If $215 (street) seems a bit too much to cough up for the V256 Vocoder, how about $150 (street) for a Nano version? The Electro-Harmonix Iron Lung is built around the same circuit as their recently introduced V256 Vocoder, but with fewer functions and a smaller form factor.

Housed in a Nano chassis, the Iron Lung offers inputs for a microphone via XLR and instrument via 1/4" for the carrier signal. A single 1/4" output can be split to two signals with an insert cable, with the guitar signal sent over the TIP and the mic signal sent over the RING.

Controls on the Iron Lung include the Gender Bender that effects "formant shift," and an overall Tone control that can help accentuate vocal articulations. There's also a three position mic input gain switch with lo, med, and hi settings (the V256 has only hi and lo).

What you don't get on the Iron Lung is the V256's various modes, including the auto-tune emulating "Reflex Tune" function. Nor do you get to change the resolution of the filter (i.e. number of bands). Still, you get the rich polyphonic vocoding sounds that the greatest vocoders of yore were capable of, all in pedal not much bigger than a mousetrap.

The EHX Iron Lung is available now.