One MetaSound node. Every robot, radio and demon voice your game needs.

Vocoder is a real-time channel vocoder built as a single MetaSounds node. Every control is a pin on the node, so there's no separate API, no Blueprint function library, and no preset system to fight. If you're comfortable with audio in Unreal Engine, you're already comfortable here.

Product demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbA1e8k-3yE

Built for real game-audio work

• Pre-recorded VO: process NPC dialogue at playback time instead of baking out filtered variants of every line.

• Live VOIP: proximity comms, tactical radio and distance-based degradation. Because it's an ordinary MetaSound node, you can run an instance per listener so each player hears their own amount of processing.

• Any audio as the carrier: shape an engine, an ambience bed or any other source through the filterbank instead of a synthesized carrier.

Full control surface, all on the node

• Carrier: Sine, Saw, Square with PWM, Ring Mod or Noise, or wire in your own external audio.

• Live pitch tracking: the carrier follows the speaker's pitch, with an adjustable sensitivity control.

• Formant Shift: make a voice bigger or smaller without changing its pitch.

• 4–32 band filterbank with Bark-scale spacing, adjustable bandwidth/Q and adjustable band range.

• Envelope Attack/Release, plus Unvoiced Amount/Sensitivity for crisp consonants and sibilance.

• Noise, Interference, Wet/Dry, Dry Gain and Output Gain.

• One Transition Time control smooths every parameter change and carrier crossfade, from an instant snap to a slow morph like an NPC's voice failing as its power drains.

• Mono or stereo per side: mono voice chat runs at true mono cost, and you only pay for stereo where a graph actually uses it.

• Designed to run dozens of concurrent instances without audio-thread hitches.

Bonus: Noise Gate node. A standalone hysteresis gate with attack, release and hold. Use it to clean up mic input before vocoding, or on any other audio.

What's in the box

• The Vocoder and Noise Gate nodes (C++ plugin, MetaSounds-native)

• A reference mic pre-processing patch (HPF → gain → noise gate) with its audio bus, for the voice-chat capture path

• Five ready-to-play presets: Tactical Radio, Power Armor, Demonic, Pitch Tracking and NPC Power Failing, each with example voice lines

• Documentation: the full pin reference, patterns for driving parameters from gameplay code, and performance notes

Quick start

1. Add the Vocoder node to a MetaSound graph (search "Vocoder").

2. Wire your voice or VO into Modulator In L. For mono sources (most mic/VOIP input), leave Modulator Is Mono on and skip R.

3. Leave everything else at the defaults. Carrier Type defaults to Saw, so you'll immediately hear a classic tonal vocoder.

4. Wire Audio Out L/R to your output.

That's a working vocoder. The docs cover the rest: every pin, the other carrier modes, live mic setup, and driving the voice from gameplay.

Docs and quick setup: https://www.patreon.com/shapenoise/posts/vocoder-audio-167148281

More videos: https://www.youtube.com/@shapenoise

Requirements

• Unreal Engine 5.6, 5.7 or 5.8 (backporting in progress, more versions coming soon, let me know if you need a specific UE 5.x version)

• Windows (Win64)

• MetaSounds plugin enabled (on by default)