In the Ring - Vocoder vs Talk box

It's a battle of man versus machine!

The voice controlling the instrument or the instrument controlling the voice.   Who will be the victor?

In the red corner we have vocoders - those virtual versions of vocals that pop up in all kinds of pop music!

In the blue corner we have Talk Boxes - turning the tables and transferring the control to the musician's mouth with a microphone modulating the sound!

So with the introductions out of the way...

Let the battle commence!


In the beginning...

The first of our contenders began life in 1928 - when an engineer called Homer Dudley decided to attempt to reduce how much information was needed to store speech, meaning communication could become quicker.

This was used throughout World War 2, as the first vocoders were introduced to the public in 1939, giving the important communications a speedier trip to the ears of the generals in charge.   Little did they know that they were also listening to the future of pop music...


Meanwhile, across the pond...

Coincidentally, in 1939, Pedal Steel Guitar pioneer Alvino Rey used a throat microphone to modulate his guitar tone.   He actually got his wife to stand behind a curtain and mouth the words into the mic (If that's not true love I don't know what is).

However, he didn't see much of a future for the effect and so left it undeveloped.


The first popular musical devices

The first high powered talk box was developed by Bob Heil in 1971 - this was a device specifically for use on stage for rock music.   This is the sound you can hear in Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer" and a million other rock songs from Tool to The Eagles to Metallica.

The Heil Talk Box is still the most renowned of the devices and continues to this day to sell to would-be mouth-modulators!

However, the first vocoders for musical application were developed in 1969, beating the Talk Box by a few years, then went on to inspire Robert Moog to use his Moog modular synthesizer as a carrier signal for it.

The sound was then utilised for movie soundtracks (Including "A Clockwork Orange"), TV shows (Transformers used a vocoder on the awesome character "Soundwave" who magically transformed into a boom box about 1/1000th of his original size) and Pop songs from ground-breaking musicians like Pink Floyd, Kraftwerk and Basshunter.

So how do they work?

A vocoder examines speech, measuring the frequency bands being made by the voice and storing them as numbers.   It then re-creates them by reversing the process; this, however, removes the original voice's "instantaneous frequency", giving that robotic kind of sound to the re-created voice.   By modulating the pitch of the device with a carrier signal (often a synthesizer), a musicality can emerge from the sound with intelligible vocals inside it.

A talk box works the other way, with a signal being modulated by the voice - usually in the form of an effects pedal containing a speaker attached to a plastic tube that goes in the performer's mouth.   The speaker in the talk box reproduces the sound of the amplifier, sending it into the mouth of the musician, and then a microphone is used to pick up the changes in the tone from the different mouth shapes of the vocalist.   This modulates the sound and gives it that formant-y, vocal quality.


The winner...

So who is the victor?

Well if popularity is the decider, then just look to the back catalogue of Talk-box artists - it reads like a who's-who of rock and roll legends.

But similarly take a look at vocoders - some of pop music's finest are represented.

In a way, it's quite fitting.   Rock musicians with their powerful, intense music are in control of their instruments, whereas pop musicians, relying on high quality gear to perfect their music are drawn towards the idea of synthesized, perfectly pitched vocals, but submit themselves to being manipulated by a machine.

So I guess the decision comes down to one unexpectedly philosophical question - do you want to control or be controlled?