10.6

Table Of Contents
309Logic Pro Instruments
Logic Pro EVOC20 PolySynth (U/V) detection
Human speech consists of a series of voiced sounds—tonal sounds or formants—and
unvoiced (U/V) sounds. The main distinction between voiced and unvoiced sounds is that
voiced sounds are produced by an oscillation of the vocal cords, whereas unvoiced sounds
are produced by blocking and restricting the air flow with lips, tongue, palate, throat, and
larynx.
If speech containing voiced and unvoiced sounds is used as a vocoder analysis signal but
the synthesis engine doesn’t differentiate between voiced and unvoiced sounds, the result
sounds rather weak. To avoid this problem, the synthesis section of the vocoder must
produce different sounds for the voiced and unvoiced parts of the signal.
The EVOC20 PolySynth includes an Unvoiced/Voiced detector for this specific purpose.
This unit detects the unvoiced portions of the sound in the analysis signal and then
substitutes the corresponding portions in the synthesis signal with noise, with a mixture of
noise and synthesizer signal, or with the original signal. If the U/V detector detects voiced
parts, it passes this information to the Synthesis section, which uses the normal synthesis
signal for these portions.
A formant is a peak in the frequency spectrum of a sound. In the context of human voices,
formants are the key component that enables humans to distinguish between different
vowel sounds—based purely on the frequency of the sounds. Formants in human speech
and singing are produced by the vocal tract, with most vowel sounds containing four or
more formants.
U/V detection parameters
Sensitivity knob: Determine how responsive U/V detection is. Use higher settings to
recognize more of the individual, unvoiced portions of the input signal. When high
settings are used, the increased sensitivity to unvoiced signals can lead to the U/V
sound source being used on the majority of the input signal, including voiced signals.
Sonically, this results in a sound that resembles a radio signal that is breaking up and
contains a lot of static, or noise. The U/V sound source is determined by the Mode pop-
up menu.
Mode pop-up menu: Choose the sound source used to replace the unvoiced content in
the input signal.
Noise: Uses noise alone for the unvoiced portions of the sound.
Noise + Synth: Uses noise and the synthesizer for the unvoiced portions of the
sound.