ELECTRO-HARMONIX
STEREO TALKING MACHINE
BY LYLE ZAEHRINGER
To say that the human voice is the most dynamic instrument of all is a cliché,
but it’s also pretty hard to deny. As an
instrument, it may be supreme—the inspiration for all instruments, in a way—and
that’s why emulating its qualities can be
so compelling in the right contexts. The
Sonovox, developed in the 1940s, used
modulation of the voice to shape the tones
of audio signals. In the late 1970s, funk
all-stars Zapp and Roger used the talk-box
effect on keyboards to shape their distinctive groove. The most widely known use of
the mouth as a guitar effect is from Peter
Frampton’s array of hits featuring the Heil
Talk Box. The effect has even infiltrated the
domain of digital recording—the Antares
THROAT VST effect plug in allows singers
to change their voices in a manner similar
to talk boxes.
Electro-Harmonix’s latest pedal, the
Stereo Talking Machine, isn’t the first Mike
Matthews-related affair to seek after those
voice-like qualities—Matthews’ Soul Kiss
effect from the early ’90s clipped onto your
strap and had a wired mouthpiece controller for achieving wah-like sounds—but it
does an impressive job of getting those legendary talk-box tones and much more. Like
other recently introduced EHX pedals, this
stompbox has modern features such as pre-set management and 24-bit/46 kHz digital
conversion. It also has a fuzz circuit and a
wealth of controls beyond what you see on
the surface.
and frequency peaks and valleys called formants that can be amazingly expressive.
The Talking Machine comes in a
medium-sized case with Blend, Voice,
Attack, Decay, Sensitivity, and Presets
knobs along the top. It also has two footswitches for Preset and buffered Bypass,
as well as a stereo output, an effects loop,
and an expression-pedal input. The Talking
Machine runs on a 9-volt DC adapter only
and stores nine programmable presets, each
indicated by an independent LED.
The Preset knob is the key to accessing auxiliary functions for each knob,
including Volume, Fuzz Tone, Fuzz Gain,
LFO Rate, and LFO Shape. EHX makes
the wealth of controls and features fairly
accessible, however.
Vocal Chords
Plugging in my Fender Strat and cycling
through the presets, I quickly familiarized
myself with the Talking Machine’s various voice types, which include OW-EE,
AH, I-A, AH-OO, AH-I, EE-ER, and EE
(yes, they are actually listed as such on the
unit). There are also two additional filters:
WAH simulates just what you’d think, and
the other, BB, simulates the distinctively
nasal EHX Bassballs pedal. As the names
of these Voice types indicate, the envelope
follower in the Talking Machine sweeps
from one vocal formant to the next, producing a variety of natural vocal gestures.
Impressively, the Talking Machine’s filters did not leave the Strat’s tone sounding
thin or harsh, even when I used the Blend
Wah, Bassballs, and
seven vowel modes
Dual-function Presets
knob accesses Fuzz
and LFO effects
Open up and Say …
To grasp the basic premise behind a talk
box, you need only understand one of the
oldest and simplest instruments, the mouth
harp: When you place it in your mouth
and pluck its tiny metal reed, the resulting
vibrations are altered by shifting the shapes
formed by your lips—just as in speech.
Low-pass filters, wah pedals, and talk boxes
were all attempts at mimicking and mechanizing the mouth’s sound-filtering capabilities. When applied to a guitar tone, talk-box effects produce a range of vowel sounds
