The XILS Analog Vocoders Bundle bundle contains XILS 5000 and XILS 201 Vocoder, two emulations of the finest vocoder ever created available in a single license.

About the XILS 5000 :

Vocoder 5000 is inspired by the EMS Flagship Vocoder (EMS 5000 -1976- Probably the most complex and powerful analog Vocoder ever built). XILS-lab used the knowledge acquired during the emulation of both the VCS3 synthesizer and the VP300 VocoderPlus to develop the XILS Vocoder 5000 Model.

A Vocoder is a synthesizer which accepts an external sound source, a musical instrument or prerecorded signal, and processes it, with or without a keyboard, into a huge variety of sounds.

Human voice, the most variable sound of all, is fed into the Vocoder, so that you can alter its pitch, Tone, Vibrato, all its characteristics. Then this allows you to synthetize a Choir from a single voice, or even to create melodies from ordinary speech.

You may also process Drums, percussive elements, guitars or any kind of synthesizer, to breathe some analog life into them, or completely reshape them. You can even derive some pure synth patterns from drumloops. Everything and anything is possible.

About the XILS 201 Vocoder :

The X201 Vocoder was modeled after an ultra rare, ultra pricey (even at the time of its release), Vocoder unit, whose intelligibility has never been surpassed.

It is the Vocoder that provided the magical sound for artists like Kraftwerk, Herbie Hancock, Frank Farian (Boney M, Milli Vanilli etc.), Cylon Robots or the unmistakeable sounds of the Droids in Battlestar Galactica droids in Star Wars and… Daft Punk (RAM).

Each of X201 Vocoder's two Filter Banks offers 20 frequency bands. Each Filter Bank can process the incoming signal (Usually voice, but any other signal, including drums, can be processed), or use the internal CARRIER signal. Other vocorders such as the Roland VP-330 only had 10 frequency bands, it had a very musical sound, but because of the reduced number of frequency bands, it had much less clarity.

You can use the internal analog Synthesizer as a carrier to input into the vocoder, which immediately gives the X201 its characteristic and recognisable sound. Any other incoming signal at hand can also be used, like an external Synthesizer or another voice etc to drive the vocoder.

The X201 has an exclusive feature called Silence Bridging: It is a Multiband frequency dependent Envelope Follower engine, which will shapes the signal gain according to it's harmonic content. It's very useful for processing percussive or rhythmic sonic material, the Envelope Follower will add contour to the sound.