EECS20N: Signals and Systems

Vocoder effects in music

Modern derivatives of Dudley's vocoder are widely used in speech coding, for example for transmission of speech over the internet and for digital cellular telephones. The basic technique has also been adapted by musicians for special effects. The following demonstration is taken from a film by Laurie Anderson called "Home of the Brave," on a track called "Sharkey's Night." Both singing voices you hear are Anderson's, but one is pitch shifted using a vocoder.

Note that the audio file is a huge file (16,448k), in Sun audio format, CD quality (44.1kHz sampling, 16-bit samples). Not all players will be able to handle it.