Voice + Coder = Vocoder!!
January 16, 2004, 04:20 pmIf you look at how vocoders have been used – HAL's Bicycle Built For Two in 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Beastie Boys Intergalactic, Wendy Carlos's vocoded vocals in Beethoven's 9th in a Clockwork Orange – it's interesting to think that the vocoder was created by Bell Laboratories engineer Homer Dudley in the mid-1930's. Originally intended as a method of speech compression, Bell wanted to maximize their telephone line bandwidth. Amazing!
The microKORG has a vocoder and I intend to play with it this weekend. Speaking of the microKORG, the Merediths have a new song that utilizes the microKORG's arpegiator. It's pretty awesome.
Thus concludes another episode of Weird Instruments of the Past.