$129 ($79 introductory price), minimal.audio
If you’ve spent time in electronic music production circles, you’ve probably heard of US software developer Minimal Audio and its range of sound design-centric instruments, effects plugins, and sample packs. Evoke joins the Minimal range as a flagship vocal processor, offering producers a platform to manipulate vocals in a multitude of ways.
Although flexible vocal processors were once relatively scarce, the industry has stepped up its game here in order to cater to the effects-laden sound of modern vocal production. Considering existing solutions like iZotope Vocal Synth and Waves OVox, the Minimal Audio team really had its work cut out.
At its core, Evoke is a vocal resynthesis tool with timbral and tonal shaping capabilities, while also offering formant and pitch shifting, harmonising and powerful modulation and effects sections. It sounds like a mammoth task to cram all this into one plugin, yet Minimal Audio has streamlined features to form Evoke’s cohesive, straightforward interface.
The immediate strength of Evoke lies in the way it allows you to approach really complex vocal manipulation, without being bombarded with overly technical processes. Although you can access incredible vocal sounds without ever diving into advanced modulation features, putting on your sound designer’s hat doesn’t feel like a drag when you are feeling a bit braver.
How do I get evocative with Minimal Audio Evoke?
On opening Evoke for the first time, a handy walkthrough guides you through the various sections of the plugin. What’s more, you can activate Tooltip mode with the question mark icon in the top bar, giving you specific details of each control you hover your mouse cursor over.
The primary Resynth interface is divided into various zones, including the main Resynthesis View, where you do most of your sound shaping, the expandable Modulation Bar, and the Keyboard Panel, where you select the musical scale, pitch range, and notes you’re working with. According to Minimal Audio, the Keyboard Panel is the best place to start Evoke’s workflow because you want to ensure you’re in the right musical key before you dive into the resynthesis controls.
With my key locked in, I start exploring the range of Evoke’s sounds by cycling a vocal region in my DAW and flipping through presets. The preset browser is designed with plenty of attention to detail, which makes a big difference to the user experience when you’re still getting your bearings.
Besides exploring the various categories of presets and highlighting favourites, you can also use tags to hone in on the type of sounds you’re searching for. The main component of each sound comes from the 15 different Resynth Character modes, which are divided into three categories, including four Natural, seven Synthetic, and four Texture algorithms.
Once you find a basic sound character you like, it’s incredibly easy to start sculpting the sound with the main Shape control to alter the harmonic structure, and the Color control, which adds brightness and increases the amount of unison voices depending on which Resynth Character is selected. The pitch and formant controls are more readily understood, as these are found on most vocal tuning plugins. Meanwhile, the Resolution control produces similar results to a bit reduction effect.
When you start working with the Spectrum Filter within the Resynthesis Response graphic, things get exciting; this is where you shape the filter that resynthesizes the vocal signal. It’s extremely flexible, because you can choose some basic filter shapes, or draw your own manually, and then make adjustments using the Shift, Tilt, and Scale controls. What’s more, you can bypass the Spectrum section completely, along with each of the four Harmonizer voices.
Getting creative with Minimal Audio Evoke
The Modulation system allows you to add movement to sounds by introducing time-based resynthesis components that can affect almost any parameter within Evoke’s Resynth controls, or the effects rack. A simple right-click on any control lets you quickly assign it to one of six mod sources or two macro controls, and you can access the Mod Matrix view for a complete overview of the signal chain. For each modulation source, you can choose between an LFO, a fully-featured Curve Sequencer, or an envelope follower, and once you’ve assigned a parameter to a source, you’ll see a tiny mod depth control appear next to your destination.
As you select (or hover over) each of the six mod sources, they turn from purple to yellow, along with the parameter being modulated. This helps you stay on top of things, even when dealing with outrageously complex modulation routings. The Curve Sequencer, with its array of tools for mapping curves across the modulation grid, is particularly impressive because it allows you to work precisely, building sounds that interlock rhythmically with the other elements in your song.
While modulation possibilities are almost limitless, I find the ability to modulate the different Harmonizer Voices especially interesting, as you can create choral swells with sustained notes within your vocal parts, quickly and effectively. The effects section, too, is just as inspiring, with the ability to stack up to 12 instances of the eight effects processors, including Chorus, Compressor, Delay, Distortion, EQ, Filter, Reverb, and Shifter. Building complex effects chains is super-easy, as you simply click the effect type to add it to the chain, meanwhile each module has factory presets to get you started. Also, each effect parameter can be modulated or assigned to the macros, so you can do detailed effects layering and automate it with a single knob.
Adding to its versatility, Evoke has four global processing modes: the basic pitch tracking resynthesis mode; MIDI tracking mode (employing external MIDI for setting the scale for retuning; MIDI Instrument mode (which bypasses internal retuning and harmonisation); and the external mode for processing sidechain signals. Combined with all the processing features, these four modes extend the scope of Evoke’s capabilities beyond working with vocals alone, and it becomes a powerful modulation and effects device. Also, the two soft limiter modes offer gentle (marked purple) and more aggressive (orange) characteristics, for that finishing touch.
Is Minimal Audio Evoke a serious competitor?
Regardless of Evoke’s sonic prowess and diversity, its interface design is one of its cornerstones. Even when delving into new concepts, it feels so seamless and familiar, almost like I’m using Serum at times. While there are some other competing options available, they don’t provide Evoke’s well-rounded creative experience as an instrument.
iZotope Vocal Synth isn’t a bad-sounding alternative, but for a steep $200, its interface is rather infantile in comparison to Evoke. Meanwhile, Waves OVox is an affordable option at only $40, but it isn’t in the same league as Evoke from a sound creation perspective. There are certainly amazing competitors at the upper end of the market, like Antares Harmony Engine and Zynaptiq Orange Vocoder, but these are far more niche in their application.
Evoke is an exciting, creative instrument for music producers in almost any genre that uses vocals, or even vocal samples. What’s more, sound designers will love how easy it is to manipulate voices for motion pictures and video games.
Key features
- Vocal resynthesis plugin
- AU / VST3 / AAX plugin for Windows (10 or above) and macOS (10.11 or later)
- 350+ presets
- 4-voice harmonisation
- MIDI and sidechain modes
- Pitch correction & hard-tune
- 6-channel modulation matrix
- Effects rack
- 7-day trial with Minimal Audio All-Access
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