Robot Voice

sometimes i hear people say certain things in social situations that are flat out wrong. but the statement is so trivial that for me to jump in and correct it would just make me look like some arrogant snob so i just end up letting it go. when someone insists that some urban legend is absolutely true, all of the sudden i'm captain buzzkill if i say the truth. and that's the story of how 90% of all blogs got started. so here's something that people continually get wrong that i am 100% sure of the answer. and it all has to do with the ROBOT VOICE. when i was in college, i went through a couple month period where i was obsessed with finding out how to do the robot voice. and for the enjoyment of the techies out there, here's how to do it.

There are actually 3 distinct ways to create a "Robot Voice"

1. Vocoder

2. The Talkbox

3. Auto Tune

1. Vocoder

The Vocoder is commonly mispronounced "Vocorder". yes, i know, vocoder is hard to say, but that doesn't excuse your linguistic ignorance. the vocoder works on the principle of combining the pure tone of a synthesizer with the modulation of a real voice. and the end product is a keyboard that sounds like it's talking. Your voice actually works on this principle too. Your vocal chords vibrate and produce a pure tone. but the way you move your move changes how that tone sounds, creating different sounds. So really, your vocal chords provide the pure tone, and your mouth modulates the signal. in a vocoder, the synth is the pure tone and you speak into a microphone which translates that modulation into various filters to make it sound like the synth is speaking.

one of the most popular examples of a vocoder in action is the famous "Mr. Roboto" by Styx

or for those of you born after 1985, at the end of "California Girls" by Katy Perry, the robot voice you hear singing the words "California girls" is also a vocoder.

2. Talkbox

The talkbox has been around since the 60's but was first made famous by Peter Frampton in Frampton Comes Alive where he makes his guitar talk. but when explaining the talkbox, i don't think frampton really counts as a pioneer. the "talking" isn't very clear. richie sambora of Bon Jovi used one at the famous beginning of "Living on a Prayer" but his talkbox playing just sounds like a glorified wah pedal, not a clear and concise talking. the hands-down master of the talkbox is Mr. Roger Troutman from the late 70s, early 80s group Zapp and Roger. You may not know the name, but if you've ever heard "California Love" by Dr. Dre, then you've heard Roger Troutman. He's the guy singing with the talkbox robot voice.

the talkbox works on the same principle of the vocoder, but it accomplishes this in a completely different way. the keyboard provides the pure tone, but instead of speaking into a mic and having the modulating sounds translated into a filter, the effect is accomplished in a much more natural way. the talkbox is essentially just a speaker with a long tube attached. that's it. you plug the keyboard or guitar into it. the sound travels from the speaker up through the tube and into your mouth. the way you move your mouth modulates the sound. it's actually kinda hard to do. it requires practice and skill which is why some people are better than others at it.

a few of you may remember a couple years ago when i was with TFK i used to play a talkbox at the end of one of the songs.

3. Auto Tune

Auto tune is probably the most recognized of the robot voice mainly because of T-Pain. Auto Tune has been around since the late 90s. In 1998 Cher released "Believe" where the robot effect was first showcased. It was actually an accident. back in college, i couldn't figure out how to get this affect. what's funny is that i had auto tune on my computer at the time, but didn't realize what the effect was. then one day for a recording school assignment i walked into a studio on music row in nashville and asked if i could sit in on a session. the studio manager walked me into a mix session with a guy named Reid Shippen who happens to be a big mix engineer in christian music. he was mixing a song by Jump 5 (remember christian boy bands??) and in the song they were using the robot voice i had sought after for so long. i asked reid what it was and he showed me and i felt like an idiot that it had been at my fingertips for so long.

auto tune works on a completely different principle than the vocoder or talkbox. the way the program "tunes" a voice is by analyzing the sound and determining what pitch it is. it then looks at the key you are in and adjusts the pitch to the closest note in the designated scale. one of the controls is for "Retune Speed" which controls how quickly the program adjusts the pitch. the human voice doesn't go straight from one pitch to another. it slides between notes. but the engineers for Cher's "Believe" stumbled upon the fact that if you turned the retune speed allllll the way up, it truncates that sliding and goes straight from one note to the other. and that's what makes it sound like a robot.

the best thing to come out of this technology would have to be the guys who do auto tune the news and gave us the famous bed intruder song.

so there you have it. three ways to do the robot voice. and i have also successfully ended another blog with the bed intruder song. SCORE!