Moog Spectravox – semi-modular analog vocoder and spectral synth

Moog Spectravox – semi-modular analog vocoder and spectral synth

The Moog Spectravox was unveiled at this year’s Moogfest 2019, it’s a 10-band vocoder with an interesting twist.

The Moog Spectravox is not just a vocoder, it’s got an internal single oscillator synth and noise generator. Where it starts to get interesting is the filter section, the Moog Spectravox features a filterbank containing a total of 10 analog filters – 8 bandpass filters, a high-pass and a low-pass filter. The Spectral Shift control on the panel controls the frequency of all of the filters, there is a resonance control and each of the filters has an independent amplitude control. You’re able to create everything from formant and comb filter to flanger-type effects – without even scratching the surface of the internal vocoder.

The Moog Spectravox’s program input works with an envelope generator, allowing you to trigger modulation with a microphone. You can of course use it as a traditional vocoder, how that works is using another filterbank to essentially split up the incoming audio into several frequency bands and applying the resulting output of each band to modulate the synth section’s filterbank. For those that don’t know the classic vocoder sound – think Beastie Boys – Intergalactic or Daft Punk – Around the World.

Much more than your average vocoder…

The Moog Spectravox has some neat modulation capabilities, there’s a trigger button on the panel which triggers the envelope or like I said above you can trigger the envelope using a microphone, you’re not limited to microphones – the Moog Spectravox has a combo input so you could run an instrument or other source into the input. There is also an internal LFO for the Spectral Shift control with rate and amount control.

Moog Spectravox is semi-modular allowing you to change the signal-chain or hook it up to a Eurorack modular system. There is a V/Oct input for the internal oscillator allowing you to get a pitched vocoder effect.

The Moog Spectravox is not yet commercially available, and it may never be available to the public. It was unveiled as a DIY kit allowing users who attended Moogfest 2019 to build the limited-edition synth. This is a very cool synth so I’m hoping we see it become available!

Check out the teaser that Moog released for Moogfest 2019 here.