Talk Box
Last Edited: Dec 24, 2023
Talk Box History
The Talk Box dates back to at least 1939, when prominent band musician Alvino Rey used an early version. You can see Rey perform a slightly bizarre-sounding version of "St. Louis Blues" with "Stringy," the talking steel guitar puppet, in a film clip from the 1940s. By 1964, steel guitarist Pete Drake adopted the talk box for the song "Forever," which became a Gold record hit. In fact, Pete Drakeo personally exposed Peter Frampton to the talk box device. The two musicians crossed paths during the recording sessions for George Harrison's 1970 work, "All Things Must Pass. ". This was Harrison's first solo album after the Beatles broke up. Harrison had asked Drake to lend his legendary steel guitar sound to his album (which you can hear on the track "I Live For You"). A young Frampton was also there to play some uncredited guitar on a few songs. Drake dazzled the other musicians, especially Frampton, with his talk box sound.
Taking Advantage of the Human Voice
Talkbox is an audio effect that takes advantage of the human voice and the unique qualities of the human mouth and vocal tract and lends them to instruments. The talk box is a relatively simple device, but in order to understand how it works, we'll have to appreciate some of the complexities of the human vocal tract. We push air from our lungs through our vocal folds and vocal cords in the larynx. The vocal folds are the things that create an air valve and allow us to vibrate the air, which makes our speech audible. The larynx muscles also control pitch and tone. But the mouth, with its tongue, palate, teeth, and lips, helps us form different sounds to create words and complex language.
Horn Driver and a Plastic Tube
Like a guitar, an instrument doesn't have lungs to power its sound. Instead, the musician plucks or strums its strings to cause vibrations, forming the sound. The talk box also allows the musician to lend their mouth to the instrument. Let's go over the mechanics to help explain how this is possible. In its simplest form, a talk box consists of a horn driver and a plastic tube. You'll even find online tutorials that can teach you how to make a crude version at home with some materials from the hardware store. A commercial talk box, however, will provide the best sound.
Foot Switch
The box has connectors for the connection to the speaker output of an instrument amplifier and a connection to a normal instrument speaker. A foot-operated switch on the box directs the sound to the talk box speaker or the regular speaker. The switch is usually a push-on/push-off type. The other end of the tube is taped to the side of a microphone, extending enough to direct the reproduced sound in or near the performer's mouth. When activated, the speaker produces the sound from the amplifier in the talk box and runs through the tube into the performer's mouth.
Mouth Shape
The shape of the mouth filters the sound, with the modified sound being picked up by the microphone. The shape of the mouth changes the harmonic content of the sound in the same way it affects the harmonic content generated by the vocal folds when speaking. The performer can vary the shape of the mouth and position of the tongue, changing the sound of the instrument being reproduced by the talk box speaker. The performer can mouth words with the effect of sounding as though the instrument is speaking. This "shaped" sound exits in the performer's mouth, and when it enters a microphone, an instrument/voice hybrid is heard.
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