In BoingBoing tonight: “Cubase plugin makes music sound like it’s played by cellphone”
60 years after everybody else, Nokia (and Xeni Jardin) discover the breakthrough concept of… Vocoder…
Congratulations!
What’s next? some crazy device to make your music sound like it’s being played in a concert hall?
And do not come telling me this is news because it is being brought to the public at large: for chrissake, it is a Cubase plugin.
I don’t think it’s anywhere near as complicated as a vocoder – it’s just EQ! + a simple GM module for the sounds.
Oh yea, I don’t doubt there are even easier ways to get more or less the effect described. The admittedly thin bottom line being that this supposedly newsworthy invention is something that can be achieved about 300 different ways with any version of Cubase out of the box… Hell, even a band filter probably would do it.
It’s the new Hi-Fi. Get with the times dave. Now I’m off to short out my speakers, to get that sweet sound of cellphone music. Ahhh, it’s so beautiful.
Call me Mr. Smartass: Technically, a cellphon is like a lowcut filter at around 400Hz plus a hicut at around 4500Hz. Some might boost around 2000Hz as well. There’s no modulation going on in there.
A little compression would be a nice feature for cellphones, BTW. I guess being called with a compression ration of 20:1 would sound quite intimidating. 😛
Heh, I would have never thought such an insignificant piece of news would raise such interest 😉
However, I sense some confusion here (admittedly, it’s not like I’ve researched the topic in-depth either): I think the product released by Nokia pertains to ringtones not sound transmission. Basically, it’s supposed to make your sample sound like cheap lo-fi midi…
Which would be a bright idea if that was not done already by countless general-purpose plugins and filters.
As to whether there is modulation or not, I would still venture there is, on most of these cellphones.
At any rate, I reckon the closest you would get, subjectively, is by using a vocoder or possibly some multi-band filter (but the modulation of the vocoder should help give that cheapass impression that comes with cellphones PCM generator)…
And regarding communications: most digital cellphones support heavy compression (mu-law mostly, afaik). Even more so with the latest generation and VoIP enabled cells…
I cannot accept that: my vocoder was much more expensive than my phone. .-)
I’ve had Nokia phones much more expensive than my vocoder plugins 😛
Then again the “like in James-Bond”-silver-plated Nokia model didn’t come cheap at the time (when I look at my current 4000 yen keitai now :roll:), while vocoder plugins nearly always come included with audio softs…
Well, I got my phone for free from my provider, and I’ve got a hardware-vocoder that was *gasp* 50 Euros. (Alesis Metavox, nice toy)