Talk Box - Keyboard - Check this video out!!!!

That device is donkey's years old - sometimes known as a 'Golden Throat'. It's nothing more than a small box with an amp and speaker inside and a plastic tube that allows some of the sound from the box to come up into the player's mouth and then you use your mouth to form the words into a normal vocal microphone. The sound into the amp and speaker can come from anything you plug into it - in this case Stevie Wonder's keyboard!

take a look at http://filters.muziq.be/model/eh/goldenthroatdl

I bought one of the Banshee's by Rocktron when I wanted
to expand my sounds. It works very well. I had not thought
of this before but you could just plug a keyboard into the
1/4 inch input and your keyboard would drive the sound
instead of a guitar. There is no reason why it would not
work. The unit is amplified so you would want to be careful
of which patches you used and watch your gain coming into
the unit, but other than that you would be able to do
exactly what Stevie was doing. I tried something similar
with the guitar but did not have the same effect as the key
board.
You can also run a line out of the unit because it has a
bypass switch so with one press you are back to your
normal sound, whatever that is.

Note: The processed sound does not come out of
this output.It is just a bypass to let the unproccessed
driver(guitar,keyboard)pass through so you dont have
to unplug your instrument to hear a unproccessed sound.

By the way you need to have a mic somewhere close to
your mouth.Though he was not singing into one, I am
sure there was some mic or an overhead close.

The quality of the video (visually) *****. If you look to the left of the screen, you can see a mic boom that passes in front of Stevie and blends in with his outfit. But if you look REALLY closely, you can see the mic itself too.

X

Be careful with putting something in your mouth while playing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQy5IPlRuug&mode=related&%20amp;search=_

Hate to be the party pooper here, but I gotta mention the risk to your teeth by using this device. The high sound pressure coming through the tube in your mouth is in the form of Hz - vibrations per second. The tube is held by your teeth. To cut the story short, you risk loosing the teeth in close contact - or holding - the tube used to make the sound in your mouth. Just investigate the issue at least.

Ant

I can also recommend the Rocktron Banshee!
http://www.rocktron.com/frameset1.html
Use a SM57 mic on an stand and tape the hose to it.
Use a monophonic "Moog type" Sawtooth Synth Sound instead of a Guitar.
Very important: The TalkBox sound depends on how much Resonance you can produce in your Mouth. So try to Form your mouth as if you want to sing the lowest possible Note you can sing an experience a real throaty fat Talkbox Sound!
Check out "California Love" by 2Pac.

l

Use a SM57 mic on an stand and tape the hose to it.

This is something I forgot to mention, they provide a pair
of velcro strips to hold the tube to your microphone so you
do not ever have to hold it with your teeth. Tape will work
but the velcro is a better way to go. You want to have the
tube coming out from the mic about 1-1/2 to 2-1/2
inches. This way your fairly close to the mic when it is in
your mouth.

Use a monophonic "Moog type" Sawtooth Synth Sound
instead of a Guitar.
Very important: The TalkBox sound depends on how much
Resonance you can produce in your Mouth. So try to
Form your mouth as if you want to sing the lowest
possible Note you can sing an experience a real
throaty fat Talkbox Sound!
Check out "California Love" by 2Pac.

This is probably the most difficult thing to learn. Your

mouth is a natural resonator. Just by changing the shape

will create either a dull or bright tone, either thin sounding

or extremly fat sounding. It just takes practice with it to

learn which shapes create the best sounds. Once you get

a feel for it, then you must learn to talk or sing with it in

your mouth. At first this is quite bizzare because you dont

have to breath to get sound to come out. The tube provides

the actual sound you are just using the shape of your

mouth to shape the sound. So you have to unlearn some

things like breathing. In fact breathing is actually

conterproductive since the mic will pick up the sound

and it distracts from the effect. That was the hardest

part I thought was learning to "hold my breath" so as

not to breath into the mic. I guess you could learn to

have a controlled "light" breathing but it will take some

work. I dont know about the "Golden Throat" but this is a

fairly new device in the sense that this company has just

recently started to make these. I can tell you that I was

going after the sound that the Eagles got on their song

"Those Shoes". I was able to reproduce it exactly.

OMG

that is the most freakish thing....

Oh ****!

These are from some of the reviews from different mags that reviewed
the Banshee. These reviews are on the website that was posted above.
I just took the parts that spoke about using other instruments.


Verdict: The degree of shaping available (you could of course run virtually any signial into the Banshee, not just guitar) makes it a worthy purchase for the creative guitarist.


The Banshee is "awesome for imposing subtle filtering/wah effects on an already recorded track. (Try it on keyboards, drums and vocals!) Spinning the tube in the air near a stereo mike yields a phenomenal Leslie impersonation. Rubbing the tube against the strings unleashes blistering feedback even at whisper volume."