Electro-Harmonix V256

The V256 is a versatile and easy-to-use vocoder that is significantly more practical than large and complicated rack-mounted devices thanks to the size of a standard effects box. Yet it does the same and more. Plus, thanks to the internal synthesizer, there's no need for any additional effects or other equipment.

The design is typical of the Electro Harmonix range - a durable metal chassis that houses high quality electronics, two reliable solid state switches, six potentiometers, two 6.3 mm Jack inputs for instrument connection and two standard XLR inputs for microphone connection.

This vocoder offers 9 distinct sound modes, which you choose between with the Mode control and within which you can also save presets. The first three modes are called Robo-Vox and are identical, allowing you to store 3 different presets simulating a robotic voice. These are followed by 3 distinct Drone modes, Single, Major and Minor, which produce more natural sounding sounds than Robo-Vox. Then there's Transposition, which offers the ability to transpose tones up to an octave lower or higher, Instrument CTRL mode, which tunes your voice to whatever instrument you're playing, and finally Reflex Tune, which serves as an auto-tune to fine-tune inaccurate tones.

Control is via the same controllers in all modes. Blend determines the ratio of clean to distorted signal, Band sets the number of bands the V256 will operate in, from 8 to 256, thus affecting the naturalness or, conversely, the synthiness of the sound, Tone acts as a standard equalization adjustment, Gender-Bender modulates between male and female voices, and finally Pitch sets the tuning of the internal synth. In different modes, these controls may have slightly different effects on the sound or parameters of the effect.

On the V256 you will also find two footswitches and two toggle switches. The footswitches are used to activate or deactivate presets, and then of course as an effect switch. The smaller toggle switches are used to toggle the microphone's input gain level for optimal results with the V256, and to switch the microphone's phantom power. Conveniently, there's also a MIDI input on the vocoder, which further expands the V256's capabilities. Power is supplied via the included adapter.