Vintage Synth Explorer

Electrix • Warp Factory

Designed for both DJs and Musicians, the Warp Factory is possibly the ultimate stand-alone Vocoder. With those great big knobs, the Warp Factory is designed for straight-forward hands-on use. It has an XLR Mic input (conveniently located on the front) and a quarter-inch line input for use as the Formant or carrier signals. Then there are two quarter-inch line-inputs and two RCA phono inputs for your stereo source sounds, either drum loops, mixes, songs, synth pads, etc...

The way it works is whatever Formant signal you have, say your voice, will be warped into taking on the characteristic of the Source signal you have, say a buzzy synth sound. This would in effect give you that Robot voice effect.

The Warp section is where you'll find most of the knobs and cool features of the Warp. There is a low- and high-pass filtering switch. A 'Gender' knob adjusts the pitch of the Formant. 'Q' adjusts the width of the filtering. An 'Order' adjusts the filter resolution for clear to abstract vocoding effects. There is also Noise and a built-in oscillator Source signal whose pitch is adjusted by 'Robot Pitch'. Various Bypass and Freeze switches and complete MIDI implementation make this the ultimate Vocoder for DJs, musicians and producers. It has been used by U2, John Digweed, United State of Electronica and the Chemical Brothers.

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matt

Posted 251 days ago

hi poppa,

thanks a lot for clarifying te midi question. i have a older casio ct-310 that i would like to use as the controller keyboard for the vocoder. how would i have to route from the keyboard line out into the vocoder in order for it to control the pitch changes?

many thanks!

PoppaNeedsANap

Posted 263 days ago

@Matt.. The midi implementation is only to control the filter and warp section controls I believe.. The internal oscillator that is controlled manually with the 'robot voice' control is not MIDI controllable... I find this baffling.. that would have been a very handy logical feature. Anyway... when you run a nice analog source through this thing it is a really intelligible warm vocoder. Far far better imo than the 16 band VA MS2000

matt

Posted 266 days ago

hi all, it is pretty embarassing, but i can't figure out how to use the warp factory as a vocoder with a usb controller, i would like to be able to use the midi keyboard as a trigger for the vocals as i speak them into the mic. any thoughts on how to configure the midi keyboard into warpfactory as a vocoder would be greatly appreciated.

i even have the manual and can't get it to work! i can route other sounds through and it is a perfectly functioning unit. i know that the problem is my configuration.

Atomic

Posted 278 days ago

I cant agree with tweekaholic and xtraman. This is what it says a "vocoder " not a filter for processing other sounds than the human voice. And for that purpuse is awesome. And a lot of varety couse the final sound depends on the sound you feeding the Warp Factory with.(carrier signals)

tweekaholic

Posted 321 days ago

I was disappointed with the Warp Factory when I first installed it in the studio. It took several sessions with different vocalists to determine what kind of voice and style would work with it. And if you are keen on a whispery robot voice this synth would be great. Otherwise, I'll keep using my ms2000, jp8080, or something else. Seriously, this would be the last on my list. It lacks any real control and is not something I can use in every mix. On the other hand, when I do use it, I am glad I bought it because of its unique sound and specialized voice. It is great for electro, house, hip hop, and maybe some others. I think it is a good vocoder and will have a permanent home in my studio.

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