/dev/world 2025

We built Daft Punk’s vocoder as an audio plugin!

I love vocoders. I love them so much I spent around two years researching the vocal effects of Daft Punk, and ended up discovering a bunch of previously unknown or at least not-well-known facts about the hardware they used, and the history of the companies involved. I emailed Imogen Heap’s team, and they replied! Why is Imogen Heap involved? You’ll have to watch the talk to learn that one, sorry. Daft Punk used a DigiTech Talker vocoder for a lot of their famous songs. As a result, it has now become one of the most sought after vocoders on the planet. During my research, I learned so much about the Talker that I wondered if it would be possible to replicate its sound as a plugin, using the same techniques (linear predictive coding). I tried, and I failed. I then turned to my friend Russell to help. Neither of us had built a plugin prior to this project. The goal is to create an Audio Unit v3 plugin that can be used in Logic Pro and other audio apps. Will we succeed?

About the presenter

Marc Edwards is the founder and designer at Bjango. Russell Ivanovic is a legendary Australian developer who previously owned Shifty Jelly, the creators of Pocket Casts, Pocket Weather, and other apps. Marc and Russell currently both work on Skala, Pinwheel and other apps at Bjango.