Ladies and gentlemen: the Vocoder

June 7, 2015 6:45 PM

The Vocoder was invented at Bell Labs in 1939 to transmit voice data, rather than to make rock musicians sound like robots. It could also do much more interesting things to your voice.
posted by DoctorFedora (12 comments total)

I strongly recommend listening to the original demonstration recording at the bottom of the page.
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:45 PM on June 7, 2015

The plugin and file formats on that page are almost as old as vocoding itself!
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:06 PM on June 7, 2015 [4 favorites]

yeah, I'd really like to listen but it requires java, and I don't want to listen that much
posted by skewed at 7:10 PM on June 7, 2015 [3 favorites]

If you were able to run applets, you would have a button here that would play a sound.

Heh. At least the .au file at the bottom plays in iOS.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:11 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Here's a demonstration film of the Voder in use. Explains the concept a lot better. And mad props to the lady in the film that must have practiced like crazy to get this good at it.

The next step after the Voder was the Vocoder and then SIGSALY, where the principles of the voder and vocoder were used to allow for encrypted voice communications back in World War II. Roosevelt and Churchill used it. It's fascincating stuff.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:35 PM on June 7, 2015 [7 favorites]

End of "Jones Family": And so the scene goes far far into the night.

The Internet has ruined me.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:43 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

I realize that this post isn't about the vocoder in music but I must share nonetheless. According to Complex Magazine, these are the 50 greatest vocoder songs.

And here's a brief history of the vocoder in music. There's some stuff there I didn't know. Thanks wikipedia!

And thank you for the excellent post, DoctorFedora.
posted by ashbury at 8:47 PM on June 7, 2015

And here's a brief history of the vocoder in music. There's some stuff there I didn't know. Thanks wikipedia!

Glaring oversight on that Wiki page: no Roger Troutman.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 10:31 PM on June 7, 2015 [1 favorite]

Roger Trautman used a talk box, like Peter Frampton. A small speaker plays audio into a rubber tube which you put in your mouth, and then the microphone in front of your mouth picks up that sound being changed by the shape of your mouth. So it lets you make instruments "talk" but it's not a vocoder.
posted by jonathanhughes at 4:04 AM on June 8, 2015 [2 favorites]

Vocoder + limited selection of synthesis frequencies = Autotune
posted by flabdablet at 7:42 AM on June 8, 2015

No Vocoder discussion complete without How to Wreck a Nice Beach.
posted by Liquidwolf at 12:41 PM on June 8, 2015

fwiw, here's an interview with andy hildebrand, the inventor of auto-tune, on voicebox that's pretty informative :P
posted by kliuless at 10:05 AM on June 10, 2015 [1 favorite]