This morning, I interviewed Dave Tompkins. Dave is a music writer and the author of the new book, How to Wreck a Nice Beach, an encyclopedic look at the history of the vocoder, from its roots as a voice-scrambling security technology in World War Two, to its use today in making robotic effects in pop music.
A shorter version of this interview will air on an upcoming episode of Spark, but you can hear the full, uncut interview below, or download the MP3.
Play audio:
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Original image by Scragz
Hey Nora,
I liked this interview, but I hope that in the final version you include some actual audio examples of the vocoder!
Listeners may also be interested in:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor…
and of course: Auto Tune the News
http://www.google.com/search?q=auto+tune+the+news…
Oh, yeah, just you wait! I wanted to see what examples he used in the interview, but we'll totally have some egs.
Check out the song "Twilight", by ELO, for a great vocoder opening….
Awesome! Will take a look for it. Thanks!
Sadly, it's a commercial recording, not like the audio/music clips you normally play on Spark, but it's good stuff.
I was going to post a comment that I thought it ironic that a book that was obviously (I thought) titled "How to Recognize Speech" came out sounding like "How to Wreck a Nice Beach".
Silly me.
Ha! Very funny!
hello i was just listening to your program on vocoder and i thought i would metion this program
caught the internet by storm…putting it nicely
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBZOlipfjkQ
she has topped the asian music charts…and she does not even exist!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKv7cw_Z1P4&fe…
*A Vocaloid is a voice synthesizer. This software is primarily used to produce songs. For more information consult Wikipedia athttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocaloid .
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ndN4grfT9M&fe…
LIPSTICK ON YOUR COLLER – VOCALOID LOLA english
this project i thing might have needed some mention…great show anyway tho….love your show!
sorry i just keep needing to sAY more
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBZOlipfjkQ
Hatsune Miku is a 16-year-old girl with long green pigtails and a voice with a range no human could ever hope to match.
She is a virtual singer with a computer-synthesized voice, a work by creators who met
on the Internet.
Many of the songs she sang have proven to be so appealing that the music industry
cannot ignore her. She has developed into a singer with a large worldwide following.
Lets now see who Mikus creators are and how her world was formed.
Loved this interview. Neat to hear something somewhat geeky on a normal radio show. Very interesting.
Hi Geoffrey, glad you liked it! When I saw the book I thought 'if ever there was a place for a book on the relationship between voice compression technology and funky music, it's Spark!