EMS Vocoder 2000 - black face - mark II 1982

The EMS Vocoder 2000

British-designed 16-channel analog vocoder originally created by Tim Orr for Electronic Music Studios (EMS) in the late 1970s. Revered for its distinct balance of mechanical sci-fi robotic tones and pristine human intelligibility, it remains a holy grail processor used by legendary artists like Kraftwerk, Vangelis, and Electric Light Orchestra.

Here is a rare opportunity to own an absolute masterpiece of synthesizer history. This is not just any EMS Vocoder 2000 Mark 2; this specific unit has recently undergone a complete electronic overhaul, restoration, and precision calibration by Portabellabz , the world’s leading authority on vintage EMS equipment.

Robin Wood wrote :
In my opinion the black V2000 is superior to the early 'white faced'
(actually silver aluminium) version. My reasons are as follows:

1) The sound is much warmer due to the energy in band 1 (lowpass) being
increased by about x 4 (approx).
2) The signal level passing through the excitation filterbank was so low in
the original units that a noise gate ic (NE570) was added into the design of
the output stage to cut off the vocoder signal when the output level fell
below a certain level. This had a very poor response to rapid transients,
percussive sounds etc. and could not be bypassed. The output signal was
otherwise too noisy for comfort. Also the NE570 chip had a poor distortion
performance as it was designed for telecoms applications.
3) In the black units the ic which drives the excitation filterbank was
upgraded from a 741 to NE5534 which is able to drive a much higher signal
level. Consequently the output level of the black units is much higher and
the noise gate is available as an effect with an in/out switch. With the
gate switched 'in' the output noise is actually greater than in bypass mode.
Care has to be taken not to overdrive the speech (analysis) filterbank as
this simply holds all the channels 'open' and negates the whole
analysis/synthesis concept.

Apart from the inclusion of the twin led-bargraph display the other
functions are unaltered.

Local pickup is possible