Live vocoding with MPC?

I'll be performing a live show with my MPC Live II soon, and I'd like to incorporate a vocoder. Does anyone have experience doing this?

Specifically, my goal is for the modulator (my voice) to be live while the carrier synth gets sequenced with MIDI. I will have a laptop so I can run in controller mode. What's the best way to accomplish this, in terms of setup/routing and which vocoder VST works best?

I tried TAL Vocoder but I can't get it to sound very good; Arturia's Vocoder V sounds good but seems like it always plays the dry vocal alongside the vocoder audio, which I don't want.

Unless I'm missing something it seems like it's not possible to keep the MIDI sequencing inside the MPC. So it seems the next best option would be to host the MPC plugin within my DAW (Reaper), then sequence the vocoder synth on a separate track, while routing a live vocal to it? Any tips would be appreciated.

magnusson wrote:I'll be performing a live show with my MPC Live II soon, and I'd like to incorporate a vocoder. Does anyone have experience doing this?

Specifically, my goal is for the modulator (my voice) to be live while the carrier synth gets sequenced with MIDI. I will have a laptop so I can run in controller mode. What's the best way to accomplish this, in terms of setup/routing and which vocoder VST works best?

I tried TAL Vocoder but I can't get it to sound very good; Arturia's Vocoder V sounds good but seems like it always plays the dry vocal alongside the vocoder audio, which I don't want.

Unless I'm missing something it seems like it's not possible to keep the MIDI sequencing inside the MPC. So it seems the next best option would be to host the MPC plugin within my DAW (Reaper), then sequence the vocoder synth on a separate track, while routing a live vocal to it? Any tips would be appreciated.

I got a Novation Mininova for that purpose for ease of use. I'm sure there are other options but the Mininova actually has a REALLY good vocoder (endorsed by Teddy Riley) and it's very simple and easy to use. The other advantage of using the Mininova is that you can run the audio back through to the MPC and add FX or Mix like any other Input.

I know it's not the cheapest or fastest solution, but it was definitely the easiest for me. Hope that helps.

magnusson wrote:I'll be performing a live show with my MPC Live II soon, and I'd like to incorporate a vocoder. Does anyone have experience doing this?

Specifically, my goal is for the modulator (my voice) to be live while the carrier synth gets sequenced with MIDI. I will have a laptop so I can run in controller mode. What's the best way to accomplish this, in terms of setup/routing and which vocoder VST works best?

I tried TAL Vocoder but I can't get it to sound very good; Arturia's Vocoder V sounds good but seems like it always plays the dry vocal alongside the vocoder audio, which I don't want.

Unless I'm missing something it seems like it's not possible to keep the MIDI sequencing inside the MPC. So it seems the next best option would be to host the MPC plugin within my DAW (Reaper), then sequence the vocoder synth on a separate track, while routing a live vocal to it? Any tips would be appreciated.

Also, I compared the Vocoder on the Mininova to the Vocoder device in Ableton Live, and they were quite different in terms of sound, quality and options. The Mininova definitely has a lot of different vocoder sounds and a lot of options to edit them, and they all sound really good. The Vocoder device in Ableton doesn't have a lot of options and sounds very generic and digital, not analog and electrified like the Mininova.

An expensive but good option is running a sound card such as "Apollo UAD" and then buy the "Antares Auto-Tune" plugin. You could then route the output to a mixer or similar.

You could also route audio from the sound card into the TRS inputs on an MPC but you would need to stay in "Audio" mode (no fun on the pads at that time) to hear it, so having two MPCs would be good if you need the audio to come into an MPC for whatever reason.

Thanks for the ideas so far. FWIW I figured out how to handle the MPC side of things -- using the MPC as a VST plugin in Reaper, set the output port of a MIDI track to "DAW" (the only option), then add a MIDI send from the host track to another track which has the vocoder on it. That way all the sequencing can stay inside the MPC.

So at this point my question is just about which vocoder to use and how to set it up. I'll consider a hardware option like the Mininova, although software would be more convenient. I'm frustrated with the Arturia Vocoder because it sounds really nice but I can't figure out how to route it so it doesn't play the dry microphone audio.

Have checked out Korg Microfreak, they added a vocoder that, and it's also a nice creative synth. ]
One of the best VSTs is Imageline Vocodex, it's a bit hungry but very nice to tune in your sound.

and check Korg R3

Ok I went through Arturia support and apparently the issue with the Vocoder VST was that I was using the VST2 version of the plugin instead of the VST3, which seems very weird but whatever, it works now.

So basically, my working setup is:

• Reaper hosting MPC plugin
• MPC plugin outputting MIDI to Reaper
• Reaper sending MIDI to hardware and Vocoder plugin
• mic into laptop interface
• mic track in Reaper disabled to master send and routed to vocoder track