Xils-Lab releases an EMS 5000 Vocoder plug-in

[mhschmieder]

Given that we don't know when, if ever, Fabrice will have time to revive the wonderful ELS Vocoder from Eiosis, it is perhaps welcome that Xils-Lab has just released (in final beta stage, but only discounted until 22 DEC right before public release) their own emulation of what was perhaps the most advanced vocoder ever designed; the EMS 5000.

I just bought it in desperation, as the only song left on one of the three albums I'm trying to wrap up by New Year's used the ELS Vocoder but had some changes to its arrangement and needed to be retraced (for some time now). NONE of the other vocoders (I have quite a few!) worked for the material. It occurred to me, while listening to the audio demos of the new Xils product, that the problem all along has been that this is the SPECIFIC vocoder sound I am going for and that it isn't that the other ones aren't any good.

I'm fading fast so may not have a chance to try it out before crashing for the night. Maybe tomorrow night. But as the intro discount period is brief (sorry; it was quoted in euros so I don't remember the US price), I thought I should go ahead and post this now.

What I have always preferred about the EMS 5000 is that it is the most articulate of all vocoders, yet can cover a wide range of effects (robot, harmony, gender-bender, devil, etc.). The only hardware vocoder that I have heard even better things about is the Sennheiser one (well, actually they made several), which I think is the one Akai emulated with their somewhat dormant or dead vocoder plug-in.

[mhschmieder]

I haven't figured out how to use this plug-in yet, even after studying the manual. No matter what I do, the output is so low that I can't even tell if the effect is working. I printed out a couple of hints at GS but haven't had time to reverify whether I am doing things properly regarding the side chain and the carrier. I assumed it would work like any other vocoder.

Already on GS people are saying this vocoder slays the earlier V5, but it's apples and oranges (to some degree -- Xils themselves seem to acknowledge shared algorithms/processing and an updated engine for the new vocoder that is based on earlier products), and in my case I solved my problem by switching to the Roland VP330 emulation in V5.

As it turns out, this track that I've been waiting a few years to finish (I released a preliminary version on a compilation about five years ago, as I recall), works better with VP330 type vocoding than ELS style vocoding anyway.

Nevertheless, I have other deferred vocoding tasks. maybe they can wait until Fabrice Gabriel gets around to reviving his old 32-bit plug-ins (I did download 32 Lives recently though, so may try that in side chain mode and see if such usage works or whether 32-bit bridging only works for standard in-line insert effects).

The V5 Vocoder is really amazing in my view. Very smooth, articulate, and easy to set up for proper triggering. It is also more forgiving of the precision of timing and note duration of the Carrier track (MIDI) -- I didn't want to have to re-record the Modulator track as I was happy with my original vocal take.

Back to the EMS 5000 problems, I have a suspicion it has to do with the Carrier trigger. It may not be automatic in terms of selecting an internal synth engine to trigger the vocoding; not all vocoders have one built in. The hints I printed out are about how to use other XILS-Lab products to trigger the vocoder, so may we have to set up the synth signal path separately and manually. I didn't see anywhere on the interface to adjust the input/output balance either.