MUN

A 22 HP, 10-channel vocoder based on the Syntovox 222, which its maker owns and has always been impressed with for its sound and elegant design. The first design was 42 HP with all the fruit (variable envelope lengths, envelope and filter inputs and outputs, pause stuffing, external noise, separate carriers for odd and even channels) and was way too finicky to use, so it was stripped back to this more minimal version. The voice section has a TRS/mono 6.35 mm input for a microphone or guitar, a stereo/mono 3.5 mm input for line level sources such as a phone, and a synth level input; the carrier section a synth level input only, and the output is only as good as the carrier: mix a few signals through phasers, filters or wavefolders, or use drum hits. There is no voiced/unvoiced switching: noise from a transistor source is mixed with the carrier on channels 9 and 10, with pots for its level and its colour, white to pink. Each channel's filter and envelope outputs can be used without affecting the vocoder; patching into a channel's ENVELOPE IN disconnects its internally generated envelope, a 0-5 V signal is expected. The name comes from Robert Sheckley's story Shall We Have a Little Talk?, whose aliens refine their language until one word, mun, is enough.

Key features

• Voice: a MIC TRS/mono 6.35 mm input, a STEREO/MONO LINE 3.5 mm input and a SYNTH INPUT, with VOICE and CLEANFEED pots
• Carrier: a CARRIER input with CARRIER and CLEANFEED pots
• Noise mixed with the carrier on channels 9 and 10, with LEVEL and COLOUR (white to pink) pots
• Ten FILTER OUT, ten ENVELOPE OUT and ten ENVELOPE IN jacks, one per channel, an LED on each channel and on the voice and carrier inputs; MAIN OUT
• 22 HP; Nonlinearcircuits publishes no current draw, depth or assembled price (it sells the DIY PCB and panel), and ModularGrid lists none