Frampton Talk Box for Vocals Only?

[Arn C.]

Just wondering if you can use one of those talk boxes for vocals without the guitar and how would it sound?
Arn C.

[gez]

It's a bit difficult to sing with a tube in your gob, so someone else would have to do that bit for you!  

[Rodgre]

You can use a Talkbox on anything, but I wouldn't try singing with it in your mouth.... you're missing the major point of the effect.

You can sing a track, and then play back that track through a talkbox and make it "talk" or you can have someone else sing while you "talk" or vice-versa.

There was a man named Roger (not me) who did a lot of stuff with a Moog and a talkbox back in the late 80's (anyone remember "Boom There She Was" by Scritti Politti? Just me? thought so)

Roger

[Arn C.]

I know that Frampton didn't actually "sing" with it in his mouth,  I would assume that you can hum.  I was just wondering if you can just do that without playing your guitar through it.  Dow, dow dow dow dow dow
I thought that he hummed the tune into the tube while he played the guitar along with it into the talkbox, am I wrong on that?
Thanks
Arn

[RickL]

A talkbox works by funnelling the sound from your guitar into your mouth. You then use the way you shape your mouth to change the sound of the guitar which is then picked up and amplified by your vocal mic.

Without the sound of the guitar or some other sound source all you are doing is making funny faces in front of a mic.  :lol:

[Arn C.]

Thank you!  Now I understand how they work.  All my questions have now been answered.
Peace!
Arn C.

[Rob Strand]

Anyone know what set-up Frampton used on the Frampton Comes Alive album, not the vocoder stuff , just the clean and distorted sounds - the guitar tone on that album always sounds nice to me.

[Rodgre]

Anyone know what set-up Frampton used on the Frampton Comes Alive album, not the vocoder stuff , just the clean and distorted sounds - the guitar tone on that album always sounds nice to me.

Well the Vocoder stuff was a Talkbox, not a vocoder.

The guitar was primarily a 3-pickup Les Paul Custom (and an Ovation acoustic.)  I'm not 100% sure of his amps, but I seem to recall seeing a live video and there was a Marshall and a Fender, but I can't be sure. He also went through a couple of Leslies. That fast warbly tone on some of his solos was the leslie.

I'm not sure how unpopular this will make me to my MBV-loving indie-rock friends, but I gleaned so much from that record when i was a little kid. His sense of melody was unreal. He combined blues soloing (which does little for me, but I can appreciate it) with a wonderfully lyrical and melodic choice of notes. I may play music absolutely nothing like him, but I certainly incorporated his style into my playing.

Roger

[Rob Strand]

Thanks for the info.

I'm not sure how unpopular

I don't know either but IMHO there's a few great tracks on that album, great feel interwoven with some nice solos - stands above the churn it out rock stuff.

[marc]

Reading this made me curious. Is there anything around that electronically reproduces a talkbbox? I mean, something that might act like an envelope filter but sends the signal through a complex (random?) filtering circuit designed to sound somewhat like vocal formants...Is that feasable?
This reminds me of when, as a kid, I used to get a kick out of taking the phone off the hook so that it whent "beep beep beep beep" and putting the reciever in front of my mouth and doing that sweet emotion guitar solo trick...

marc.

[Rodgre]

Reading this made me curious. Is there anything around that electronically reproduces a talkbbox? I mean, something that might act like an envelope filter but sends the signal through a complex (random?) filtering circuit designed to sound somewhat like vocal formants...Is that feasable?

Well, a vocoder does that. is that what you mean?

Roger

[AllyP]

Anyone tried making one of these babys.....

I know Frampton was before my time but eversince I saw Dave Grohl(Poo Fighters) using one on the video for Generator when I was about 16 Ive always wanted one....

I was thinking of making a standalone unit that you plug both guitar and mic into and mix them apropriatly(Ill be digging out RGs panning for Fun again....) .

Should I use XLR or guitar jack type mics?  I will need to aplify these somehow....any links pointing me in the right direction?

[Ge_Whiz]

IMHO, "Frampton Comes Alive" is one of the best examples of a live album (sorry, I meant LP ) and certainly influenced my playing at the time.

It's not trivial making a talk box, as it's quite difficult to get the sound to travel up the tube. Danelectro make a cheap one, but I'd think twice about trying one out in a shop - don't buy the display one (think about it).

As to building an 'electronic' one, well, any decent parametric filter will work, but how do you propose to operate it? Grip a potentiometer in your teeth and rotate the knob with your tongue? (Ooh, er...). The Digitech envelope pedal includes formant filters for 'vocal' effects, but the principle is completely different, of course.

[Paul Perry (Frostwave)]

http://www-timc.imag.fr/Yves.Usson/personnel/SDIY/archives/
The 'chatterbox' article here is slightly on topic.
It actually allows you to mimic a vocalisation by waggling a joystick. But you could extend the principle.

[Marcos - Munky]

The talkbox is a low volume amp driving a horn driver. You put a tube in the horn place and connect the guitar in the amp. Ithe driver will produce the sound and you will use your mouth to modulate the sound. I think you can use a simple mic to receive the modulated sound.

[RickL]

The old EH talking pedal gave similar sounds although you couldn't make it actually "talk". I think the newest Boss filter pedal will do something similar either envelope controlled or with a seperate control pedal. I also have a Digitech box that lets you get these sound by singing into a mic to control the guitar sound (Talker pedal I think?).

RG has an article on making a wah type pedal similar to the EH pedal.

[Jered]

Ally P.
   Check out
http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/v2/index.php?option=displaypage&Itemid=127&op=page&SubMenu=
 Jered

[Rob Strand]

One idea is to simply feed a mic signal into the detector side chain of an existing envelope filter.  The level that you hum, grunt or fart (for dramatic stage effect) into the mic would effectively set the wha pedal position.  I suspect this would be quite easy to use and it would be a simple thing to add to an existing envelope filter.   Note only the level/envelope of the mic signal matters, this system is not like a vocoder where the frequency content of the input signal has a bearing on the output signal.