Talkbox

The talkbox was originally developed to add a wah-wah effect to a guitar by directing guitar talkbox sound to the mouth through a plastic tube. The mouth acts as a filter and changing the shape of the mouth results in a wah type effect.

When talkbox was first released, it was called by various names such as voice box, talking modulator, mouth tube, or a mouth wah. It is said the name “talkbox” was standardized by Roger Troutman of ZAPP, one of the key persons in funk talkbox history.

The very first talkbox to go out on market is said to be Kustom Electronics' “The Bag,” released in 1969. Its appearance is just like a water bottle in a bag, but this triggered other manufacturers such as Jim Dunlop and Electro Harmonix to start manufacturing talkboxes.

Talkboxers in Funk, R&B and Hip Hop music explored different techniques and performed on synthesizers in place of guitars so it can produce a wide variety of sounds. Stevie Wonder is said to be the first musician who performed the talkbox on the synthesizer. His performance can be viewed on You Tube. Roger Troutman took this to a further level and established his own distinct style. His performance can also be viewed on You Tube. Roger Troutman has made a powerful impact on talkboxers today.

Vocoder

Invented by a Bell Labs whiz named Homer Dudley to improve telephone service in the 1940s, the vocoder broke speech patterns into components, allowing them to be re-transmitted efficiently over a narrow bandwidth.

The unsung Dudley was a pioneer in figuring out how to synthesize sounds and quickly ascertained the vocoder (or voice coder) possessed a creative potential far beyond the transmission of phone calls. In fact, the device proved to be of crucial importance World War II, scrambling transoceanic conversations between Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.

In 1971, the vocoder entered the pop culture mainstream when Kubrick invited composer Wendy Carlos to score the music to his controversial adaptation of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange. Employing a vocoder to "sing" on "Timesteps," Carlos produced a classic of early electronic music.

In the years since the vocoder has leant atmospheric touches and a futuristic ambience to a bevy of songs, including Laurie Anderson ("O Superman!"), Kraftwerk ("We Are the Robots") the Beastie Boys ("Intergalactic"). The vocoder's popularity somehow seems fitting. Its trance-like effect has elements of human warmth but also a decidedly metallic tone. A product of the communications revolution, the vocoder has become a perfect fit for artists seeking a "new millennium" sound.

Sonovox

Incredibly, a precurser to the Vocoder was invented back in the mid-Thirties. The Sonovox used small speakers attached to the singer's throat that were patched through music instruments - horns, guitars, etc. The singer mouthed the words of a song, and by changing the shape of the mouth and position of the tongue, changed the sound of the instrument. It created a pretty weird robot-voice-like effect.

Musicians in the '30s and '40s didn't really know what to do with it, so it was usually used on children's records.

Difference between a Talkbox and a Vocoder

Since talkbox creates sound that is somewhat mechanic compared to a human voice, some people may confuse it as a vocoder. Vocoder's structure and sound differs completely from a talkbox. In a vocoder, human voice and synthesizer signals are respectively directed through 10 to 20 band-path filters and envelope followers to analyze the human voice and reproduce the modifying amplitude by each bandwidth frequency. Talkbox and Vocoder are similar in a sense that it both filters a synthesizer, but band-path filters are used in a vocoder where the actual mouth is used in a talkbox. Therefore, a more precise pronunciation is possible with a talkbox.

Sonovox Talkbox {keyboard}
Kay Kyser ~ 1940 Stevie Wonder ~ 1973

Talkbox {guitar} Vocoder

Joe Walsh ~ 1973 Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five ~ 1982

You forgot to mention

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JabarR74 said:

You forgot to mention

Roger is mentioned in the article.

I forgot to mention 2 other talkboxers

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Here's some more Sonovox.

What is this instrument though? It says in Itunes that its a talk box. I don't hear talk box anywhere, it sounds to me like a steel guitar.

Now this is a talk box(at the end)...

this thread is NOICE!!! this is one of the most brilliant moments in modern musical history (much thanks to george clinton):

I still can't seem 2 record the talkbox the way I would like 2.

Yep it's not a talkbox. It sounds like a Sonovox being used along with a guitar.

Auto-Tune

Not every lead singer is blessed with perfect pitch. This incredible tool helps correct vocal imperfections by automatically adjusting the vocal track to the intended notes. If automatic mode isn't for you, you can also dive in and tweak notes one by one with a virtual keyboard. There's even a graphical interface that allows you to visualize the vocal track and bump notes up and down in a way that isn't disruptive or obvious to the listener.

Although the program is best known for the singing-through-a-fan, robotic vocal style that has dominated pop radio in recent years with stars like Lady Gaga, T-Pain and countless others, Auto-Tune is in fact widely used in the studio and at concerts to make artists' sound pitch-perfect.

"Quite frankly, [use of Auto-Tune] happens on almost all vocal performances you hear on the radio," said Marco Alpert, vice president of marketing for Antares Audio Technologies, the company that holds the trademark and patent for Auto-Tune.

The beauty of Auto-Tune, Alpert said, is that instead of an artist having to sing take after take, struggling to get through a song flawlessly, Auto-Tune can clean up small goofs.

"It used to be that singers would have to sing a song over and over, and by that time you've lost the emotional content of the performance," Alpert said. "Auto-Tune is used most often for an artist who has delivered a fabulous performance emotionally and there may be a few pitch problems here and there . . . [the software] can save a once-in-a-lifetime performance."

How it works

Auto-Tune users set a reference point – a scale or specific notes, for example – and a rate at which derivations from this point will be digitally corrected.

This rate can be carefully calibrated so a voice sounds "natural," by tacking the voice smoothly back to the reference pitch. Or, artists can make the correction happen quickly and artificially, which results in the warbling, digitized voices now all the rage in pop, hip-hip, reggae and other types of music.

Auto-Tune's invention sprung from a quite unrelated field: prospecting for oil underground using sound waves. Andy Hildebrand, a geophysicist who worked with Exxon, came up with a technique called autocorrelation to interpret these waves. During the 1990s, Hildebrand founded the company that later became Antares, and he applied his tools to voices.

The recording industry pounced on the technology, and the first song credited (or bemoaned) for introducing Auto-Tune to the masses was Cher's 1998 hit "Believe.

Although a success with audio engineers, Auto-Tune remained largely out of sight until 2003 when rhythm and blues crooner T-Pain discovered its voice-altering effects.

There is also a 'magic bag' derived from Sparky's magic wand. It was used by Jeff Beck, Peter Frampton, Joe Walsh and Steppenwolf. It is a tube connected to driver inside the bag.