Robot Rocket might be the closest you can get to a Daft Punk-style vocoder sound without a DigiTech Talker

When you think of artists synonymous with the vocoder, few spring to mind quite like Daft Punk. The Robots – Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo – employed the technology across their catalogue of hits, and can be heard on Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger, One More Time and Get Lucky, to name a few.

Fundamentally, a vocoder is a device which takes human voice input and uses it to control a separate signal, usually from a synthesizer. While Daft Punk used an array of vocoders across their catalogue, the DigiTech Talker was one of them.

Now out of production, genuine DigiTech Talker units command a hefty price on the second-hand market, but thanks to a new plugin from fledgling app brand Bjango, you can now harness a similar vocoder sound for a fraction of the price.

Robot Rocket is a new plugin which “delivers the distinctive sound of a classic 90s vocoder”, and Bjango says it “captures the sound” of the original Talker.

The plugin has two distinct modes: Retro and Modern. Retro has three settings: TalkBox, “probably the sound you’ve heard the most”; NuVo, which increases intelligibility by letting more sibilant sounds pass through; and TazMania, which replaces the synth input with white noise, “which sounds like robotic whispering”.

Modern mode, on the other hand, offers users more controls to “push Robot Rocket into new soundscapes”, with a quality setting which can be adjusted to sound smoother and more intelligible.

There’s also a shift control for pitch-shifting the voice input, as well as low and high pass buttons which have been “carefully tuned” to match the original Talker.

To help keep your vocals intelligible even while sounding like a robot, Robot Rocket has a voiced vs unvoiced detection option, which means it automatically “switches between the synth output and white noise for sibilant sounds”, injecting white noise when it picks up on any “S” and “T” sounds in your vocal lines.

Robot Rocket is available now as an Audio Unit 3 plugin, and is priced at launch at $29, until 12 October, when it’ll rise to $39. There’s also a 30-day free trial, so you can use it for a few weeks before making up your mind.

For more information, head to Bjango.