TC electronic D-Coder Owner's Manual
BUILT FOR POWERCORE
USER MANUAL
DISTRIBUTED BY
© BY TC WORKS SOFT & HARDWARE GMBH 2002. ALL PRODUCT AND COMPANY NAMES ARE TRADEMARKS OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS.
D-CODER IS A TRADEMARK OF WALDORF ELECTRONICS GMBH. ALL SPECIFICATIONS SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CONTACT DETAILS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
GETTING STARTED
System Requirements
Important Note about D-CODER
Vocoding Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
What to use it for
Glossary of Terms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
ENGLISH
6
6
GENERAL
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Information Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
VOCODER SECTION
Routing
Analysis Filter Bank
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Vocoder Filter Bank . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
LFO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
SYNTHESIZER SECTION
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
LFO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Glide
Oscillators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Mixer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Filter
Amplifier . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Envelope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
EFFECTS
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
EQ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
UV Detector . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Chorus
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
TUTORIAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Setup Examples
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Not hearing anything? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
D-CODER /
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CONTACT DETAILS
If you would like to get in touch with us please e-mail to: info@tcworks.de, contact our
local distribution partner or write to:
TC WORKS Soft-& Hardware GmbH
Customer Support
ENGLISH
Flughafenstrasse 52B
22335 Hamburg
Germany
www.tcworks.de
e-mail: info@tcworks.de
USA:
TC Electronic Inc.
TC Works Customer Support
742-A Hampshire Rd.
Westlake Village, CA 91361
www.tcworks.de
e-mail: us@tcworks.de
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INTRODUCTION
Congratulations on your purchase order of D-CODER, the Synthesizer Vocoder
for POWERCORE.
Waldorf is a world-renowned Synthesizer maker, with classic hardware products like the
Microwave and innovative software products like the Attack. It’s natural that Waldorf
were amongst the first to come on board to develop a POWERCORE Plug-In.
D-CODER includes a polyphonic synthesizer in the Waldorf tradition and a powerful
Vocoder, that can modulate an external sound source or the synthesizer.
Thanks to a free-run mode, the Vocoder works even with no MIDI input – and the
number of bands can be adjusted to up to 100 bands for an extremely rich and
smooth resolution.
The sound creation possibilities and the quality turn this into a new virtual classic
courtesy of the Waldorf-engineering team!
Enjoy!
The TC WORKS Team
ATTENTION! THIS IS A POWERCORE PLUG-IN AND REQUIRES TC POWERCORE TO
BE INSTALLED IN THE COMPUTER! THIS PLUG-IN WILL NOT RUN WITHOUT
POWERCORE.
ENGLISH
D-CODER /
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GETTING STARTED
System Requirements
Windows
• POWERCORE PCI or FIREWIRE running system 1.7 or later
• Windows XP
ENGLISH
• PIII 1 GHz or faster
• 256 MB RAM
• VST compatible host application
• System must meet requirements of the host application
Mac OS
• POWERCORE PCI or FIREWIRE running system 1.7 or later
• Mac OS X [10.2.4 or higher]
• G4 / 800 MHz or faster
• 256 MB RAM
• VST or Audio Unit compatible host application.
• System must meet requirements of the host application
POWERCORE REQUIRED!
The
D-CODER Plug-In requires a POWERCORE PCI or POWERCORE FIREWIRE to be
available in your system.
Important Note about D-CODER:
The Waldorf D-CODER is a Hybrid POWERCORE and Native Plug-In. To maximize the
performance of this Plug-In on your system while maintaining the best sound quality,
the vocoder portion of the Plug-In will run on the TC POWERCORE, and the synthesizer
will run Native on your host CPU. Under normal operating circumstances, the CPU load
of the D-CODER synthesizer will be minimal. As a general rule, the more voices you
play on the synthesizer, the greater the CPU use of the host application.
D-CODER requires the DSP power of POWERCORE.
Vocoding Basics
A Vocoder processes the frequency content of one signal with the frequency content of
another signal. This is why a Vocoder always needs two signals to function – one for
analysis and one to be processed.
The key ingredients of a Vocoder are matching banks of Analysis and Processing Filters.
The analysis filter bank splits the analysis signal (also referred to as “Speech signal”)
into several frequency bands. Each band has an envelope follower to analyze the band’s
volume. The resulting envelope controls the volume of the corresponding bandpass
filter in the Processing Filter Bank – which then processes the synthesis signal (also
referred to as “Carrier signal”). Each analysis filter has its counterpart in the synthesis
filter bank.
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What to use it for
A Vocoder is typically applied to speech to generate “robot voices”, but can be used
just as well to process rhythmic material such as loops and drum sounds.
If your goal is to recreate the original signal as closely as possible, the synthesis signal
used should consist of continuous unfiltered noise. For spoken or sung voice, a
waveform with a lot of harmonics should be used, such as a sawtooth – the melody
and pitch are then controlled by the oscillator’s frequency. If the oscillator is being
modulated by a slow sine LFO, spoken voice will sound especially natural as the LFO
simulates emphasis.
Glossary of Terms
Analysis:
The “analysis” channel of the D-CODER is the signal that is being analyzed. Typically,
the signal being analyzed will be speech or a vocal performance.
Carrier:
The carrier signal is the sound source that carries the analysis sound. In the case of
the D-CODER, the carrier will either be the built in synthesizer, or an external channel
when the Carrier Plug-In is used.
Intelligibility:
This relates to how well the vocoded signal is understood. The ability to hear the
sibilant frequencies will have a tremendous impact on the overall clarity of the
vocoded signal.
Sibilance:
Sibilant sounds are characterized by a hissing sound. These include the english
pronunciation of such consonants as “f”, “s”, “z”, or “th”.
ENGLISH
Vocoder:
’Vocoder’ is an abbreviation of ’Voice Operated Recorder’. A Vocoder is an audio
processor that captures the characteristic elements of an audio signal and then uses
this characteristic signal to affect other audio signals.
Voiced:
Voiced signals have the tonal characteristic of a narrow frequency band, such as the
vowel sounds “a”, “e”, “i”, “o” and “u”.
Unvoiced:
Unvoiced signals have the tonal characteristic of the full frequency band, such as the
consonant sounds that cover almost the entire frequency spectrum, such as “f”, “s”,
“t” and so forth.
D-CODER /
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GENERAL
Information Panel
The blue information panel under the analysis and vocoder meters is an active window
that will always display the name and value of the parameter that your mouse is rolling
over.
ENGLISH
VOCODER SECTION
D-CODER consists of 2 Plug-Ins in one: a Vocoder and a Synthesizer. First, let’s have a
look at the Vocoder section.
Display
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The upper half of the display shows the Analysis Band
range, the lower half indicates the settings for the Vocoder
Filter Band range. By clicking on the “L” or “H” handles,
you can move the parameters directly in the display.
The waveform at the center indicates if there is input
signal for processing. It should look similar to the
screenshot.
The blue information display is a multi-function display
that always indicates the currently selected parameter and
its value.
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