I want to use the vocoder on the XF or the vocal harmonizer on the Tyros2 without having to use a separate microphone.  If I hook the mic up to the Motif or Tyros, the sound man can’t mix the vocals separate from the keyboard.  I’ve heard that if you route something to the assignable outputs on a Motif, you lose all insert effects which would include the vocoder, but I don’t know if this is true.  I haven’t tried it yet on my Tyros2.  I want to be able to switch back and forth from straight vocals to the vocoder or vocal harmonizer.  What is the best way to do this?

Basically you need to work with the soundman to take a feed from the PA mixing board (whether it’s from an individual channel “insert” or an effects send) to get the signal from your vocal mic over to the input on the XF.  Then, when you intend to actually “vocode”, you most likely will need the soundman to “mute” the channel on the PA but hopefully not mute the signal to your XF in the process.  I wish I could give you more specifics, but I’m not at my particular mixing board right now.  I know there’s a way to do it because I’ve done it before and I’m almost ready to get it setup to do it again in live performance.

Whatever signal source your soundman gives you from the PA board, it probably needs to be PRE-fader so that when the soundman hits the Mute button on the PA mixer (which mutes your normal singing voice from going out the PA) it must NOT mute the signal going to the XF (cuz after all...you need that signal for the XF to blend or vocode with the keyboard voice to create that cool effect).

Typically a channel “Insert I/O” will give you a pre-fader signal that cannot be muted by the soundman accidentally.  An Effects Send works similarly, especially if it is sent pre-fader.  Conversely, a Direct Out typically happens POST fader and thus, if the soundman were to hit the Mute button, you wouldn’t get any signal at your keyboard.

I’m sure there is probably a muuuuch easier way of doing this...but so far that is the way I intend to do it (with the Insert I/O jack on my mixer).  Keep in mind that the Insert I/O jack is typically TRS and you will need to EITHER plug the 1/4” cable halfway to get signal and NOT mute the channel OR you can buy a cable manufactured by HOSA that will allow you to easily plug into the Insert I/O jack and NOT mute the channel and still get signal to your keyboard.

Best of luck!  I need to get crackin’ so I can do this amazingly cool capability in my live performances.

Sincerely,

Kevin B. Selby
http://kevinselby.com <-- Peaceful music

Perhaps a better way to do this (but it involves more work potentially) is to somehow buy or make a “switcher” box that you plug your microphone into and with a simple footswitch you can choose to route the microphone signal EITHER to your keyboard OR to the PA (and thus to the soundman).

The problem with this approach is that now you’re probably talking about the “switcher” box needing to be a preamp of some sort because it needs to provide enough gain to give the keyboard enough volume level of your voice that the XF has something to work with.  On the other hand, the XF probably has enough gain to accept a straight incoming microphone signal and do something with it.

So perhaps a straight simple switchbox of some sort would indeed work in this situation.  The beauty of this approach is it basically takes the soundman out of the equation and puts YOU in charge of your ultimate vocoding destiny.

If you find such a switcher box and it works, please reply back as I’m definitely interested in this particular approach myself.

Again...best of luck.

Finally (because I just can’t shut up about this...and you’ve piqued my curiosity)...you COULD just use a very simple inexpensive little mixer (like a Behringer teeny mixer) to plug your vocal mic into and route the Main Right out to your XF keyboard and the Main Left over to the PA mixing board and then just use the Pan knob to switch your vocal signal from going to the keyboard vs. the PA board.  This might actually be the simplest, cheapest, and possibly most effective method to this madness we call “vocoding”.

Something like this: http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHXENTX502 (awwww....ain’t it CUTE!).

the funny thing is...most A/B switcher boxes run up to $100 yet you can find a cheap, yet most likely quiet Behringer mixer for under $50.

Hope that helps!

Kevin

Ooh!  For $5 more than the 502, you could get this: http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEH302USB and instead of having to fiddle with a round knob to switch your mic signal to a different destination, you just slam the slider to the other direction. 

I personally would probably go this route because I plan on vocoding in the MIDDLE of a song that I ALSO sing on (Little Wing...I know...weird song to vocode on...but just don’t ask).  So I don’t want to fiddle with a round knob when I can more easily slam a slider to the other side of its full travel.

Finally shutting up.

I’ve heard that if you route something to the assignable outputs on a Motif, you lose all insert effects which would include the vocoder, but I don’t know if this is true.

It is not true. On the Motif XF, if you route one of the PARTs to an assignable output, it is removed from the main signal flow, called the System path. But the signal that is re-routed to an assignable output goes to that output with its Insertion Effects in tact.

Here’s the explanation, and I hope it helps:
The Insertion Effects can be considered as apart of the VOICE itself. They are assigned in VOICE Edit mode, and you can route signal to the INSERT EFFECT on a per ELEMENT basis. This means it is possible to process certain Elements with one INSERT EFFECT and process the others with the second INSERT EFFECT. Also many of the parameters are real time controllable via the XF’s knobs, pedals, switches, etc. Making them really feel like they are apart of the VOICE itself.

The signal path is the same as a guitar player plugging the output of the guitar into a distortion stomp box, then taking the out of the stomp box and going into a wah-wah pedal; the output of the wah-wah goes to the sound system… The distortion and the wah-wah pedal are examples of the INSERTION EFFECTs. So a Motif XF Guitar Voice might have distortion and wah as its two insertion effects.

The sound then goes into the Motif XF’s mixer. Each of the XF’s 16 PARTs has an input on this mixer, as does the A/D INPUT PART. And on the mixer each channel has two auxiliary like SENDS, called the “Reverb Send” and the “Chorus Send”. These are the so-called System Effects. The Guitar comes into the mixer with is distortion and wah-wah, you can choose to send a bit of it to the System Reverb - the return from the System Reverb is mixed to the main System output. Same is true of the Chorus, every channel has a send amount control. like Aux Sends on any mixer.

It is in this manner that the distortion and wah-wah pedal belong to the guitar player alone. The Reverb could be shared by each of the PARTS in the mixer.

So again, when you select to route the guitar to an assignable output, think of the Motif XF mixer: it has the guitar with its distortion and wah-wah signal at the channel input, I then decide I want to re-route this guitar to an assignable output. Instead of taking the path to the main mixer, where there are sends to Reverb and Chorus, we are re-routing the guitar to its own, discreet assignable output. The ASSIGNABLE OUTPUT is “PRE” the SYSTEM EFFECTS.

The Guitar goes to the assignable output with its own two personal insertion effects quite in tact. It is best to think of these Insertion Effects as “personal” effects because they are for that instrument alone. No one else can share the Guitar’s distortion, no one else can share the Guitar player’s wah-wah pedal… These are under the personal control of the Guitar player - and in the XF that personal control extends to the physical controllers. That is, the INSERTION EFFECTS can be real time controlled by the assignments made on the Voice’s CONTROL SET page. You can assign different parameters within an INSERTION EFFECT so that you can “perform” with those effects. Assigning the VCM PEDAL WAH for example. You want to be able to manually work an FC7 to control this physically modeled Wah-Wah pedal. So Insertion Effects typically, can be real time controlled. System Effects? well not so much.

Think of the System Effects as you would a studios Environmental processors. The Reverberaton Chamber and any Time Delay effects (like chorus, flange, phasers, multiple repeat echoes, etc.) Every channel on the mixer has a send to these very communal effects.

Now, that said, When you assign a VOICE’s two Insertion Effects to create the VOCODER, the output of the PART will be, like all Insertion Effects, applied to the one Voice, and go out the assignable output. It is the SYSTEM EFFECTS that you are not going to get in the assignable output.

So your Vocoded Vocal will go OUT the assignable outputs.

By the way, (and this comes under the “don’t let this hurt your head” department): Did you know that you can apply two INSERTION EFFECTs to the microphone (AD INPUT), before it is routed to the VOCODER (INS L). In other words, the Microphone can have it own two INSERT EFFECTS. This is because the VOCODER is created by the SYNTH Voice in PART 1’s Insertion Effects, not the A/D INPUT PART’s two Insertion Effects.

You can setup the Vocoder in a PERFORMANCE or in a SONG/PATTERN MIXING setup as PART 1. You can route the Vocoder Effect to an assignable output. This is storable in the PERFORMANCE or MIXING program. The next PERFORMANCE or MIXING program could have a different routing for the microphone (A/D INPUT PART) that does not require it to go through the VOCODER.

When the microphone or A/D INPUT is routed to OUTPUT SELECT = “INS L” - the signal is routed through the synthesizer architecture, specifically the VOICE in PART 1 and it is used to modify the synth’s tone. In the next, Performance you might choose to route the same vocal mic through the normal channels - ie, not to the Vocoder. You can still select to send it through Effects to the main outputs or to the assignable output, as necessary.

PERFORMANCE PART parameters include OUTPUT SELECT and, of course, the AUDIO INPUT PART’s Output Selection is one of the things you can set. They can be customized on a per PERFORMANCE Program basis.

Does that make sense?

Thanks to Bad_Mister and Selbalicious for responding.  I apparently got insert effects confused with system effects.  I was pretty sure I would lose something if I used an assignable output, but I’m not worried about the system effects. 

I think that what I might do is split the mic signal, then run it through an A-B switch, like Selbalicious said.  It may be better to use one of the 1/4 inch jacks on the main mixing board, so I won’t have to worry about the XLR or phantom power problem.  I can then run one half of the mic signal to the XF or T2, and the other half to the board.  Then I can route the mic to assignable output 2, and I’m ready to vocode.  I’ll have to buy a new AB switch though, since mine has a lot of cracking and popping in it.

Thanks for the responses!