Scott from Electro-Harmonix doesn’t just blog about their newer FX boxes. He also digs up videos of old products that EHX no longer makes like the “Golden Throat” talk box, a box that sounds like a vocoder, but wasn’t, as it “physically pumped audio (not an electric signanl) up a tube, into the player’s mouth, to then be shaped and captured via an external microphone.”
Bad ass. (Several versions were released.)
Roger Troutman’s group Zapp famously used a Golden Throat for the lead vocal line of “California Love”, which was remade in 1995 by 2Pac and Dr. Dre with Troutman rerecording the vocals. “California Love” was itself a remake of sorts, with the foundation lick being lifted whole cloth from Joe Cocker’s 1972 track “Woman to Woman“. [Sample below.]
In the above video, a cornball French dude named “Mo’ Cheeze” puts the Golden Throat off to hilariously right-on effect. (Fun experiment: Close your eyes, pretend you’re listening to a track from the early ’90s, then open your eyes to gaze on the smooze leer of Mssr. Cheeze.)
Other “Golden Throats” that are not this thing: throat lozenge; RCA Victrola
Related • The History of the Robot Voice from Kraftwerk to Kanye [Gearcrave]
‘scuse me for being, um, old, but isn’t this the thing Peter Frampton used in his big hits back in the 70s? Played his guitar through it.
I am not going to think about this hard enough to actually remember one. It would end up haunting my brain for days.
David Gilmour used it on at least two Pink Floyd tracks – Pigs (Three Different Ones) from Animals and Keep Talking from The Division Bell.
yea, ive been looking up stuff and plan on building a small, weak home made talk box.
apparently its so easy most people can.
Yeah, Peter Frampton used it (“Do You Fell Like We Do”) and also Joe Walsh if I can remember. But even earlier, Pete Drake in the early 60′s used a talkbox on his steel guitar (“Forever”), and yet even earlier, back in the early 40′s, people like Alvino Rey – among others – used the “Sonovox” which was roughly based on the same principle. Hope I helped gather your memories
Mssr. Cheeze is So Ruff, So Tuff!
Yeah. And it’s so easy you can even build a really powerful one and it’ll be less hassle than trying to build those crapy “ghetto talkboxes”. The reward is worth the effort. Truly.