Sonicism, 2002. Ruminant Audio Works, today.

VintageVocoder

It really is vintage now.

The original Sonicism vocoder from 2002, brought back for modern Macs, Windows and Linux. Robot voices, singing synths and spectral mischief — with MIDI finally in charge of the oscillators.

Free download

Free download. No signup.

macOS 12+ · Windows x86-64 · Linux ARM64 + x86-64

The original faceplate. A new lease of life.View full-size interface

Take a listen

Oscillators: 8
Analysis bands: Up to 64
Operating modes: 6
Factory presets: 30

Old code. New tricks.

Give your sound another voice.

Use speech, a drum loop or another audio source to shape a carrier. Build that carrier with the eight internal oscillators, play it with MIDI, or bring your own audio.

Eight oscillators. Your hands on the sound.

Blend sine, saw, square and triangle waves. Set each oscillator’s pitch, level and tuning in NORM mode, or switch to MIDI and play the carrier from your keyboard or DAW.

Play the vocoder.

MIDI mode brings velocity, sustain and pitch bend to the internal carrier. Enabled oscillators set the available polyphony; the modulation wheel moves the filter cutoffs.

Shape the spectrum.

Choose from 1 to 64 analysis bands, set the frequency range and sculpt the result with the resonant filter. Blend dry and vocoded audio, then trim the final output.

Start somewhere interesting.

Explore 30 factory presets, including the recovered originals and six Getting Started sounds. Save your own settings as named presets and come back to them later.

From the archives

A little unfinished business.

The original Sonicism Vintage Vocoder interface from 2002 — Sonicism Vintage Vocoder · The 2002 original

Original design and DSP © Tom Taylor, 2002. Restoration and development by Tom Taylor.

Vintage Vocoder was released by Sonicism in 2002 — a heady time for plug-in development. Its FFT-based vocoder grew out of Tom Taylor’s undergraduate thesis, then found its way into the robot voices and sound effects of Microsoft’s epic space adventure game, Freelancer.

The code was eventually open sourced on SourceForge. Then life took over: an unrelated startup, followed by kids, left the project waiting.

Nearly 25 years later, Tom returned to finish what he started — using the OG Vintage Vocoder code, with a cheeky assist from AI to level things up. The original character and interface live on, with MIDI finally in charge of the oscillators.

It’s older code, but it checks out.

Get started

Two signals. One new sound.

A vocoder uses a modulator to shape a carrier. Start with a voice as the modulator and the internal oscillators as the carrier.

Install the plug-in
Quit your DAW. On macOS, run the installer and select AAX (Pro Tools), Audio Unit (AU), VST2 or VST3. On Windows, select AAX (Pro Tools), VST2 or VST3 in the installer. On Linux, extract the matching archive and copy the complete Vintage Vocoder FX.vst3 bundle into ~/.vst3/. Reopen your DAW and rescan plug-ins if needed.
Add it to an audio track
Insert Vintage Vocoder FX on a vocal or another audio track. Choose NORM mode and play the track to hear the audio shape the fixed internal carrier. Keep the MIX control towards wet to hear the effect clearly.
Put MIDI in charge
Switch to MIDI mode and route a MIDI track or keyboard to the effect. In Pro Tools, send a MIDI track to the Vintage Vocoder FX instance on channel 1; enable MIDI Thru and record-arm the MIDI track for live playing. Keep the vocal or other modulator audio running while you play notes.

Six ways in.

The MODE knob selects where the carrier and modulator come from.

TEST: Audition the fixed internal carrier.
NORM: Main audio shapes the fixed internal oscillators.
MIDI: Main audio shapes the MIDI-played internal carrier.
EXT: Main audio is the modulator; the sidechain is the carrier. Both need audio.
MOD L: Left input is the modulator; right input is the carrier.
MOD R: Right input is the modulator; left input is the carrier.

Need a hand with a control? Turn on the ? button beside the Sonicism badge and hover for help.

Yours to play with

Make something strange.

A free vocoder for Mac, Windows and Linux, ready to use in your DAW. Choose your system below.

macOS · AAX + AU + VST2 + VST3

Download for macOS

Version 1.6.0 · 35.0 MB · AAX + AU Music Effect + VST2 + VST3

macOS Monterey (12) or later · Apple Silicon + Intel

Developer ID signed and notarized by Apple.

Windows · AAX + VST2 + VST3

Windows x86-64 · Pro Tools or a compatible 64-bit VST2/VST3 host

Windows x86-64 installer

10.1 MB · .exe

Requires administrator approval. The installer is not Authenticode-signed; Windows may show an unknown-publisher warning.

Linux · VST3

Ubuntu 22.04 / glibc 2.35 or later · 64-bit VST3 host

Linux ARM64

5.4 MB · .tar.gz

Linux x86-64

5.4 MB · .tar.gz

Extract the archive and copy the complete Vintage Vocoder FX.vst3 bundle into ~/.vst3/. Choose the architecture matching both your Linux system and your DAW.

Linux SHA-256 checksums OpenPGP signatures & verification

Free for personal and commercial use. No TayPE licence required.

Requires a compatible host. AAX Native is included for Pro Tools on macOS and Windows, with developer smoke tests on both platforms. Linux downloads are VST3.

Release notes on GitHub Read the licence terms

macOS SHA-256 checksum

ec7895497da761f1196ef2b4aeac66aad50ef24941bc14bbda7a8600709e83e4

An introduction to Vintage Vocoder

Loading the video connects to YouTube. Google may use cookies and browser storage when you use the player.

Watch on YouTube

Community & Support

Follow Along

Development updates, studio sessions, and behind-the-scenes from Ruminant Audio Works.

Newsletter Instagram YouTube Reddit

Get in Touch

Bug to report, question, or just want to say hi? Drop us a line — anonymous is fine, but leave your email if you'd like a reply.

Get in touch