[HN Gopher] The vocal effects of Daft Punk
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The vocal effects of Daft Punk
Author : qzervaas
Score : 343 points
Date : 2025-05-05 10:48 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (bjango.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bjango.com)
| madeofpalk wrote:
| Marc added some extra flavor
| https://mastodon.social/@marcedwards/114454783708869207
|
| > _This article is the longest piece I've published on Bjango's
| site, and it took a couple of years of research. I purchased
| around 25 pieces of music gear. I emailed Imogen Heap, and to my
| surprise, someone from her team got back to me and confirmed the
| exact harmonizer used on Hide and Seek._
|
| > _It's been a huge effort, and I'm confident it contains a lot
| of information that is not widely known. For those of you who are
| into Daft Punk, I hope it's interesting._
| tecleandor wrote:
| Ah, the Sennheiser VSM201. Just a $30K vocoder. Seems like it was
| $25K when it released in 1977, but also didn't get to sell even
| 50 units, so quite rare.
|
| I guess you can get similar results with cheaper hardware, but if
| you have money and you have it around... -\\_(tsu)_/-
| marcedwards wrote:
| I wonder how many are still in working condition today? Can't
| be many. I'd love to see one in person, one day.
| ofrzeta wrote:
| I didn't know the device. Also I didn't know that Kai Krause
| who later got famous through his Kai's Power Tools was an
| electronic music expert who sort of did sales for Sennheiser in
| 1977, according to this page
| (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sennheiser_VSM_201 - only on the
| German WP, it seems). He also wrote the manual for it.
|
| His German WP page also claims that he sold a VSM 201 to Neil
| Young in 1982! https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai_Krause
|
| English WP has less details on that part of his life,
| especially the VSM 201 :)
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai_Krause
| marcedwards wrote:
| Kai Krause wrote the VSM201 manual and helped sell it at
| Sennheiser?! You're blowing my mind. I didn't expect that
| info today.
| tecleandor wrote:
| Ha! Now that's unexpected!
| whstl wrote:
| _> His German WP page also claims that he sold a VSM 201 to
| Neil Young in 1982!_
|
| Just in time for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans_(album)
| !!!
| ofrzeta wrote:
| Wow, six of nine tracks with the vocoder. I guess the 25k
| USD machine had to pay off :-)
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Never had the pleasure of a Sennheiser but when working in
| radio I got my hands on a lot of rack vocoders for doing
| branding, stings and idents. Funny how the number 9000 comes up
| a lot, like Roland VP9000 and Eventide H9000. 80 and 90s
| vintage ones like Korg VC-10 or Elektronik EM-26 had unique
| sounds, but tbh the modern digital recreations are amazing
| models. There's not a world of difference between vocoding,
| autotune, shifting, harmonising etc once you realise how all
| the fx are now based in FFT, convolution etc - just different
| variations on processing and control graphs - and so it's fun
| to create your own vocal effects in things like
| Max/MSP/PureData. Technically there's a distinction between
| "effects" and "processing" in terms of how much of the direct
| (parallel) signal is put through. Chers Believe is a yardstick
| for "effect", whereas a lot of what I hear with Daft Punk (and
| Air, Kraftwerk) is quite heavily processed as to disguise the
| original voice entirely - just letting a bit of top/sibilant
| through to define the stops and fricatives.
| marcedwards wrote:
| Did you listen to the example audio in the video? Soft synths
| and digital emulation can be absolutely amazing these days,
| but the VSM201 and Ultimate VoIS are in their own league.
| It'd be pretty easy to pick them out from a blind test with
| other vocoders.
|
| Oh, it also might be of interest that the IVL algorithm isn't
| FFT-based. I think their harmonizers sound better than the
| rest, so maybe FFT isn't the best way to go.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| I thought it was phase synchronous overlap add, but I just
| checked and now I'm not so sure.
|
| Has anyone got more details?
| marcedwards wrote:
| That gives me something to research! I've only scratched
| the surface of IVL's algorithm, but intend to look into
| it further.
| jschafer wrote:
| Yes exactly, I was really excited when I found out that you
| do not need a FFT to do speech processing.
|
| If you look at the code of (phone/voice) codecs
| GSM/Speex/Opus you can see that you can estimate the
| spectral envelope (or the configuration of a physical tube
| model for the vocal tract) in time domain with linear
| prediction coefficients (LPC).
|
| And it is simple, e.g. the often used Levinson-Durbin
| algorithm is just 22 lines of C code. It is an interesting
| exercise to build your own vocoder from scratch that fits
| in a single screen page.
|
| Many of the code snippets I have seen (which likely have
| already processed your voice) are just translations of the
| Fortran code of the book "Linear Prediction of Speech" by
| Markel and Gray (1976).
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Ah yes, ladder or lattice filters. If you don't mind old
| fashioned mailing lists there's still a few of hanging
| around in MUSIC-DSP@LISTS.COLUMBIA.EDU where code gets
| shared.
| LuciOfStars wrote:
| It's Daft Punk, are we really surpised? :-P
| speedgoose wrote:
| The article says that Daft Punk rented it.
|
| I was surprised about how much better the Sennheiser sounds
| compared to the others. From the audio comparison in the first
| YouTube video. I did expect minor variations in the harmonics
| but the differences are quite significant between the models.
|
| The other vocoder that sound almost as good is quite new and it
| seems to still be a prototype with a "contact us" price.
| marcedwards wrote:
| Yep! The Sennheiser and Ultimate VoIS are in their own
| league. There are some other rare high-end analogue vocoders
| that I would have loved to include in the comparison, but I
| don't know anyone who owns them. The EMS vocoders are
| supposed to be amazing, too.
|
| I can't speak on Dromedary Modular's behalf and I think
| rising parts costs have been an issue, but buying an Ultimate
| VoIS should be a fair bit cheaper than the Moog vocoder.
| bibinou wrote:
| Thomas Bangalter's father was a French disco producer and
| songwriter who helped them a lot in their early career. Sure
| helps.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| They used the VSM-201 for "Random Access Memories", their
| last Studio Album. At that time they didn't need such help
| anymore, they famously rented a huge amount of equipment and
| large studio-floors (i.e. they recorded simultaneously with
| microphones from different decades because Thomas heard a
| difference and wanted this reflected on the record).
|
| Above all, the biggest help from his father was probably to
| insist that they keep the ownership of their music when
| signing with any label, regardless of any money, because as a
| producer he knew that this is how artists get screwed by
| record labels.
| Isamu wrote:
| This is a really great deep dive, I wish I could upvote more to
| reward this kind of quality work.
| marcedwards wrote:
| Thank you! Your kind comment helps. :)
| amelius wrote:
| Reading the title I thought this was about extraordinary singing
| techniques. But nice article anyway.
| jedimastert wrote:
| It is unreal to me the amount of impact Daft Punk had with only
| four studio albums.
| marcedwards wrote:
| Absolutely. Hopefully there's at least one more.
| ukuina wrote:
| How can this be?
| marcedwards wrote:
| There's rumours they're working on more material. I
| wouldn't blame them for telling the world they've broken
| up, just to take the pressure off. I can live in hope,
| right?
| colecut wrote:
| At least if they don't produce another album, we still
| get to see them perform at Burning Man this year, out by
| the trash fence
| ilinx wrote:
| I mean, they're retired, and I'm not holding out hope. But
| it's remarkable that 30 years after their debut Daft Punk
| could put out an album and probably be as innovative and
| relevant as ever. That's such a rare quality.
| trollied wrote:
| Was lucky enough to see them live at a small venue in
| Manchester in the 90s when I was at University. Epic times.
| diggan wrote:
| To be fair, they've done a lot more than just studio albums,
| from collaborations to live albums, concerts and whatever more.
| Personal favorite is probably Alive 2007 that went on repeat
| until Mom complained about the windows in the living room
| downstairs almost breaking.
| joezydeco wrote:
| The TRON:Legacy soundtrack was an incredible piece of work.
| Fit the movie exactly.
| prmoustache wrote:
| Funny because Mom alternated between a Bob Marley greatest
| hits and Daft Punk Discovery and Human after all records when
| doing the ironing and cleaning at home.
|
| No idea what she is listening to these days when doing those
| chores.
| pengaru wrote:
| Is your Mom one of my exes?
| KolyaKornelius wrote:
| dad?
| olelele wrote:
| Both of them had separate labels and released a lot of other
| artists. See DJ Mehdis super hit for one of my favourite tracks
| ever :)
| olelele wrote:
| Specifically Roule and Crydamoure (unsure if spelling
| correctly)
| philistine wrote:
| They did so much more. Thomas made Call On Me, a track he found
| unsatisfying, and it still ended up as a massive hit because it
| was stolen from him.
| tobr wrote:
| Imagine inventing pumping sidechain compression and finding
| it unsatisfying.
| kennyadam wrote:
| A YouTube video (that the algorithm loved) about all this
| and is super interesting:
| https://youtu.be/wyYAiU4DKUY?si=CpcOuhzAvXs7fqWF
| rickdeckard wrote:
| (They also did the Soundtrack for Tron:Legacy, basically their
| fifth studio album)
|
| Anyway, I keep remembering how panned 'Human After All' was,
| and how bad the reviews were because the album was too
| "mechanical" and was "missing the warmth of House", while this
| is EXACTLY how the genre evolved in the years to come and none
| of those music experts saw this.
|
| Many journalists did a retrospective of it a few years later
| and admitted that they misjudged it.
|
| It's not that Daft Punk drove the industry in this direction,
| the album wasn't well-received by most at that time. They
| showed the destination of a journey while people didn't even
| realize they are traveling...
|
| In the end, it appears that 'Random Access Memories' is one of
| their least innovative and "lasting" albums. It's probably
| their most successful one, the most complex to conceptualize
| and produce, but IMO it has the least unique character of all
| their productions.
|
| Looking at the whole picture, the product of "Random Access
| Memories" is less the music, but the duo celebrating the
| process of production itself...
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Random Access Memories was such a letdown. It's an OK disco
| album that doesn't innovate at all. Masterful recording, it
| sounds great of course, but it didn't take any risks. I
| listened to it twice and that was it.
| rickdeckard wrote:
| Exactly, fully agree. If it would have been released as a
| Pharrell Williams Album "produced by Daft Punk", it woul
| have been met with different expectations.
|
| And especially now it would perfectly blend with other
| Pharrell Williams Albums (i.e. "Happy" could have been on
| "Random Access Memories" without standing out at all...)
| spcebar wrote:
| RAM brought back that funky sound which had been completely
| absent from contemporary dance music. It was a revival of
| old elements, mixed with modern electronic sound. A
| masterful mingling of elements of the past and the future
| coming together to form something not quite as good as
| either, but listenable and danceable, and most importantly
| impactful, because after that album there was a wave of
| artists emulating that sound. We wouldn't have gotten
| Uptown Special if we hadn't gotten Random Access Memories.
| That's my feeling on it anyway.
| mzs wrote:
| Guess you didn't listen to it on shuffle. There are
| multiple stories to be discovered depending on the order of
| tracks, like the one about the alien robot that crash lands
| on earth and strives to experience humanity. The album is
| RANDOM ACCESS Memories after all.
| maplant wrote:
| The stories are maybe 1/10000th the importance of the
| quality of the music, which is simply Ok.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Tron:Legacy still lives in my head. I'm still chasing the
| music I imagined after seeing the movie/hearing the
| soundtrack. Also half of Daft Punk Guy-Manuel de Homem-
| Christo's work in Kavinsky's 'Nightcall'.
| morsch wrote:
| Check out Tron: Legacy Reconfigured if you haven't (you
| probably have).
| DHPersonal wrote:
| The composer who assisted them also worked with M83 for the
| Oblivion soundtrack, which I think is also pretty
| spectacular.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _how bad the reviews were because the album was too
| "mechanical" and was "missing the warmth of House"_
|
| FWIW, I wouldn't call myself a particular fan of house or
| dance music in general. This mechanicalness and lack of
| warmth is probably what I like about the album.
| swivelmaster wrote:
| The reason that I dislike Human After All is that, quite
| simply, it's not fun.
|
| It's dour. It's depressing. And it's repetitive in a way that
| feels tiresome; You can't dance to most of it or even really
| tap your foot to it.
|
| What happened was that Daft Punk challenged themselves to
| make an album in six weeks and ended up with a showcase for a
| few neat guitar pedals and two fun songs (Robot Rock and
| Technologic), one of which consists almost entirely of a
| barely-changed sample
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFwGQAEYqHs).
|
| Electronic music certainly evolved in ways that made it less
| warm, but that didn't make it less fun. Case in point,
| Skrillex's early music is weird and playful despite relying
| on 'cold' synth sounds. Human After All is just cold.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _And it 's repetitive in a way that feels tiresome; You
| can't dance to most of it or even really tap your foot to
| it._
|
| Being robotic and repeatitive never stopped people dancing
| like crazy to techno all night. In fact, that's its very
| allure.
| l33tbro wrote:
| Fine not to like it for those reasons. But maybe try listen
| to it next time from a more psych, garage, or post-rock
| perspective. They were influenced very early on by groups
| like Spacemen 3, and I see HAA as them doing something big
| and dirgey in this kind of school. I even recall the liner
| notes saying only "all guitars by Daft Punk".
| Thaxll wrote:
| Because those albums redefined the music industry, they also
| created the base platform for all live EDM concert with
| Coachella in 2006.
|
| Daft punk had a large impact on music overall, they were ( are?
| ) really really good musicians.
| cpitman wrote:
| Interstella 5555 is still one of my favorite movies. It's an
| anime movie where the entire soundtrack is the album Discovery.
| There are no vocals, the entire story is told by only the
| animation and music, and it works incredibly well.
| bee_rider wrote:
| I don't even know what it is, haha (maybe it is an... Album
| Video). But it is great.
|
| I guess there is the concept of a Rock Opera, but that
| doesn't seem to have expanded much across the genres.
| cpitman wrote:
| They were the official music videos for the album, looks
| like Daft Punk released all of them on YouTube.
|
| This Playlist has them all in order: https://youtube.com/pl
| aylist?list=PLSdoVPM5WnndLX6Ngmb8wktMF...
| bee_rider wrote:
| I meant, I'm familiar with the thing, it just seems quite
| novel to have one continuous set of music videos that
| form a movie.
|
| Sorry, in retrospect my comment was a bit confusing.
| smjburton wrote:
| Very cool OP listening to the original samples compared against
| the different harmonizers and vocoders.
|
| The Sennheiser VSM201 sounds so clean, I really like the analogue
| sound. The TC Helicon Talkbox Synth also sounds nice.
|
| For the harmonizers, the Digitech Studio Vocalist EX sounds the
| best to me, but I also like the Korg ih Interactive Vocal Harmony
| for its spacey vocal effects.
| brudgers wrote:
| If you have a vocoder, running a drum machine through the
| modulator won't sound all that much like daft punk, but will
| probably sound familiar. And maybe become part of your sound.
|
| If you don't have a vocoder, Behringer recently released one as a
| Eurorack module for $99. It's fine.
| nprateem wrote:
| Any good software vocoders out there?
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| I really like Arturia's though it is a bit finicky, a CPU hog,
| and takes some post processing to clean up.
| an_aparallel wrote:
| Fl studios "vocodex" is likely the most advanced vocoder there
| is.
|
| 128 bands, band redistribution, ability to further route using
| patcher, just look at its manual to see :)
|
| Though its shrouded by the standard "FL is for rap dumb dumb"
| stigma. Marketing is one hell of a drug.
| sideshowb wrote:
| The built-in one in ableton is fine by me
| gen3 wrote:
| Outstanding article, don't skip the youtube videos!
| brianstorms wrote:
| I love, no luuuurrve, this article. Just fantastic research and
| fantastically useful for a music project I'm workin' on.
| _DeadFred_ wrote:
| Tangentially related if you make music in the box and want some
| simple Daft Punk breakdowns to experiment from:
|
| https://reverbmachine.com/blog/daft-punk-homework-synth-soun...
| https://reverbmachine.com/blog/daft-punk-discovery-synth-sou...
| roblh wrote:
| Tangentially related; here's a great example of the classic daft
| punk vocal synth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mXLNnZvGJw
| nickisnoble wrote:
| But... Skala?!
| xavriley wrote:
| I went down a similar rabbit hole at the start of my PhD and I
| wish I'd written more of it up. One of my theories is that they
| combined effects quite often. For example, "harder better faster
| stronger" seems more likely to be a talk box recorded for a
| single note, then looped, then run through an AutoTune rack unit
| with MIDI inputs to repitch it. I mention this a little bit in a
| talk I have at ADC 2022 https://youtu.be/uX-
| FVtQT0PQ?feature=shared
| debrisapron wrote:
| I was a bit surprised by this article as it actually contradicts
| the account I always heard, which was their main vocal effect was
| a Roland VP-9000. If you listen to e.g. Harder Faster the effect
| is somewhere in between a vocoder & autotune, so I assumed that
| was the VP-9000. That said, this guy has clearly done his
| homework (pun intended) so I'm inclined to accept his version of
| events.
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