If you've listened to pop music in the past 40 years, you've probably heard more than a few songs with a robotic sound. That's thanks to the vocoder, a device invented by Bell Labs, the research ...

The vocoder—code name Special Customer, the Green Hornet, Project X-61753, X-Ray, and SIGSALY—started distorting human speech in earnest during World War II, in response to the excellence of German ...

Before T-Pain was using Auto-Tune to buy girls drinks, Franklin D. Roosevelt was using the vocoder to win World War II. In “How to Wreck a Nice Beach,” music critic Dave Tompkins (The Wire, Vibe) ...

Stop Smiling Books/ Melville House; 335 pp. The room contains two turntables and a microphone. Hulking consoles line the walls, covered in dials and gauges and blinking lights, like the bridge of ...

DAVE TOMPKINS’ new book is titled How to Wreck a Nice Beach, but it has nothing to do with the BP oil spill, or any coast at all. Instead, the phrase he chose for his book title is how the words “how ...

A scientific tool for those lacking a voice, a means of encrypting voices during World War II, and a way to drop the funk, the vocoder has had many exhale its praises, from General Dwight D.

(17:46) Clear--Cybotron (from Jeff Mills, "The Wizard," WJLB, Detroit, 1986) "When you go to those places where those people were stars and where black music was rooted in those clubs, there's nothing ...

AT the World's Fairs in New York and San Francisco great interest was shown in the speech synthesizer shown in the Bell System exhibits. In the December number of the Bell Laboratories Record, H.

Whether you're looking to apply some vintage vocoder to your track or to Prismize-up your vocal, this buyer's guide showcases the best plugins to consider – for everything from a vintage to a ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. The STVC, as it appears to be known, has been listed by retailer B&H, and also features a vocoder ...