Demo & Detail of a Switched Formant Synth Module Made From a 1960s Bell Labs Speech Synthesis Kit
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- Опубліковано 9 вер 2023
- This video describes and demonstrates a novel synthesizer module I recently designed and built out of a "Speech Synthesis" Kit that was distributed to schools by Bell Labs in the 1960s. After walking through some basic background on the kit and how I adapted it, I demo the kinds of sounds this module makes.
Mesmerizing sound and appearance at the end. Should be in a movie!
In 1972, I built it from a handmedown kit that was only the components and the book. Thanks for letting me see what I was missing! Dad taught me how to solder. I built on a small breadboard.
Fantastic!
“Thus Spake Zarathustra” was a neat choice for a vocaloid synth module.
I graduated from high school in 1974. Some of these kits were taking up space in a storeroom and my Chem II teacher was giving them away. I should have taken more than one. Oh well. The kit I assembled did not work. The brass colored machine screws included in the kit were the founding members of my miscellaneous hardware collection. I see these screws occasionally and recall where they came from but because I roundly loathe straight blade screws they never get used. But I still have them a literal half century later.
Even if it doesn't really sound like speech it still gives the sound a really wild sound aesthetic. The stereo output is reaaaally trippy. I think in combination with a subharmonic generator this would be a killer :D A lot of patch possibilities there that really makes you kinda getting lost in it and going on one heck of a sonic journey with this module. Impressive work, Mister.
@lookmumnocomputer should get one for his museum
Marvelous! I was just reading about this kind of formant filtering in Allen Strange's book, so it's amazing to see it in action. You've made a beautiful thing here.
Scans of the book are up online, so I downloaded one and may have to build a variation myself.
love how it sounds! Cheers from Heidelberg Joe
How very satisfying, to have been thinking about that speech kit all these years and your memories of it, which was likely a big contributor to sending you down the synth rabbit hole since way back then, and to have found one and built this awesome module from it. Fantastic :)
13.49 sounds like 'Rez/Cowgirl' by Underworld, great sound !
So it does!
There’s some Side B of Fripp & Eno’s No Pussyfooting in there as well! 🥹
awesome work, thank you for sharing
Wonderful
Awesome work of sound art !
love the way you explain. Thank you for sharing this !
Amazing.
Fascinating...
Amazing... subbed!
Brilliant! Thanks for sharing this. I've just finished the David Tudor biography and a large part of his mid-career work was around formants. Fascinating.
Really impressive work on this. There’s so many neat features on your panel. Fun to think about its similarities & differences between other modules that play with formants. And it kind of looks like the RYK filter module - a little bit!
Amazing work! Love the finale. But that wiring... you have way more patience than most.
Yikes 🙀 this is amazing! 🤠
Daisy...Daisy....give me your answer dooo......
GG
That tape is 50 years old and holing strong!! Maybe tape is the future. I don’t imagine all of my modules will live for 50 years. I know I won’t either so it may not matter much. Now I don’t remember why I was going to comment but I’m in too deep now to back out. I have the Synthesis Technology E950 vco and it’s got all the speak and spell words and stuff. That’s not what I was going to say but it’s got formant funk under the hood. God this is a disaster. You should probably delete my comment. I am not contributing positively, I’ll see myself out.