Trying to find the name of a device

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Consul

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 3, 2004
Messages
1,653
Location
Port Huron, Michigan, USA
This was a device used in the fifties and sixties to make these sort-of vocoder-like effects. The basis was a pair of speaker-like devices that were pressed up against the user's throat, and the user would then articulate words or vowels without actually engaging their vocal cords. The net result was the timbre going through the speaker-tube-thingies would get modulated by the vocal tract. The effect was really cool, actually.

Thanks for the help!
 
No, that's not it, though it's a similar concept. The one I'm thinking was in an old video describing sound design for old science fiction films (though they were new at that time) and this lady quite clearly demonstrated two tubes that were pressed against her throat and then modulated the audio with her vocal tract. It had a more generic name, not a brand name like Talk Box.
 
I think you are talking about
A mechanical larynx is a medical device used to produce clearer speech by those who have lost their original voicebox, usually due to cancer of the larynx. It is also referred to as a 'throat back'. The most common device is the electrolarynx which is handheld, battery operated and placed under the mandible producing vibration to allow speech. Along with developing esophageal voice or undergoing a surgical procedure, the mechanical larynx serves as a mode of speech recovery for postlaryngectomy patients.

Initially, the pneumatic mechanical larynx was developed in the 1920s by Western Electric, which did not run on electricity, and was flawed in that it produced a weak voice. Electric devices, namely the electrolarynx, were introduced in the 1940s, at a time when esophageal voice was being promoted as the best course in speech recovery; however, since that technique is difficult to master, the electrolarynx became quite popular. Since then, many medical procedures, such as the tracheoesophageal puncture, were created to enable speech without continued dependence on a handheld device.

The mechanical larynx is sometimes mistaken with the ring modulator, speech synthesizer, sonovox, or the vocoder. Although all four devices can make similar sounding artificial voices, they are all completely different.

Another type of mechanical larynx is called an electropharynx.

Sometime electrolarynx can also be used for other purpose rather than just a mechanical larynx,for example to rule out fetal acidosis in condition of non reactive fetal heart tracing during labor.
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_larynx"
 
That's still not what I was looking for, BUT- Thanks to your wikipedia link, I found the name of the device, and as it should turn out, it is a brand name: Sonovox. Sorry for the confusion, and thank you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH-krlgo2e8
 
That's pretty creepy. Why not use a vocoder? They seem to sound pretty much the same? Might be a hell of a lot easier to source.  ;) ;D
 
It's all about having toys to play with. The more ways I can make and otherwise creatively mangle sounds, the better.

As for sourcing, what's so hard about finding a couple of small speakers and a small amp to drive them?
 
Consul said:
That's still not what I was looking for, BUT- Thanks to your wikipedia link, I found the name of the device, and as it should turn out, it is a brand name: Sonovox. Sorry for the confusion, and thank you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH-krlgo2e8

Nice find. The sound seems to be even closer to an early vocoder than a Talkbox.
 
abby normal said:
As in obtaining an original. A joke...

Ah, sorry about that. I must have been tired last night. :)

I'll see if I can talk my physics teacher into letting me play with a small amp and some speakers and see what happens. He has some tone generators, too.
 
Sonovox IIRC was used by Frampton.

JAM Productions' Jon Wolfert does most of the world's Sonovox jingles: http://www.jingles.com/jam/jaminfo/articles.html

The "W" in this WABC ID is Jon and the Sonovox. http://www.musicradio77.com/jingles/jam/P1_7.WAV

Here's a package for WHTZ. More Sonovox at 1:47: http://www.jingles.com/audio/d_WarpFactor.mp3
 
Sonovox IIRC was used by Frampton.

Nope. -Talkbox. -Compression driver with plastic tube taped to mic stand. -Very different. (-And requires sterilising/disinfecting every day, as well as a method of 'bleeding', rather like a spit valve on a brass instrument.)

Keith
 
Whats even better is that they have to explain(2:38) that Boris, Bela and Peter aren't really murderers at all!!
Ohhh that's classic ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
 
To be fair, the Talkbox and Sonovox do work on very similar principles. It just seems to me that the Sonovox is the more DIY-friendly of the available options, especially for quick and dirty experiments.
 
Well, both have the performer 'shape' the words, but the differences are from "there back" as it were.

I recorded 'Wah-wah' Watson on several sessions in Los Angeles back in the 1980s, and he had a home-made version, but I couldn't persuade him to use a distortion device before the compression driver's amplifier, which helps in two ways: -it smooths out the envelope of the stimulus, and it enriches the harmonic content considerably. -He always insisted that NOT using the distortion was "his sound", and it wasn't my place to argue, although we did end up wrestling with things which would have been CONSIDERABLY easier if there'd been a tube-screamer or something in the chain.

-On longer sessions, we had to pull the tube and soak it in Lysol every few hours, otherwise we got a little "extra funk" on the session! ;)

Keith
 
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