While it was an expensive project back in 1980 (£175 in 1980 is about £1000 today!) I had a friend who played keyboards and other electronic instruments and he had had it demoed to him at a show and thought it was a bargain, a commercial instrument of similar quality would be 3 or 4 times that. Powertran produced some amazing products, I only wish I had the money and skill at the time to build one or two of them!
yeah, as much as I love all the FPGA and SoC systems we have today and the projects people build off them, I kinda miss this style of kit. tindie has some, but what I wouldn't give for someone to reboot the old heathkit kits or stuff like this.
There's somebody from Kazakhstan, on MW forum, who's selling unpopulated PCBs to make a clone of an old German (I think) vocoder... there are projects like that, but I don't know of an affordable convenient kit?
Julian Ilett built a copy of this a few years ago. You can still get all the components and have the PCBs made, ruclips.net/p/PLjzGSu1yGFjXKZ5igKxwlgfGdy25yZoPN
Good old ETI. I built several kits. I built the ETI 480 50watt amplifier as my first guitar amp, and a little 5watt one as a practice amp. Used it for years.
I built the ETI 499 amplifier - and I also built the Electronics Australia Playmaster 3. I ended up with 4 of them in a surround sound setup. They were all good.
Amazing. I don't do synths, or vocoders, and I'm terrible on my guitar (though I still like to pluck the strings). But I love your channel. The energy you put into these videos and knowledge you drop is just perfection. Thank you!
I used to talk to his brother John Becker about this back in 2003 when I worked at Essex Radio in charge of Engineering. John used to live in Kent at the time but travel down to another electronics magazine.... This was a great product and later In the 1980's they issued I am sure some mods to that project with values etc...... I will try to visit your musium one day as when I left school in 1981 I worked on ZX81's BBC Micros and a host of other computers repairing them as my first job....and at Amstrad.
I have always wanted a vocoder. Kenny Everett was the Genius when it came to vocoders. He sung my name jingles for radio with a vocoder back in the 70's Plug a keyboard in to it to play chords with the vocal.
He'd sing whole choirs with them, and use video feedback as well when he made it to the telly. But never forget the BBC radiophonic workshop. EXTERMINATE!!!!
That trip through the magazine was a nostalgia fix! My grandad had a ZX80, and he also built the Maplin organ, which I remember playing when I visited. My first job after leaving uni was actually in Maplin Electronics in Southampton as well :) I spent a couple of years there before starting a career in software. It was quite instructive, and my staff discount was handy for getting and building kits now and then too.
I want my voice to sound like this all the time. I wonder if I can have one surgically installed. Then instead of speaking normally, when people say "Some weather we're having eh?" I can say things like "Atmospheric conditions are adequate to maintain peak performance on all my systems.". Or "This food is good." "Thank you for the information fellow human. I also intake dead bio matter in a disgusting process of digestion instead of more efficiently recharging like a higher life form would."
Since watching BattleStar Galactica in the late 70s I wanted a vocoder. The sound of the Cylons - Awesome! They were used so much during those early years, defined a lot of music of the day. Love it! Vocoder'tastic!
@10:00 putting drums through a vocoder 🤔😲 not sure why I never thought of that. I've been trying to build more musical / but percussive drum sounds. That's exactly what I need!
C;lassic kit and lots of memories in those mags. We built a comp80 at school, and I had fun secretly patching CP/M to behave a little differently, ZX80 kit as my first computer, and was really keen on the transcendent 2000. Still got an original demo tape for it somewhere.
What a cracking bit of kit. My vocoder is part of my DAW and I dont use it much but I will have a play around with it. A stand alone one would be very cool. Actually thinking about it I do have a Behringer vocoder somewhere in the shed. I will have to dig it out!
I loved ETI - was fascinated by the Vocoder but could never afford to build it (not that I have any musical talent to use it with!). It was an interesting to compare the design of this vocoder with the Elektor vocoder which came out earlier the same year but which had fewer channels.
Man, that thing sounds great! I built a PAIA vocoder when I was a kid, and I never could make it sound good. The filters really kind of sucked, IMHO. Needs a sharper Q? Or more stages? Dunno what the secret is. I also tried building one in Pure Data, and could never get that Phat Sound!
I really enjoyed this one ! Just past 14 minutes I thought you were about to go into DALEK mode. :-) I remember them when they first came out, ( black and white ). While I'm here, Just wondered if you'd had time to do a bit of tuning on the organ ? ps, I still play around with my old Echoman EM150 analogue echo unit, good fun. Take care and keep it up
Ok.. so.. Now I hear what it is I have been wanting in a Vocoder since I was a child! In the early 80s no less! So I check eBay and everything vocoder is mostly modern electronic preseted vocoders.. nothing like this that has individual knobs and controls for EVERY function and part of the vocoder.. I have a ton of vocoders already but again NONE sound like this because none of them are analog. PAIA used to have a kit but from what I saw in youtube it is only 8 bands? There was something else out there for the USA market, where I AM, that was close? But today I am not finding it. Any clues? Analog vocoders or at least kits that can still be built using modern parts?
The Buchla module 296t is coming to eurorack from Tiptop soon and i have seen others (even a kit version, bt i cannot now remember the manufacturer), so if someone likes this vocoder and cannot get this particular one, those are an alternative.
Quickly, watching this video, the memory of this song came to my head like a punch... Beastie Boys - Intergalactic, could you do a version of the theme with it?
In each filter band, is the voice element the control or the input to the VCA? The article initial text indicated it is the control, but later explanation was the other way around. Which is it? Also, thank you for the detailed description and walk through, learning a lot!
In actual fact it can work either way round. But look at the block diagram cv comes from excitation. In the end it would work like a four quadrant multiplier so similar results either way
@@VarionJimmy I design build and test vocoders. I have been into electrical engineering when i was young but eventually turned into sound engineer and a vocoder engineer. It’s not a thing to take seriously but vocoders are my thing!
I'm quite impressed by how good this thing sounded, for what it was! I seem to remember that some vocoders had a sibilance detector that would switch the source to noise when activated. Was that the case here? I didn't quite follow that part, sorry.
Richard Becker and his wife owned Powertran. Elektor magazine also published a Vocoder design.
Indeed; I worked for them for 3 months.
While it was an expensive project back in 1980 (£175 in 1980 is about £1000 today!) I had a friend who played keyboards and other electronic instruments and he had had it demoed to him at a show and thought it was a bargain, a commercial instrument of similar quality would be 3 or 4 times that. Powertran produced some amazing products, I only wish I had the money and skill at the time to build one or two of them!
Man I wish there was a diy kit made today of this.
yeah, as much as I love all the FPGA and SoC systems we have today and the projects people build off them, I kinda miss this style of kit. tindie has some, but what I wouldn't give for someone to reboot the old heathkit kits or stuff like this.
There's somebody from Kazakhstan, on MW forum, who's selling unpopulated PCBs to make a clone of an old German (I think) vocoder... there are projects like that, but I don't know of an affordable convenient kit?
Julian Ilett built a copy of this a few years ago. You can still get all the components and have the PCBs made, ruclips.net/p/PLjzGSu1yGFjXKZ5igKxwlgfGdy25yZoPN
Yes please 😁
I saw the responses. To bad that RUclips doesn’t allow links…
@@GizzyDillespee What is the MW forum? Can you drop some links here so I can find what you're referring to?
Good old ETI. I built several kits. I built the ETI 480 50watt amplifier as my first guitar amp, and a little 5watt one as a practice amp. Used it for years.
I built the ETI 499 amplifier - and I also built the Electronics Australia Playmaster 3. I ended up with 4 of them in a surround sound setup. They were all good.
I miss the electronics magazines. Used to waste a lot of time drooling over the adverts.
I want more of the toilet roll song! It's sounds really flush!
Sounds flush! 🤣🤣🤣
Amazing. I don't do synths, or vocoders, and I'm terrible on my guitar (though I still like to pluck the strings). But I love your channel. The energy you put into these videos and knowledge you drop is just perfection. Thank you!
Dude it doesn't matter how good you are as long as you have fun and enjoy doing it keep on keeping on!
I don't play anything.. I love music and electronics so I've been working on a project for my friends.
I used to talk to his brother John Becker about this back in 2003 when I worked at Essex Radio in charge of Engineering. John used to live in Kent at the time but travel down to another electronics magazine.... This was a great product and later In the 1980's they issued I am sure some mods to that project with values etc...... I will try to visit your musium one day as when I left school in 1981 I worked on ZX81's BBC Micros and a host of other computers repairing them as my first job....and at Amstrad.
Your seventies twin DEFINITELY needs more screen time :D.
I really appreciate the synth patch walkthrough on the Furby machine.
I dunno how you knew I wasn't deserving of all those bog rolls, but you nailed it.
That actually sounds amazing.
I have always wanted a vocoder. Kenny Everett was the Genius when it came to vocoders.
He sung my name jingles for radio with a vocoder back in the 70's
Plug a keyboard in to it to play chords with the vocal.
He'd sing whole choirs with them, and use video feedback as well when he made it to the telly. But never forget the BBC radiophonic workshop. EXTERMINATE!!!!
That trip through the magazine was a nostalgia fix! My grandad had a ZX80, and he also built the Maplin organ, which I remember playing when I visited. My first job after leaving uni was actually in Maplin Electronics in Southampton as well :) I spent a couple of years there before starting a career in software. It was quite instructive, and my staff discount was handy for getting and building kits now and then too.
That last jam vocoding the bassline was badass. You should build a whole song around that.
Sam! Brilliant and hilarious as ever! Keep up the good work mate! 🙂
I want my voice to sound like this all the time. I wonder if I can have one surgically installed. Then instead of speaking normally, when people say "Some weather we're having eh?" I can say things like "Atmospheric conditions are adequate to maintain peak performance on all my systems.". Or "This food is good." "Thank you for the information fellow human. I also intake dead bio matter in a disgusting process of digestion instead of more efficiently recharging like a higher life form would."
I love seeing all these old synths and the building processes but I’ve never wanted any of them like I’ve wanted this vocoder❤️❤️
dude vocoders are SICK AND THIS IS COOL ANDTHANKS
6:45 Cat was laying relaxed but is now looking at Me in confusion looking like He is thinking "What the fxxx is that sound?".
omg you build the vocoder julian ilett is buildung for what feels like 10 years
I really enjoyed the impromptu jams XD
Sounds wicked! Kudos
I love how much fun you clearly had making this video. Couldn't stop chuckling
Since watching BattleStar Galactica in the late 70s I wanted a vocoder. The sound of the Cylons - Awesome!
They were used so much during those early years, defined a lot of music of the day.
Love it!
Vocoder'tastic!
And cheaper than the ARP 2500 synthesizer they used.
Battlestar Galactica. I thought the same thing.
By your command, imperious leader!
10:43 channeling Giorgio Moroder, I LOVE it!😅
Sam, you are a treasure.
@10:00 putting drums through a vocoder 🤔😲 not sure why I never thought of that. I've been trying to build more musical / but percussive drum sounds. That's exactly what I need!
Gorgeous typesetting in that magazine. We used to do it up nice.
@8:09 that classic basic basic vocoder noise. Very cool just by itself. 🔥
The RUclips caption generator as a vocoder decoder was un-phased up until the load of Toilet Roll Mumbo Jumbo Song.
I love this thing! So did one of my favorite bands, ELO. 🎶Mister Blue Sky! 🎶
C;lassic kit and lots of memories in those mags. We built a comp80 at school, and I had fun secretly patching CP/M to behave a little differently, ZX80 kit as my first computer, and was really keen on the transcendent 2000. Still got an original demo tape for it somewhere.
This is the best sounding vocoder I have ever heard. The digital vocoder plugins don't sound nearly as dirty/grungy as this one.
You just need to run a dirtier carrier signal into them. Should get you into the ballpark more?
@@BatteryCoverMissing yeah, it sounds distorted at both ends. Really unique
Well done. A great demo of the Vocoder. Sounds like you had great fun playing with it.
I sold mine 8 years ago, great sounding processor
I like the 4 little circuit diagram dudes hanging out at 4:32 :ø
Pretty rad 😎
I love the giant turny knobs, straight out of some Frankenstein movie or Batman computer.
What a cracking bit of kit. My vocoder is part of my DAW and I dont use it much but I will have a play around with it. A stand alone one would be very cool. Actually thinking about it I do have a Behringer vocoder somewhere in the shed. I will have to dig it out!
Wow it's quite versatile. I want one!
I loved ETI - was fascinated by the Vocoder but could never afford to build it (not that I have any musical talent to use it with!). It was an interesting to compare the design of this vocoder with the Elektor vocoder which came out earlier the same year but which had fewer channels.
Hitting my ears like Intergalactic by The Beastie Boys
Brilliant video cheers 👍😃😎🤘
16:35 when you're calling tech support but you are on hold for an hour
Wow that is really good. Sounds as good as the EMS!
brilliant.
Thanks
I remember seeing this, I had the magazines for the PA stuff but could never afford their kits, their synths were awesome
😍
Die Stimme der Energie!
your seventies twin appears to hail from liverpool. i can see him saying "calm down, calm down!"
3:00 The Smash Aliens called - they want their colleague back!
neat sound! 😂❤
Man, that thing sounds great! I built a PAIA vocoder when I was a kid, and I never could make it sound good. The filters really kind of sucked, IMHO. Needs a sharper Q? Or more stages? Dunno what the secret is. I also tried building one in Pure Data, and could never get that Phat Sound!
You should have seen my cats react when he hears that voco-delay The first time 😳😂
Almost spat out my muesli when you said Powertran e-t-i. I hear something completely different.
Cool! Has a KMFDM vibe to the voice. Awesome! Also makes me think Beastie Boys as well.
YOU HAVE A VOCODER, HOLY SHIT!
So that's how they did the evil computer voice in the film Collossus. 😊
POWERTRAN!
Sounds like the vocoder used by the bestie boys on intergalactic
Remember Sam... the difference between 70s Sam and 80s Sam is a pair of aviator sunglasses. 😁 That is a great little vocoder. 👍
you basically made an early Boys Noize track there in the end :P great work!
Wanted one since soundwave in transformers
Hah this made me remember that Bode vocoder video from the ancient times of youtube.
This episode was freaking awesome! Need more vocoder music :)
I really enjoyed this one ! Just past 14 minutes I thought you were about to go into DALEK mode. :-) I remember them when they first came out, ( black and white ). While I'm here, Just wondered if you'd had time to do a bit of tuning on the organ ? ps, I still play around with my old Echoman EM150 analogue echo unit, good fun. Take care and keep it up
I want to hear more of the song from your 1970's twin. Getting wiggy wid it.
Hello just a heads up Julian Ilett of the Julian Ilett RUclips channel is building one from scratch
BY YOUR COMMAND
excitation signal? my schematic refers to it as a "good vibration signal!"
15:50 reminds me of the Boys Noize remix of "My Moon My Man"
Classic!!! How many were started to be built and was never completed? Heaps!
Great ! We need more Robot Voice !!
Ok.. so.. Now I hear what it is I have been wanting in a Vocoder since I was a child! In the early 80s no less! So I check eBay and everything vocoder is mostly modern electronic preseted vocoders.. nothing like this that has individual knobs and controls for EVERY function and part of the vocoder.. I have a ton of vocoders already but again NONE sound like this because none of them are analog. PAIA used to have a kit but from what I saw in youtube it is only 8 bands? There was something else out there for the USA market, where I AM, that was close? But today I am not finding it. Any clues? Analog vocoders or at least kits that can still be built using modern parts?
Why the hell did I recall the scene from Monty Pythons meaning of Life, when I heard words "juices flowing"? Roughly at 13:15
try a water hose transistor computer (similar to a vacuum tube transistor computer), yep fully mechanical, similar to a switch computer
This sound like the majority of the hitchhikers sound FX.
I actually had to stop this video in the middle to go watch The Beastie Boys. You know which song.
This sounds like Johny Five
The Buchla module 296t is coming to eurorack from Tiptop soon and i have seen others (even a kit version, bt i cannot now remember the manufacturer), so if someone likes this vocoder and cannot get this particular one, those are an alternative.
I built the smaller Maplin synth kit. Parents bought it for my 18th. Cool synth, Cool parents!
I got the Maplin Electronic Roulette wheel kit and the Geiger Counter kit when I was a kid. I still have many of their project magazines.
Cool piece of kit, you can make Daft Punk obsolete.
Quickly, watching this video, the memory of this song came to my head like a punch... Beastie Boys - Intergalactic, could you do a version of the theme with it?
In each filter band, is the voice element the control or the input to the VCA? The article initial text indicated it is the control, but later explanation was the other way around. Which is it?
Also, thank you for the detailed description and walk through, learning a lot!
In actual fact it can work either way round. But look at the block diagram cv comes from excitation. In the end it would work like a four quadrant multiplier so similar results either way
Regarding the vca that is
What does a harmonica thru a vocoder sound like?
As a vocoder engineer i can say this is a pretty darn good vocoder! Also, can you make a video about Sennheiser Vocoder VSM 201?
Vocoder engineer? As a sound engineer for 35 years I got curious. ☺️ Never heard that title before. Do you design vocoders?
@@VarionJimmy I design build and test vocoders. I have been into electrical engineering when i was young but eventually turned into sound engineer and a vocoder engineer. It’s not a thing to take seriously but vocoders are my thing!
is that a bosa NOva @9:50 I do like that set up Would be cool to hear a nice modern beat morph into the vintage lo-fi sound.
Hearing you use this thing, it makes me wonder if that's what they used for the Cylons from the original Battlestar Galactica TV program.
So used for the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica and the intro for Night Flight to Venus by Boney M?
🤠
Dalek Voice * " Exterminate "
ring mod
When he plugged in the delay, did it say "toilet ROMs?"
I am not correctly adjusted and twiddling my knobs is actively encouraged.
Fab
I'm quite impressed by how good this thing sounded, for what it was! I seem to remember that some vocoders had a sibilance detector that would switch the source to noise when activated. Was that the case here? I didn't quite follow that part, sorry.
When are you going to release "There's a Crackle In My Heart and a Crackle In My Vocoder"?
Is that shirt a Todd Rundgren reference?
"By your command!"