These days, it almost feels like a rarity when you turn on the radio and hear a pop/dance record that hasn't had its vocal processed in some way, so you can see why iZotope must think that there's a big market for its new VocalSynth plugin.
This is designed to give producers a one-stop toolbox that will enable them to create all manner of classic vocal sounds: all you need to bring is a singer.
There are four vocal engines onboard. Vocoder delivers the distinctive robotic sound we're all familiar with; Polyvoice adds "organic" harmonies; Compuvox creates glitchy digital speech effects; and Talkbox produces 'singing synth' sounds.
Each of these engines has a dedicated set of controls, and there's also a selection of vocal-friendly effects onboard: filters, distortion, convolution-based speaker modelling, beat repeaters and delays. There's built-in real-time pitch correction, too, for those who want to use VocalSynth in a more clinical manner, while you can add harmony, octave or unison parts automatically or define these voicings yourself.
Each of the engines comes with its own set of presets, while the Global Presets combine all four of them.
VocalSynth is available now from the iZotope website for the introductory price of $149 (a demo can be downloaded, too). This will rise to $199 after 16 June. It's available for PC and Mac and runs as a VST/AU/AAX/RTAS plugin.
