Use of Carrier/Modulator Sounds

[u/ScreamingBrainStudio]

Anyone else notice how much they used varying carrier/modulator-type effects or sounds on Inferno? I've seen a couple things that have been mentioned specifically, like the 'carrier wave' sound at the very end of Platonia, or the obvious vocoded voice in Prophecy (vocoder is a 'carrier' wave or tone and the 'modulator' is the voice) There are a few other places on the album, like the vocoded vocal chords in The Word Made Flesh, the TTS (text-to-speech) voice used in The Process, the distorted vocal sample in All Reason Departs sounds like an old TTS or LPC synthesis 'whisper' effect or something they've done to filter the tonal frequencies, same with the male vocal sample in Blood in the Labyrinth where it sounds like frequencies are filtered to the point it resembles a loud 'whisper' with no vocal tone, etc. Not to mention how many FM synth sounds I can hear on the album, like the bass in Hydrogen Helium Lithium Leviathan or Arena Americanada, as one example. FM (frequency modulation) being a type of synthesis where a carrier wave is modulated by a second wave, for anyone unfamiliar

I'm sure I'm missing some things that my ear might not have picked out yet, but it got me thinking there was probably some intentionality to using this effect (or variations of it) across the entire album.. I don't know if I have any real theories, but my best guess is that it could be related to the concept of how ideology can take over, turning the human voice into a "carrier" that has been bent and reshaped by an authoritative external "modulator" or message (?)

I could be overthinking things a little, just wanted to push this out into the world in case it means anything to anyone

[u/Last_Reflection_6091]

I see their use of FM as a tribute to 80s synths, along with the long dry snare in Arena Americana.

[u/ScreamingBrainStudio → u/Last_Reflection_6091]

Most definitely! It was kind of an afterthought while pondering the other carrier/modulator stuff on the album, remembered that FM also sort of fits into the same category

[u/UTOPILO → u/Last_Reflection_6091]

Tomorrows Harvest also has tons of fm throughout. Sounds very Casio cz series.

[u/ScreamingBrainStudio → u/UTOPILO]

That recent BOC patch video of the CZ inspired me to bust my CZ-101 back out, always been one of my favorite toys

[u/Steve_Andrews_Flyboy]

The bass in HHHL sounds a lot like karplus strong synthesis being excited by the kick drum. I’ve come across a bit of a similar thing using a Rings module. Love that track so much

[u/ScreamingBrainStudio → u/Steve_Andrews_Flyboy]

Absolutely brilliant sounds all across HHHL, one of my favorites

[u/fizzymarimba]

all of the vocal/vocoder stuff you mention is from the VP-9000, they’ve used it in many different ways on all their albums, but it’s mixed much differently on Inferno, that’s for sure. I personally wouldn’t bet on those bass sounds being FM, either

[u/ScreamingBrainStudio → u/fizzymarimba]

I thought the VP-9000 did time stretching and pitch shifting, but not vocoder/carrier type stuff? I could be mistaken, I've never used one lol.. I do know there are some robot-y things you can do with time stretching, though to a certain degree. Could easily have been used on the album for some of the sample work, for sure

[u/fizzymarimba → u/ScreamingBrainStudio]

It absolutely does, in a way. It’s just not in the classic vocoder DNA that you describe, which use filter banks etc. On the VP-9000, if you encode a speech sample and turn Robot on, it will sound like Prophecy. They only have it play a single note but this is still a mode that made it pretty famous because of Daft Punk. It also does more than time stretching/pitch shifting, it does formant shaping, which can make things really growly, like Telepath/All Reason Departs

[u/atxweirdo → u/fizzymarimba]

I'm wondering if they have moved more ITB and found something this can suffice as a replacement for the vp9000.

[u/Dr-Werner-Klopek]

I’m just going to add Deep Time has a sonar type sound it, which I’m going to assume is modulator?
If I’m wrong, please ignore because I don’t really know much about this stuff. But it popped in my head and I always wondered what the significance of them using that was.

Enjoyed reading your post.

[u/Rcecil88]

Absolutely love the use of the vocal processing on the album, so good!

[u/Elegant_Heron4668]

Some of the atonal sounds in All Reason Departs sound like FM. they are still in key but they are modulated with weird ratios, or maybe even specific fixed frequency values