Younger Brother Vocal LFO vocoder or gating?

[WindMonk]

Hello.
There is a new Younger Brother album out, which of course has some amazing sound design elements. I am hoping someone here can help me suss out how they make the vocal effect on the track I Belong to Nowhere – 2:03-2:30. I have been on hiatus for a bit and it's beyond my current skills to reproduce this effect. Any help is greatly appreciated.

[CHOOS]

To me it sounds like a phaser and then an LFO on the volume going at various speeds

[WindMonk]

To me it sounds like a phaser and then an LFO on the volume going at various speeds

Thanks for the insight! Maybe the phaser makes it sound like a synth. I will play around with it on some voices I am working on.

To me, the LFO/gating sounds like it is generated by the background bubbling/sweeping synth. Do you think they somehow drive the vocal LFO effect with a synth LFO? And how would you even do that? I could be wildly off with this take... haha.

Also, what would be the easiest way to put an LFO on the volume of the vocal in Ableton... use Utility and just draw the curve... right?

[Gamma-UT]

I think there's some white noise (though it might be from a phaser with heavy feedback) being mixed in progressively with the two signals for the FX going through an LFO-driven resonant filter.

[CHOOS]

I think there's some white noise (though it might be from a phaser with heavy feedback) being mixed in progressively with the two signals for the FX going through an LFO-driven resonant filter.

You could be right there.

The effect also seems to be on a reverb send so the dispersing of the sound could be a reason for it sounding white-noisy.

[WindMonk]

I think there's some white noise (though it might be from a phaser with heavy feedback) being mixed in progressively with the two signals for the FX going through an LFO-driven resonant filter.

Thank you! When you say the 2 signals, do you mean the vocal and the lfo synth or do you mean the clean vocal and the vocal effects? Any suggestions on how to set that up in Ableton? As I said, I have been on hiatus for a couple years and sound design is slower to come back than playing instruments and arranging.

[WindMonk]

I think there's some white noise (though it might be from a phaser with heavy feedback) being mixed in progressively with the two signals for the FX going through an LFO-driven resonant filter.

You could be right there.

The effect also seems to be on a reverb send so the dispersing of the sound could be a reason for it sounding white-noisy.

Does it sound like the reverb is also modulating depth to you?
Thanks

[WindMonk]

I am loving the insight so far... I will work on these ideas. If anyone has any additional advice please share. I will try them all. They are sure to produce interesting results!

I have to ask again... would it be possible to route the lfo from a synth that is making the LFO bubbles behind the vocal to control the phaser vocal volume lfo?

[CHOOS]

I'm away from my computer till Monday evening so if you haven't got the desired result let me know and I'll give it a shot myself

This one is interesting to me too

[Gamma-UT]

I think there's some white noise (though it might be from a phaser with heavy feedback) being mixed in progressively with the two signals for the FX going through an LFO-driven resonant filter.

Thank you! When you say the 2 signals, do you mean the vocal and the lfo synth or do you mean the clean vocal and the vocal effects? Any suggestions on how to set that up in Ableton? As I said, I have been on hiatus for a couple years and sound design is slower to come back than playing instruments and arranging.

I was thinking two channels because of the noise, but I think CHOOS is right about it being on a reverb send – the noise buildup sounds right for something like a hall 'verb or one of the old Midiverb/Quadraverb programs – so the LFOed stuff is probably being automated all on that one aux/FX channel, and the volume/tremelo LFO is last in the chain.

[Ah_Dziz]

All the descriptions of the sound from this thread sound like they could be achieved with a frequency shifter that is fed back into itself and has the frequency modulated. Echobode and the free freqecho from VDSP are good options. Might not do whatever happens in the song you're referring to but still fun stuff.

[CHOOS]

A quick attempt to get something similar

https://rumble.com/v7ac0ca-younger-brot ... l-lfo.html