Equipments for POWERPOP Genre.

[mmatin]

HEY PEEPS!
does any of you know what type of equipment does bands like NeverShoutNever,Stereo Skyline,Metro Station uses?

I checked out Stereo Skyline live videos and they dont even have a persone playing the synth but theres the synth melody.So how did they do it?

1 mre qn.How does these bands did the Vocal Effects?

 

[poladark]

I checked out Stereo Skyline live videos and they dont even have a persone playing the synth but theres the synth melody.So how did they do it?

Well I quickly checked out Stereo Skyline's song Heartbeat on YouTube and the synth line could be just about any synthesizer. Quite possibly a virtual analogue one. Sounds to me like a simple saw wave played with glide on legato.

Lots of bands have extra musicians off-stage or even (*gasp*) use pre recorded tracks for things like that. I was sorely disappointed because of that when I went to see In Flames live many years ago for instance. What's the point of going to a live concert and not seeing the musicians playing their instruments?

1 mre qn.How does these bands did the Vocal Effects?

I think it's one of those typical vocoder type effects. There are many different software plugins for it if you do it on a computer. There are hardware boxes for it too. I use an Electro-Harmonix V256.

The vocoder allows you to apply the characteristics of your voice to another instrument that's being played. If it's used heavily it will make "robot" sounds. If used lightly and mixed with the original song it will sound something like that Heartbeat tune.

 

[kerplunk182]

NeverShoutNever used Garageband for his demos. For his gear, he has a Gibson Hummingbird, a Martin, a Takamine + Seymour Duncan woody pickup and a Taylor. Not too sure on the models.

Metro Station uses autotune. Hahaha. But hey, they have a synth player for the other effects right?

Never really checked out Stereo Skyline's gear so can't help you on that.

 

[mmatin]

HEY!
where did u buy th electro-Harmonix V256?how much does it cost?REPLY PLEASE!

 

[poladark]

I ordered mine from the German web shop Thomann (http://www.thomann.de). It's 195 Euro plus shipping (around 375 SGD?). Not quite sure what shipping and customs might amount to from Germany at the moment. It's a pretty small metal box though.

I've given up on finding good places to buy synthesizers and equipment in Singapore

There's also a cheaper and much smaller version of the EHX V256 called the Iron Lung but the difference in price (315 SGD?) isn't that big and the Iron Lung lacks a lot of the features of the V256. I think that the EHX V256 and EHX Iron Lung are the most inexpensive dedicated vocoders you can buy at the moment.

And of course you need instrument cables and a microphone with an XLR cable and some sort of instrument (like a keyboard or synthesizer) for it to work.

There's also another option that might be worthwhile: A lot of relatively inexpensive synthesizers have vocoders built in these days as well. Some examples are Korg microKorg, Alesis micron (or Akai miniak, same instrument), Roland SH201 and Korg R3. Also with synthesizers it often makes a lot of sense to buy second hand equipment since the price is lower and they don't usually wear out that easily.

You might want to do a search on YouTube for "vocoder" to get a lot of results for different types of vocoders and to see how people use them and guides to how they work.

 

[mmatin]

Why the heck does the V256 needs an Instrument to run in it?Isn't it just for the vocals?

And for the synth,roughly how much does it cost?And does tht mean tht the mic needs to be connected to the synth frst before to th monitors?

 

[poladark]

why the heck does the v256 needs an instrument to run in it?isn't it just for the vocals?

A pure vocoder doesn't generate any sounds on its' own. It's a pretty ancient electronic device in fact, originally used for military applications in the 1950ies. This is why you need a sound source.

A vocoder requires two inputs:
1: Analysis input. This is where typically plug in your microphone.
2: Synthesis input. This is where you plug in whatever sound source (electric guitar, synthesizer, etc) that you want to change according to the characteristics of the Analysis input.

A lot of vocoders (like the EHX V256) have a built-in sound generator as well in case you don't want to use a separate instrument for the Synthesis input. For instance the V256 has a MIDI input that you can use to play the internal sound generator with. Using an external sound source will give you more flexibility though.

and for the synth,roughly how much does it cost?and does tht mean tht the mic needs to be connected to the synth frst before to th monitors?

The microKorg XL (the XL has a 16 band vocoder which sounds much clearer than the 8 bands on the old microKorg) is listed as costing $624 at city music.

And yes: the microphone needs to be connected through the synth first. However you can typically adjust the vocoder output to be only vocoder or only clean microphone sound or somewhere in between.