ooOOOoohheeeerrrrRRrrRrrrRRah aha ha hannnnnnngg

March 19, 2017 10:22 AM

Make some weird noises through manual speech synthesis, with the utterly goddam wonderful Pink Trombone. (via waxy.)
posted by cortex (24 comments total)

I've been wondering what's going on with Andy and thought this post was going to lead to an answer. You say via Waxy, but his site hasn't been touched in months. Is he posting somewhere else these days?
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 10:33 AM on March 19, 2017

::immediately bookmarks this for teaching phonetics class in the fall::

But the only problem is it's backwards. The IPA vowel chart is essentially a stylized version of the tongue position, with the person facing the other direction (so if you want to make the sound in "beet", which is [i], put the tongue high and in the front of the mouth).

Likewise this sagittal section, which will show, e.g., you where you put the tongue to make a "k" sound.
posted by damayanti at 10:35 AM on March 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

But seriously, this is awesome. Read up on Source-filter theory if you want to know about the physics behind all this; if you want to have even more fun, you can use this to make your own vowel resonator.
posted by damayanti at 10:37 AM on March 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Andy's working on some other projects, in particular reviving Upcoming, but he's also tweeting now and then and hangs out in the I'm-insufferable-for-mentioning-this XOXO slack, which is where he mentioned it this morning and then I immmmmmeadiately ran screaming for the New Post page.
posted by cortex at 10:39 AM on March 19, 2017 [5 favorites]

Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yaaaaaaaaaaaay eeeeeeeee Aaaaaaaay aaaaaaaah.

So, a sex sounds simulator and a fonzie simulator.
posted by Going To Maine at 10:50 AM on March 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

Best not tro try and synch this up to the Afro Celt Sound System, as I did. Sounds like the drunkest deedling ever!
posted by scruss at 10:52 AM on March 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

By grabbing the Tongue Control, and moving it quickly in big clockwise circles, I can make it say "yell yell yell yell yell". If I move it counter-clockwise, it says "Eli Eli Eli Eli".
posted by fings at 10:58 AM on March 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Took me a few minutes to get that Charlie Brown grownups talking voice.
posted by lagomorphius at 11:06 AM on March 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Everything I produce with this thing sounds like Wilder's Leo Bloom having a bad day.
posted by davelog at 11:35 AM on March 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Transcript
posted by schmod at 11:50 AM on March 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

It's as though you could see inside Curly as he was being spooked.
posted by Bromius at 12:13 PM on March 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oooh, it can do nasty dentist's aspirator slurping sounds too.
posted by moonmilk at 12:34 PM on March 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Who's gonna be the first to record a song with this thing and post it to metafilter music?
posted by moonmilk at 12:45 PM on March 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Probably not the Best Thing Ever, but possibly in the top twenty.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 12:46 PM on March 19, 2017

By grabbing the Tongue Control, and moving it quickly in big clockwise circles,

I think this is how Simon & Garfunkel wrote the chorus for The Boxer
posted by moonface at 12:46 PM on March 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

I was thoroughly entertained by making "gluck glea gik guk" noises.
posted by Greg_Ace at 12:47 PM on March 19, 2017

Fantastic!
posted by spitbull at 1:01 PM on March 19, 2017

I don't understand why it's lacking teeth. They're kind of important. The tongue can't even reach to where they would be.
posted by Sys Rq at 1:38 PM on March 19, 2017

Obligatory creepy robot version
posted by schmod at 2:21 PM on March 19, 2017 [3 favorites]

I once did a comic that involved the first guy to build one of these. The original's in a museum in Munich.
posted by rocket at 4:37 PM on March 19, 2017

I don't understand why it's lacking teeth. They're kind of important. The tongue can't even reach to where they would be.

Eh, they're not *too* important for speech. Pretty few speech sounds involve the teeth--only 7 recognized in the International Phonetic Alphabet--see here--including f, v, and the "th" sounds. Some languages produce "t", "d", "s", "z" and other sounds like them near the teeth, but you can also make those along the alveolar ridge.

On the other hand, you can't do a retroflex (=tongue curling back), which covers 8 sounds, or really any of the clicks, which knocks out a bigger section of the chart.
posted by damayanti at 5:52 PM on March 19, 2017

Squeezing the throat demonstrates how Rob Brydon does that small man trapped in a box voice, as explained by Rob Brydon himself.
posted by lagomorphius at 9:00 PM on March 19, 2017

Neat toy!

Is there a way to force lip rounding? That's a big thing for vowels.
posted by zompist at 5:20 PM on March 20, 2017

Yes, I also want lips on this thing! eeeeeeüüüüüüeeeeeee
posted by batter_my_heart at 9:17 PM on March 20, 2017