The Vocal Tract Organ and the Vox Humana organ stop

The Vocal Tract Organ is a new musical instrument that consists of three-dimensional (3D)-printed vocal tracts (throat and mouth) for individual vowels sitting on loudspeakers to enable static vowel sounds to be produced. The acoustic excitation from the loudspeakers is a synthesized version of the typical waveform produced by the vibrating human vocal folds during pitched sounds, which enables the instrument to be played from a keyboard. The synthesis engine is implemented in Pure Data. This article describes the implementation of the Vocal Tract Organ, how it has been used musically to date, and the similarities and differences between it and the Vox Humana pipe organ stop. It is suggested that the Vocal Tract Organ will become an instrument in its own right and that it could be used as a direct replacement for the Vox Humana organ stop, given that its acoustic output is a much closer representation of the human vocal output than that from a Vox Humana organ pipe. In addition, the author makes use of the 3D-printed tracts in vocal and choral workshops as well as degree-level music technology education.