EMS Vocoder 2000

This EMS Vocoder 2000 is for sale serviced and in full working order. It’s been checked over and calibrated by EMS Cornwall and given a clean bill of health. One of a handful of units made by EMS using Mk1 faceplate and VU meter with upgrades to the circuitry to improve performance.

This is a reluctant sale from our studio;  selling to cover other costs – the Calrec console and aircon to stop it (and us) overheating. This had been purchased by Tony to remain in the studio collection and is in excellent condition and working perfectly.

You can get stunning results from the Vocoder 2000 – great intelligibility and tone, and of course you can replicate the sound of the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica. Forget the Moog, Bode, Sennheiser VSM-201, Roland VP-330 or SVC-350 and Korg VC10: this is the one you want!

Here’s the gospel on this particular unit (and “old” versus “new” versions) from Robin Wood at EMS:

“I can confirm that this is a genuine EMS Vocoder 2000 made here in Cornwall. All of the units we made here (about 70 in total) were fully rack-mountable and were modified to provide a far superior signal/noise performance and a warmer bottom end to the sound.

Most of the Cornwall-made Vocoders had black front-panels and twin LED-bargraph displays for the input signal levels. Some had dark brown cabinets but most were black. But when we first restarted production we used the earlier silver front panels with the old-style VU meter. Then when Ludwig Rehberg started selling his black-faced V3000 (using the same pcbs which we assembled for him) we changed to a black front panel. We didn’t assign any serial numbers to these Cornwall-made Vocoders – something that I now regret. The colours of the knob inserts is correct for this phase of production. There is a photo of a similar V2000 on the back of Ludwig Rehberg’s leaflet for the V3000, which has the brown side panels.

The original V2000 in the brown case, supplied from 1978, was not rack-mountable and had such poor signal/noise performance that the output was permanently connected via a noise gate, which also compromised its transient response (for percussive applications). The knobs used were a longer collet-type (Sifam?) and the colours were different.

Looking through my files I can say this unit was produced in about 1987 and is one of 10-20 made in this style. When I tested this unit for Soundgas I did an A/B comparison with one of the later black-faced Vocoders and couldn’t detect a difference.”

Full spec and useful info here on Encyclotronic.