Talk Box

I am looking at talk box pedals.

In particular, I am thinking about getting the Danelctro Free Speech pedal.

This is a guitar effect that is meant to emulate the "talking guitar" sound thet Peter Frampton and Joe Walsh have used on some of their songs.

It has a clear plastic tube that runs up into the player's mouth where he/she manipulates the sounds before running it back through the pedal.

Has anybody tried one of these with a theremin?

This is not something that I can try out in the music store. Even if they would let me I don't think I would want to put my mouth on something that every other guitar player in town has had their mouths on. (no groupie jokes, please!)

You might want to try a Vocorder. It uses one sound to modulate another. The more string like sounds should work well being modulated by your voice (this is somthing that you cud try in a store)

If you poke around on the web a bit, you can probably find free vocoder software for your computer. I have a free vocoder app for my mac, called Zerius.

I've used a Heil talkbox ad a Digitech Talker with my Etherwave in the past. If you can find the original LEVNET CD, I have a track on there called "Science Lessons in the Old School". I'll try to get it posted in our audio section soon.

With the Heil, I found that I could feel a tingling in my hands after the drool built up a bit in the tube (sorry to be gross, but thems the facts :). That's when I switched to the Digitech. In a fit of raging stupidity, I sold all my effects/MIDI gear several years back, so I don't have it anymore. I'm not sure they're even made anymore, but it looks like there are other options these days.

I can say for sure that it was really fun, and you can make some amazing sounds/vocals with it. The vocal quality of the theremin mixed with speech is just out of this world.

I just found pedalgeek.com (http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/iclk?sa=l&ai=BYjsFombfQ-qCEr_WkQG56fSGC-XzlQ74x74IwI23AbCuFRABGAEgxqH3ASgESJI5UIGp26X______wGYAaXZggKqAQo4NDYxMjA2OTczsgEVd3d3LnRoZXJlbWlud29ybGQuY29tugEKMTIweDYwMF9hc8gBAdoBO2h0dHA6Ly93d3cudGhlcmVtaW53b3JsZC5jb20vZm9ydW0uYXNwP0Y9MSZUPTE2ODUmY21kPXAmcD0xlQIgzCQK&num=1&adurl=http://www.pedalGEEK.com/cgi-bin/new_shop.cgi&client=ca-pub-3542562528338702) in one of those Google ads - looks like they have just about everything!

THanks for the info.

Vocoders are fun but I think I want to try the talk box thing. I made one a few years back with an amp, a funnel, and some tubing but it did not work so well with the bass and I don't want to go through all that work again.

The pedal is also so much easier to set up.

I will keep you guys updated.

The most convincing vocal simulation I've discovered is by far E-MU's Vocal Morpher. It's a software effect that only comes bundled with all E-MU's sound cards (PC only, I'm afraid). I'd happily upload a sound sample, but I'm not sure how...

That wouldn't work for what I want to do. I want somethign that I can throw into my gig bag and set up at live events.

I am also fascinated by low-tech and mechanical effects like echo-plexes and spring reverbs and such.

Some of those kinds of things don't work so well in a live set-up either.

The Hammond L-100 series organs have a great cheesy spring reverb in them. You can usually find the entire organ for about $100 (usually not working) in classifieds or pawn shops, which is a pretty good bargain even if you just strip it down for parts.

I have access to an old Hammond organ at my brother's house. Unfortunately, the Leslie speaker has long-since been gutted (He doesn't know what happened to it, of course.)

I wonder if this one has the spring reverb.

According to this page, the reverb unit is worth about $84:

http://www.mitatechs.com/hammond.html#075

So if you can find an old L100 series, it's probably well worth $100 even if other parts aren't working. They're heavy - get some help lifting it into your van :)