VP-330 (analog speech synthesis)

[Mark Smart]

This thread relates to what I have been curious about lately...the Roland
VP-330 Vocoder Plus. I just found out that this keyboard had, in addition
to a regular vocoder section, "choir" presets which were supposed to
represent choirs of male and female vocalists singing "Ahhh". This was
implemented totally in the analog domain using an organ-like divide-down
network going through a bunch of static analog filters. This sounds to me
like it could conceivably be really cool, but a have a lot of questions.

1. Did these presets sound any good? I've never heard or seen this keyboard
   in person.

2. Are there any recordings featuring the choir presets alone?

3. What waveforms are going into the filters to make the sounds? How are
   they derived from the square waves of the divide-down network?

It seems to me that a setup like this has the potential to sound better
than samples being played back at different speeds, since the formants
would not move. This could avoid the chipmunk and Jabba the Hutt sounds
which mulitple-speed sample playback create.

I would appreciate any information on this subject. Thanks!

************************************************
*     Mark Smart                               *
*     Electronics Engineer                     *
*     NovaNET Learning, Inc.                   *
*     smart at medusa.nn.com                      *
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