VP-330 (analog speech synthesis)

[Christian Hofmann]

On Wed, 5 Aug 1998 15:22:53 -0500 (CDT)
Mark Smart <smart at nn.com> wrote:

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

Hi,
I took a listen last night.

Vangelis reportedly liked the VP-330, so I guess it is used for the
choir sounds on the Chariots of Fire Soundtrack album. Listen to the
beginning of "Eric's Theme", or the closing minutes of the title track
(and I mean "Chariots of Fire, not "Titles" :-), starting at about 17:10
up to the end.
And the "See you later" album has been mentioned in the VP-330 context,
but I don't have that one.

Another ocurrence can be found on Laurie Anderson's "Big Science' album,
on "Oh Superman" (though more vocoder-ish on that one), and on "Let X=X"
(VP vocal presets & lovely strings).

cu
Christian