# What does Paul Masdival use for his vocal effect in Cynic?



## DanD (Dec 1, 2008)

Anyone know?


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## MFB (Dec 1, 2008)

It's an "auto-tone" Vocoder, some people have said it's a TC Helicon


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## axechain (Dec 1, 2008)

a small green alien from The Jacksons cartoon is singing for him


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## DanD (Dec 1, 2008)

axechain said:


> a small green alien from The Jacksons cartoon is singing for him



Don't you mean _The Jetsons_?


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## lobee (Dec 1, 2008)

DanD said:


> Don't you mean _The Jetsons_?


Of course not. He means *Michael* Jackson.


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## winterlover (Dec 1, 2008)

/\


  

wait till bout 1:20 lol


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## Randy (Dec 1, 2008)

I know he used the Digitech Vocalist II Focus era, but I'd heard he was using a more modern incarnation of it on the last tour.


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## TonalArchitect (Dec 1, 2008)

winterlover said:


>


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## stuh84 (Dec 1, 2008)

It used to be the Digitech Vocalist II as mentioned, when it was pure vocoder style (i.e. it didn't matter what he sang, the keyboards controlled the notes). Now he uses a couple of TC Helicon VoiceLive's, and actually sings the parts and the Helicon adds harmonies 

TC-Helicon | VoiceLive - Harmony, Correction & Vocal Effects


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## axechain (Dec 1, 2008)

DanD said:


> Don't you mean _The Jetsons_?


the Jacksons...what was i thinking))


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## Turbo Chainsaw (Dec 1, 2008)

Dude, cynic is awesome but.........ugh, i hate those Mr. ROboto vox dude. totally ruins the album.


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## Colton165 (Dec 1, 2008)

a vocoder.

i want one, but when i looked into them, i saw they were pretty expensive


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## Stealthdjentstic (Dec 1, 2008)

Turbo Chainsaw said:


> Dude, cynic is awesome but.........ugh, i hate those Mr. ROboto vox dude. totally ruins the album.



The ones on Focus or Traced in Air? I thought the ones on Focus helped with the atmosphere. 

The new ones are cool as well though.


Does Paul use an auto-tuner?


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## ZeroSignal (Dec 1, 2008)

Turbo Chainsaw said:


> Dude, cynic is awesome but.........ugh, i hate those Mr. ROboto vox dude. totally ruins the album.



I love them. I think they're much, much better on Traced In Air than they were on Focus, but I still love them either way.


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## Stealthdjentstic (Dec 1, 2008)

ZeroSignal said:


> I love them. I think they're much, much better on Traced In Air than they were on Focus, but I still love them either way.





But the ones on focus made the album seem kind of spacy and scary, in a good way.


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## Variant (Dec 2, 2008)

It's *not* auto-tune / pitch correction... it's a vocoder! Quite different.

*Auto-tune* uses that _*actual*_ vocal signal taken into the microphone and uses processing to adjust the pitch to a sequenced (or played) reference input pitch.

*Vocoder* works quite the opposite, the sung/spoken signal taken into the microphone is used simply to generate a complex envelope shape to process whatever is being played through the vocoder (typically a keyboard, though can be anything), and *that's* what your hearing... there is no actual singing voice, unless it is mixed in in parallel... like Phil Collins 'In The Air Tonight', for instance.


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## Wiz (Feb 3, 2009)

Sorry for resurrecting this old thread but I was recently trying to answer this same question for my own interest and I think Paul does indeed currently use 2x TC VoiceLives (as opposed to a vocoder), as you can see in this picture: MySpace.com - Cynic View All Photos - Photo 6 of 31

I read that supposedly one of them is one octave below and the other one octave above the real voice.


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## MatthewK (Feb 3, 2009)

Why does he use two of them? I love the robot vox, sets them apart and fits their style very well IMO.


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