How to Wreck a Nice Beach
May 29, 2010 6:31 PM Subscribe
You like vocoders? Dude wrote a book on it - How to Wreck a Nice Beach - and just released a mix of vocoder-heavy music and sound clips to accompany it: The Bears in Your Beargut. If you like robots and/or music, both are very much worth your time! The mix is pure ear candy.
From the website:
The vocoder, invented by Bell Labs in 1928, once guarded phones from codebreakers during World War II; by the Vietnam War, it had been repurposed as a voice-altering tool for musicians and soon became the ubiquitous voice of popular music.
In How to Wreck a Nice Beach—from a mis-hearing of the vocoder-rendered phrase “how to recognize speech”—music journalist Dave Tompkins traces the history of electronic voices from Nazi research labs to Stalin’s gulags, from the 1939 World’s Fair to Hiroshima, from artificial larynges to Auto-Tune.
We see the vocoder brush up against FDR, JFK, Stanley Kubrick, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Kraftwerk, the Cylons, Henry Kissinger, and Winston Churchill, who boomed, when vocoderized on the morning before V-E Day, “We must go off!” And now vocoder technology is a cell phone standard, allowing a digital replica of your voice to sound human.
From T-Mobile to T-Pain, How to Wreck a Nice Beach is a riveting saga of technology and culture, illuminating the work of some of music’s most provocative innovators.
From the website:
The vocoder, invented by Bell Labs in 1928, once guarded phones from codebreakers during World War II; by the Vietnam War, it had been repurposed as a voice-altering tool for musicians and soon became the ubiquitous voice of popular music.
In How to Wreck a Nice Beach—from a mis-hearing of the vocoder-rendered phrase “how to recognize speech”—music journalist Dave Tompkins traces the history of electronic voices from Nazi research labs to Stalin’s gulags, from the 1939 World’s Fair to Hiroshima, from artificial larynges to Auto-Tune.
We see the vocoder brush up against FDR, JFK, Stanley Kubrick, Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Kraftwerk, the Cylons, Henry Kissinger, and Winston Churchill, who boomed, when vocoderized on the morning before V-E Day, “We must go off!” And now vocoder technology is a cell phone standard, allowing a digital replica of your voice to sound human.
From T-Mobile to T-Pain, How to Wreck a Nice Beach is a riveting saga of technology and culture, illuminating the work of some of music’s most provocative innovators.
Wow that's a long mp3 file.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 7:03 PM on May 29, 2010
posted by Threeway Handshake at 7:03 PM on May 29, 2010
And now vocoder technology is a cell phone standard, allowing a digital replica of your voice to sound human.Could that be why two-thirds of any cell phone conversation is "what did you say?"
posted by Western Infidels at 7:15 PM on May 29, 2010 [2 favorites]
Could that be why two-thirds of any cell phone conversation is "what did you say?"
To which the correct reply is "bo-o-o-oo-o-o-ounce"
posted by Kirk Grim at 7:41 PM on May 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
To which the correct reply is "bo-o-o-oo-o-o-ounce"
posted by Kirk Grim at 7:41 PM on May 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
This is my favorite vocodered vocal, i think. Sounds like space aliens or something.
posted by empath at 7:46 PM on May 29, 2010
posted by empath at 7:46 PM on May 29, 2010
Yikes I entirely forgot to add this mix to the original post.
Playin Kinda Ruff: The Roger Troutman Legacy by DJ B. Cause. It's an expertly mixed collection of Troutman's music and the countless hip hop songs he has inspired. So necessary!
posted by Repression Jones at 8:08 PM on May 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
Playin Kinda Ruff: The Roger Troutman Legacy by DJ B. Cause. It's an expertly mixed collection of Troutman's music and the countless hip hop songs he has inspired. So necessary!
posted by Repression Jones at 8:08 PM on May 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
Well, this is like licorice or cilantro to me.
But I can't deny the influence of the vocorder on decades of music. I'm not a Flat-earther.
posted by kozad at 8:41 PM on May 29, 2010
But I can't deny the influence of the vocorder on decades of music. I'm not a Flat-earther.
posted by kozad at 8:41 PM on May 29, 2010
Who doesn't like licorice?!
(I hate cilantro.)
posted by Threeway Handshake at 9:43 PM on May 29, 2010
(I hate cilantro.)
posted by Threeway Handshake at 9:43 PM on May 29, 2010
"The mix is pure ear candy."
Very nice. Thanks for the post!
posted by puny human at 9:56 PM on May 29, 2010
Very nice. Thanks for the post!
posted by puny human at 9:56 PM on May 29, 2010
Oh hey! I looked at this book at a bookstore in the SF ferry building...it is awesome and I was tempted to buy it.
Incidentally, I had a chuckle as I noticed Cory Doctorow's latest book placed in the Young Adult section, next to the Twilight series.
posted by iamkimiam at 9:58 PM on May 29, 2010
Incidentally, I had a chuckle as I noticed Cory Doctorow's latest book placed in the Young Adult section, next to the Twilight series.
posted by iamkimiam at 9:58 PM on May 29, 2010
It's V-O-C-O-D-E-R, as in VOcal enCODER, not "vocoRder". Sorry, I know it's a common error but it bugs me.
posted by DecemberBoy at 1:00 AM on May 30, 2010
posted by DecemberBoy at 1:00 AM on May 30, 2010
anyone know where someone could find a nice cheap (or even better, free) vocoder or vocoder-like device for someone on a windows box with only audacity and no smarty phone?
It's for a ...thing.
posted by The Whelk at 8:24 AM on May 30, 2010
It's for a ...thing.
posted by The Whelk at 8:24 AM on May 30, 2010
Whelk, yr best be is to borrow microkorg synth from someone. They're everywhere and have a built in vocoder. And for all of you talking about Roger Troutman, he used a TALKBOX. they're sonically similar but functionally very very different. It's the same thing Peter Frampton uses on "Show me the Way"
posted by orville sash at 8:38 AM on May 30, 2010
posted by orville sash at 8:38 AM on May 30, 2010
Whelk: I wrote a simple Vocoder app years and years ago for a university class. It's free (open source) and multi-platform. It only operates on WAV/AIFF files (not live from a microphone) but maybe it'll help.
posted by Emanuel at 2:15 PM on May 31, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by Emanuel at 2:15 PM on May 31, 2010 [2 favorites]
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