this too. Check it:

ShadowsRemix - No Vocal Keyboard

ShadowsRemix - VocalKeyboard On

Just messin' around, but I like what it did for the first phrase, especially. Cool plugin, Short Factor!!! :clap:
Wow, people using my VST already? Ha ha, those ROCKED!! Thank you very much!
Also I'm experimenting with that noise thing that xoxos suggested. So far its working! I will put up a new version here soon.

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you could have a knob to blend it with the carrier :) i used the technique in anything on my music page beginning with a 'q..' personally i like the synthetic effect of the sawtooth, especially on low notes, so it's a creative choice.

i believe spyro/klanglabs has or had a vst that had similar functionality.
you come and go, you come and go. amitabha neither a follower nor a leader be tagore "where roads are made i lose my way" where there is certainty, consideration is absent.

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klanglabs, rurik? I can't think of what that'd be, but I'd like to know

wow, thanks for the generous gift to the world, Short Factor - be assured it will be used

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Short Factor wrote:
bduffy wrote:Well, I must say: this thing works quite nicely! Really reminds of me of good ol' Voice Machine (R.I.P.) - great for synthesizing voices! I brought this into and old project and found it really easy to get up and running with this too. Check it:

ShadowsRemix - No Vocal Keyboard

ShadowsRemix - VocalKeyboard On

Just messin' around, but I like what it did for the first phrase, especially. Cool plugin, Short Factor!!! :clap:
Wow, people using my VST already? Ha ha, those ROCKED!! Thank you very much!
Also I'm experimenting with that noise thing that xoxos suggested. So far its working! I will put up a new version here soon.
Hmm, that's funny: your quote revealed my links; that's unfortunate for discretion...

Yeah, totally fun this thing. I look forward to the noise version!

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ooooohh my goodness! Thank you very much! I look forward to this :)
..what goes around comes around..

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bduffy wrote:Hmm, that's funny: your quote revealed my links; that's unfortunate for discretion...

Yeah, totally fun this thing. I look forward to the noise version!
New version is already up. Check it out if you want.

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Thanks ShortFactor. Can't wait to have a go at it :)!
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stay juicy!

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This thing is pretty dam cool sounding! Not sure exactly where I would use it yet but I put a whole recording through it (by accident) and in Pitch Track Mode it did some pretty amazing things to the bass :shock:.

It would be nice if the Pitch Track Mode could have an x speed to hold feature!! Also perhaps a way to preview the Noise Compensator by itself?

I'm wondering if this could be used to apply a formant source to a formant target somehow.. hmmm

Very impressive so far S factor!
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stay juicy!

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I just downloaded it and tryed it. It is exactly what I would like to use for my techno-funk anime style crazy stupid vocals, but it seems a little buggy or maybe it is just my user stupidity.

First - I don't know how to record its midi data when I apply it as a plug-in on an alredy existant vocal track. I tried to record mouse clicking on a keyboard via Nuedno plug-in automation, but it doesn't seem to work with this plug.

Second - the effect stopped processing after a while without me doing anything.

Is it only to apply live and record the results? I would like to automate it and process vocals after they are recorded.

Enlighten me please and also an unfair question (to the ears of this nice supplyer of this freebie) : is there any pro application that is the same or better, but that you can play on a keyboard an record its automation?

Sorry for the newbie question (especially since otherwise I am not a newbie) - I don't have a clue about those formant, vocoding, whatever plug-ins. I just want to do vocal lines similar to this:



Any other idea how to do such syntetic vocals?

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