stompbox for vocal effect

[davph30]

I'm looking for some kind of effect for our singer to give the sound of a loudhailer anyone got any ideas?

[Rodgre]

Could you describe what the effect sounds like? Without Googling, I have no idea what a Loudhaller is.

Roger

[R.G.]

Loudhailer = hand held battery powered megaphone like police use in the movies when there's a hostage situation.

The hallmark of that is frequency limitation to the range 300Hz - 3kHz.

See... GEO. Look for the Lo-Fi effect, which contains filters to limit to this range, plus a blendable static/noise generator for the "old radio" effect.

[StephenGiles]

http://www.megaphonesandloudhailers.co.uk/home.html

[the_random_hero]

Run it through a pipe bomb! Worked perfectly when I tried it - I used an old PC speaker and some PVC pipe I had lying around.

[grolschie]

Queen did this quite well in 1975 in their song "Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon" using headphones in a bucket and a mic.

[bioroids]

This may sound obvious, but why not sing through an actual megaphone? They used to be quite common.

Regards

Miguel

[petemoore]

but why not sing through an actual megaphone?
  No reason really, large megaphone [made from 4x8 plywood so ..about 8' long was good].
  If your listening proximity is inside the angle of the megaphone, the sound is quite direct.... Very loud and very directional, very effecient cabinet type.
  Also makes a neat megaphone tone, excellent for vocal articulation.
  The 5/8'' plywood benefitted from structural beefing and painting, oak boards were installed in critical areas to reduce 'resonance'.
  The very large cumbersome packing shape of the first cabinet [to go into say a van] seems rediculous, but each additional cabinet adds basically about 13'' when they are stacked like plastic cups, that's because the speaker baffle was mounted about 12'' from the closed back of the megaphone, forming an enclosure...kind of like a squarish cup with a false bottom.
  'Funny looking' comments, strange shape, unique sound, impressive volume.
  There were these fiberglass horns, I saw RUSh use at the Civic, Akron, and some 2x15'' driver ultra-mini-enclosures which could be latched to the back of dedicated mid/bass horns [large fiberglass units].
  The only wood ones I've seen were the ones we made.

[davph30]

I cant find the lofi on geo but sounds like what i need, anyone have any simple lofi effect scematics or stripboard layouts?

[micro]

Why dont you just buy a Mac laptop computer, a soundcard, and a program like Ableton Live or Max/MSP, then you can set up any effect in a any configuration you want and change them using a midi footpedal?

Alright, I'm dreaming here.

[davph30]

Its for playing live

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

I have had some success with extreme EQ & some distortion. A stereo "Realistic"(!) hi-fi eq with the two channels in series & the alternating sliders full up and down. I don't know why it works... probably because the response is very lumpy, like a megaphone (which acts as an organ pipe, multiple response peaks & troughs). Interesting way to make a strat sound like a soapbox, as well.

[newfish]

Tempted to make on of these for Guitar.

I reckon with a bit of impedance matching, LofoMofo might work - have a scroll down...

http://www.geocities.com/tpe123/folkurban/fuzz/snippets.html

Cheers!

[rackham]

I reckon buying a small megaphone might be the easiest option, the little ones are pretty cheap from what I've seen.

Otherwise it's a bandpass filter with maybe some kind of light distortion?

That's how I create the effect with plug-ins anyway.

[Processaurus]

Loudhailer = hand held battery powered megaphone like police use in the movies when there's a hostage situation.

The hallmark of that is frequency limitation to the range 300Hz - 3kHz.

See... GEO. Look for the Lo-Fi effect, which contains filters to limit to this range, plus a blendable static/noise generator for the "old radio" effect.

I'll have to revisit mine, its on perf somewhere, the spectrum of sound coming out of it wasn't narrow enough to sound lo-fi to my ear, I need to do the math to shift the hp filter up and the lp filter down.  Also my noise didn't work, maybe the shift register noise would be better.  Oooh, maybe a momentary switch to turn on the noise loud.

Visually, it would be much more fun to see someone with a megaphone rather than a pedal, though.

[micro]

Visually, it would be much more fun to see someone with a megaphone rather than a pedal, though.

Definitely. 

[jmasciswannabe]

A megaphone is cool unless when the vocalist tosses it, it just happens to be on trajectory with your face, or worse, your prized pedal board. Those metal ones are heavy!! We went through a couple of the radioshack plastic ones. And despite the duck tape and insulation both of them were destroyed fairly quickly. I would love to see an xlr in - overdrive/fuzz/megaphone effect/whatever/ - xlr out pedal to build!!