Just let your computer sing

With the Alter/Ego plug-in in the magazine downloads, you can create interesting vocoder and robot songs and artificial-sounding voices without much effort. With the voice synthesis software, you can simply enter the text to be sung. We‘ll show you how to use the plug-in to create distinctive vocal phrases for your tracks. 1 Install

First install the Alter/Ego software on your computer and run the standalone application or load the plug-in. Then unpack one of the voice banks in any folder on your hard disk. There you will find the file, such as daisy. bank.xml, which you can simply drag onto the software‘s user interface. 1

2 Select

In the upper left corner, under presets, you will now find a drop-down menu of the voice bank with different voice variations. First select the basic preset. An image of the virtual anime character of this bank will appear on the left side. If you now play notes via the connected keyboard, you should hear the matching voice. 1

3 Play

In the lower right area you will find a large number of lines one below the other. Here you can enter the text to be sung by the voice synthesis. Incoming notes cause the text to jump one syllable, the pitch corresponds to the note played. Legato playing of a single syllable is also possible. 1

4 Lyrics

With some presets, such as ALYS Base, you have several lines of text that are processed from top to bottom as incoming notes are played. A single line can be repeated by activating loop line, and you can also switch between lines directly by low note number or MIDI controller. 1

5 Control

Activate the POLY button in the upper left corner. Now you can make Alter/Ego sing polyphonically by picking chords on the keyboard. Experiment with the wave rate and phoneme speed controls. Select the CONTROLS tab for more parameters. All controls can also be adjusted via MIDI controller for direct control. 1

6 Modulate

Under the MODULATION tab, you can adjust the vibrato, among other things. Here you will also find other parameters to make Alter/Ego sound more human or more artificial. Combine the settings with the various Alter/Ego presets such as Daisy Sweep Pad and couple the result once with an external synthesizer sound.