Choir: a vocoder plugin that turns one voice into a choir

What a vocoder plugin does

A vocoder plugin splits your voice into frequency bands, measures how loud each band is moment to moment, and applies those levels to a synth. The synth supplies the notes, your voice supplies the vowels and consonants, and the result is a synth that sings your words. That is the sound behind robot voices, vocoded choirs and the talking-synth hooks in electronic and pop music.

Most vocoder plug ins only do the analysis half: you bring the synth (the carrier) through a sidechain. Choir does both halves in one insert. For the full background, read what a vocoder is and how it works.

A vocoder synth built in, so there's nothing to route

A thin carrier patch gives you a thin, buzzy vocoder no matter how good the analysis is. Choir's built-in vocoder synth is designed for the job:

• Wave picks the oscillator: Supersaw for lush choirs, Saw for the bright, classic vocoder sound, Pulse for hollow, vintage tones.
• Unison (1 to 7 voices) and Detune (0 to 50 cents) decide how many slightly detuned singers sing each note.
• Key, Chord and Octave set the harmony when no MIDI is playing. Chord types run from Major, Minor, Sus2 and Sus4 through Maj7, Min7, Power and Octaves to Single for a one-note robot.
• Voicing stacks the chord Close or spreads it Open over more than an octave, the way a real choir is arranged. Glide slides the voices to each new chord.

Play MIDI chords into Choir and it follows them instead. The Choir macro adds octave doubling, ensemble width, gentle vibrato and a slight formant lift, so a few voices sound like a full section.

In the demo, Cathedral Choir runs 28 bands, four unison voices in D minor, the Choir macro at 90% and Space at 60%. Sing or speak a line and listen to it come back as a big, slow-moving choir.

Vocoder presets: choirs, robots, pads and leads

Choir ships with 46 presets in six families. Start from the closest one, then change Key and Chord to match your song.

Robot voice settings: bands, attack and release

The robot voice comes from a single pitch, few bands and fast envelopes. Set Chord to Single so every word lands on one note, switch Wave to Saw, and pull Unison down to one voice. Then use three controls to decide how robotic it gets:

1. Bands (8 to 40): fewer bands sound retro and mechanical, more sound smooth and intelligible. 10 to 16 is classic robot, 24 to 32 suits singing.
2. Attack (0.5 to 100 ms): keep it under about 3 ms so consonants stay crisp. Longer attacks give soft swells for pads.
3. Release (5 to 1000 ms): 20 to 40 ms gives tight, choppy speech. Above 200 ms the words blur into a pad.

Robot Monotone is the reference setting: Single chord on C, one Saw voice, 16 bands, 1 ms attack, 30 ms release, and no Choir, Ensemble, Width or Space. The demo below is completely dry and centered, the way a robot voice usually sits in a mix.

Two controls keep any vocoder intelligible. Sibilance lets your S, T and F sounds through as real noise, the part classic vocoders lose. Gate keeps the synth silent below a set input level, so room noise and headphone bleed don't sing between phrases.

Vocoder vs talkbox, and how to get the talkbox sound

A talkbox pipes an instrument's sound through a tube into the performer's mouth, and a microphone picks up the shaped result. A vocoder does the shaping electronically. The talkbox sounds more vocal and gritty; the vocoder sounds cleaner and can play full chords. Our vocoder vs talkbox guide compares the two in detail.

You can get close to a talkbox lead in software. Funk Talker plays one Saw voice with 0.12 seconds of glide between notes, a slight formant lift and 24 bands, so melodies slide like a talkbox line. Play it from a MIDI keyboard for the best result.

Vocoder for Ableton, FL Studio and Pro Tools

Choir goes on the vocal track as an insert effect. Without MIDI it sings the Key and Chord you set, which is enough for a pad or a robot voice. To play chords, send MIDI to it:

• Ableton Live: put Choir on the vocal audio track. Create a MIDI track, set its MIDI To menu to the vocal track and choose Choir in the second menu, then play or draw chords. Our step-by-step guide covers how to use a vocoder in Ableton, including Live's own Vocoder.
• FL Studio: load Choir on the vocal's Mixer insert. For chords, give Choir a MIDI input port in its wrapper settings and add a MIDI Out channel on the same port. Install notes are on our FL Studio page.
• Pro Tools: insert the AAX version on the vocal track, then create a MIDI track and set its output to the Choir instance.
• Logic Pro: load the AU version on the vocal's channel strip and use the built-in Key and Chord.

Set Mix below 100% to blend the dry vocal underneath for hooks people can still understand. Comparing options? Our vocoder plugins guide covers stock DAW vocoders, free plugins and harmonizers such as Tune.