How to Make a Talking Synth Sound

Simulation of the human voice was one of the things that synthesizer makers and music producers have tried to achieve since the beginning of the synthesizer era. The first attempts at synthesizing the human voice were made in Doctor Who episodes with Dalek voices. Later, we were presented with talk boxes and vocoders in the '80s. They opened a whole new palette of possibilities for manipulating the human voice. This created some inspiring results. After that, talking synth sounds were present in many music genres, ranging from Pop to now-famous Dubstep. In the following tutorial, I will show you how to create a talking synth sound using Massive by Native instruments in just a few easy steps.  

Let's Start

So, let's create a new midi channel in SoundBridge and place Massive by Native Instruments onto it. Once we have an interface of Massive in front of us, the first thing to do is select a new sound from "File" in the upper menu. Alet's that let's move to the oscillator section and choose a square-based waveform to start with (in this case, VA PWM).

The next thing to do would be to set the filter type. Therefore, I will select a Low pass 2 type filter with resonance on 12 o'clock,k. The third and most crucial step is to engage a Sample & Hold as an insert effect that could be found in the bottom part of Massive's interface. The dry/wet parameter goes to the right, and Pitch is somewhere closer to the maximum on the right. Now, we are getting closer to the result.

 

It's All in the Tweaking.

After that, l will modulate the cutoff with the envelope. This can be achieved by dragging and dropping the cursor icon of the envelope 1 section to the cutoff in the upper filter section. Also, I'll be tweaking the attack and level parameters of the envelope a bit.

To spice it up even more, let's add a vibrato controlled by the aftertouch.

Finally, let's hear the result, first solo and again with some rhythm and bass.

~Audio example 1 - Talking Synth sound

~Audio example 2 - Talking Synth sound with Rhythm and Bass

Feel free to experiment with cutoff, pitch parameter from sample & hold insert effect, and all other used parameters to get the sound you like. Have fun!