Vocoder plugin out of tune/transposed?

Cubase
1

I sometimes have the case that Cubase’s vocoder plugin somehow creates a “transposed” / out of tune output, not following the MIDI I feed it. Stopping the song, returning, then fixes it again.. has anyone run into similar problems? What’s the fix?

2

Hi,

Ensure, that the Project’s Sample Rate matches the Audio Device Sample Rate, please.

3

Thanks Martin - both are set to 48kHz, and the rest of the project is playing fine..

4

Is it only the vocoder? Maybe your midi keyboard secretly sends pitch bend data without your permission.

5

Adding to @Johnny_Moneto 's excellent hint, you can monitor the MIDI signal via MIDI monitor plugin

6

Thanks for the tip with the MIDI Monitor!

I was really confused as TAL Vocoder was working fine on the same track. What I now noticed with MIDI Monitor: despite the Chord track being muted, I’m getting “Scale” and “Chord symbol” signals, that likely throw the Vocoder off

  1. Ideally, a muted Chord track should not produce this.. why still`?
  2. Does the vocoder somehow use Scale/Chord info
  3. Is there any way to filter these?
7

@Martin.Jirsak is the above something you can help with?

8

  1. pretty sure this is a bug that still hasn’t been fixed. Whats crazy is it’s not all the time. Sometimes muting the chord track fixes it and sometimes it doesn’t. Another fix I have used is to turn off all “follow global scale” on vocoder tracks. Also, make sure you are not using scale assistant on the vocoder track set to follow the chord track.

  2. Yes it does if you are set to follow that. However, if you read more on this forum you will see the vocoder kind of has a mind of it’s own. Use the midi monitor and see what extra data is being sent to it.

  3. My ghetto way around it was to create just any instrument or midi track and copy (manually drag and drop the chord track) into this new midi or instrument track. Basically you are making a midi copy of the chord track. Then I go delete the chord track and do my vocoder part. Once completed, I then go to my ghost copy, midi track and from within that I say “create chord track from part” and boom I have my chord track back. Kind of a PITA, but not that bad.

I am on cubase 14 though so maybe 15 has a vocoder fix. Stinks too, because compared to the TAL vocoder and other vocoder vst’s I have tried I actually really like the cubase one as far as sound quality goes. I miss NI Vokater. :slight_smile:

9

Thanks @combfilter . Indeed found another thread that described the same problem. Unfortunately, your suggestion in (1) does not work for me.. And agree with you - I moved to TAL, but would’ve preferred the Cubase one..