@devinaaro

So I was expecting a relatively similar tone/quality to bon iver when I opened this video, but I wasn't expecting THAT close of a result. Gotta give it to my man.This sounds incredibly close to the original.

@vjm-audio

BRO THAT BEGINNING GAVE ME CHILLSSSSs

@treyhudson73

Hide and Seek hit me SO hard the first time I heard it. Walking on a dark beach under the moonlight, high as a 🪁

@twoonswig3667

Halfway through a hyperpop album and realised i had harmony engine from a couple years ago. This video has unlocked so much for me, youre the best, great rendition too

Of all the crazy effects on 22, A Million, perhaps the most prominent is a device created by and named after engineer Chris Messina. There have been reports that The Messina is based on the Prismizer, which is software designed by Francis Starlite (of Francis & The Lights). However, according to Justin Vernon and Messina, the Prismizer was only an inspiration and does not use the same technology.

“When Francis Starlite was staying at my house for a year,” recalled Vernon, “I saw him take a trumpet line and make it sound like a bunch of them. I was like: ‘That is amazing, that is really cool.’ So when I talked with Chris Messina, my confidant in this entire recording process, about setting up new toys and finding new zones and not trying to get stuck in any technological toilet bowl, I was like, ‘How can you do that live?’ One of the reasons why you can’t do that is because CPUs don’t really have that capacity to do it as it is happening. So Chris figured that out, and got all the gear to make that work, and I said: ‘We are calling this the Messina.’ We used it on a lot of stuff, and we actually use it a lot live as well now.”

Messina elaborates on how he devised the Messina. “Inspired by what Francis did, Justin and I got together and we tried every single vocoder that was listed, but they all sounded like a vocoder, which was not exactly what we wanted. Instead we wanted to be able to keep the character of whatever input signal we used, whether a voice or a saxophone. So instead we developed this thing which basically is a glorified vocoder. The input signal goes into Ableton Live where it is treated by two Auto-Tune plug-ins. The first just tunes the vocal, in the way Justin has always done it, and the second plug-in creates just a single note, the tonic of the key of the phrase that is sung or played, and that then is sent to an Eventide H8000, which is set to a MIDI harmony program.

“Justin can play the white keys of a MIDI keyboard at the same time, and the H8000 receives the Auto-Tune tonic input, sometimes a dry input, and the input of the MIDI keyboard, and the H8000 generates up to four notes based on what’s played. It involves a degree of randomisation, so you don’t know exactly what you’re going to get. We’d then use a combination of the dry signal, tuned signal, tonic signal and the harmony created by the H8000 to make the ‘Messina’ sound. A lot of the distortion on the album comes from this, because the H8000 program naturally creates a lot of artifacts. When you’re switching keys on the MIDI keyboard it automatically creates this kind of clicking noises as it’s changing whatever harmonies it’s creating. We removed some of those clicking noises, but as also left many in, because we liked them. But a lot of the distortion is Justin and the Messina, with the H8000 doing what it does to the signal. You can hear Justin on his own with the Messina in ‘715’. That song is mostly just one take, though we did do a few additional takes, hitting the 8000 differently each time, cranking up the output to hit it harder. The way the 8000 reacts to different input signals can be pretty cool.”

@xerroxefra

I appreciate all u do for us rising musicians, thanks for existing bro.

@creativescott

Ethan!! Wow, I've been trying to duplicate this sound for quite a while. Genius brother, you are amazing! Thank you, you just skyrocketed me into the future. Bless you brother

@aldrinyabut5026

3rd video I watched from your Channel, man I'm super inspired now this channel is so helpful, blessed that I found your channel

@JuliaJars

I think Bon Iver and James Blake also used it in 2011 in Fall Creek Boys Choir, I used to listen to that song a lot. James does it a lot too.

@LolaLand

you are a legend Ethan, thank you so much for this tutorial

@mojito6629

Awesome. No nonsense tutorial and video, great. Thanks!!

@jeyon5408

BRO YOU A GIFT FROM GOD

@motherbrain2000

My favorite Vocoder is Razor by NI. You have all the power of Razor's oscillator section and it's excellent reverbs. The vocoder is a filter "type" but since razor has 2 filter you are still left with a filter as well. It's extremely digital and pure - not an analog simulation if that's what you are going for. But that purity gives gorgeous harmonics and intelligibility.

@DUKEofWAIL

Ethan, you are an expert teacher, communicator, and entertainer. Your video is excellent and most enjoyable, and I learned a lot.

@peterbatten596

Well if you want exactly how it’s routed that came straight from Messina, and to try it yourself, here you go. He’s using ableton live. He has 2 auto tune. 1 is on his main vocal that he does with ALL his songs live (lightly) then he has a second auto tune that’s literally only sending the root note to the harmonized chain. Since it’s in the key of C#, it would be Ab. Then he has the eventide rack that already gives him real time pitch shift/stretched harmonies. It’s something that’s really fun to play around with.

@KURXMALLC

The beginning is soo beautiful!

@tekis0

Thank-you very much! I was fiddling with Antares' "Articulator," thinking that was a cool vocoder sound, but THIS is definitely more like it!

@observevisuals4228

MY GOD, AN INTRO NOT WORTH SKIPPING <3

@9dwarren

plenty of outboard gear can replicate that effect real-time for live; TC Helicon has gear just for that.  Great video

@Treeandseamusic

Just discovered your channel, and very much enjoyed this video. Also happened to see that your next one is about Logic. I’ve been using MainStage with the built in vocoder (that comes with Logic) for real time and it’s basically latency free so far.