Humble Pye

[Tony Pendrey]

(ollie @ Jan 16 2006, 04:28 PM) It is called a talk box a small audio speaker or high end driver is enclosed, air tight, into a metal box with a hole in the top where a tube comes out. The guitar is plugged into an amp, but the speaker output is routed through the TalkBox. Then the signal is routed back from the box into the amp again. So, the sound from the guitar is sent through the box, up the tube to a waiting mouth, where the sounds are manipulated, before being picked up by the microphone! So by this method you can mouth the words while the sound of the guitar replaces the human voice box....hence the name Talk box also popularised by joe walsh and in recent times by richie sambora, bon jovi "livin on a prayer" all in all a bit of a gimmick really there's (got to be carefull or the apostrophe police will get me) no real substitute for harmonic knowlege. cheers Ollie.

I'm pretty sure that the man who claims to have invented this guitar technique is the one and only Jeff Beck.

He modestly called it "Beck's Box" and used it on the modestly titled "Beck's Boogie".

I have been known to do a "Becks Boogie" after 32 bottles of that german beer.

[ollie]

A talk box is not a guitar technique, it is an electronic device,an effect if you like,i'm a beck fan but i'm not aware of him inventing the device,i thought it came from a company called Heil.

cheers Ollie.

[samkydd]

(ollie @ Jan 16 2006, 06:26 PM) Haitian divorce is a great! tune,and there is a point to be made for the actual guitar sound (including talk box) on the solo, it has a nice contour, but the actual content,for the initiated is just pentatonic wank, a technical term cheers Ollie.

I remember Peter Frampton over used the talk box slightly ever so much on his famous late 70s album Frampton Comes Alive. Cher must have used something similar, or a modern equivilent on her big 90s hit I Believe

[ollie]

Cher has more plastic bits than most, probably including pipes, her song was software distortion.

It's called a vocoder,originally hardware, now available as a vst instument (software)

cheers Ollie.

[1tech]

The Pye electrical products you saw promoted were nothing to do with the original Pye. Mistral International Pty were using the Pye wordmark within Australia for a while but not the logo, I believe Philips allowed the "PYE" wordmark rights to lapse in the Australian market and Mistral took advantage of this. Mistral have since discontinued showing "PYE" on their website so maybe they faced legal challenges in their use of it, I don't know. A similar thing has happened in the USA, this time with Funai being the company selling the American "PYE" wordmark branded products, it may be that they lease the use of the name from Philips as Funai manufacture DVD players and recorders for Philips these days since Philips outsourced manufacturing of those items. Today you can still find Pye legacy companies around such as ComGroup Australia in Australia and Sepura plc - digital mobile radio communication, tetra private digital mobile radio pmr in the UK who continue on from Pye's original Telecommunications businesses. Pye records became part of PolyGram and then Universal Music Group. Philips still retain the rights to the Pye name and logo but have sold off most of the original businesses over the years.

[tgunnell]

Pye's main factory was in lowestoft the company was bought by philips who pledge that they would keep pye a british product maker but philips invested no real money and eventually this factory made philips tv's under the pye name.philips were going to shut the factory but it was bought by sanyo.sanyo as stopped making tv's with crt's but now assembles flat screen sets the factory is still going but with a much reduced workforce.also the southend factory was ekco's who philips also bought

[deckard]

Originally Posted by ollie A talk box is not a guitar technique, it is an electronic device,an effect if you like,i'm a beck fan but i'm not aware of him inventing the device,i thought it came from a company called Heil. cheers Ollie.

Gawd! Those were the days Ollie! I remember in my youth, me and me mates in the band made a "talk box" ourselves by pre-amping a little driver speaker and then attaching a plastic tube to it with gaffa tape. Said tube was then tied to the mike and when playing yer mouth went over the tube to get the sound required.....it worked too! erm until the inevitable spittle ran down the tube and fried everthing!!Ahh yep, those were the days! ta ta for now, Decks.

[David Brent]

Originally Posted by deckard Gawd! Those were the days Ollie! I remember in my youth, me and me mates in the band made a "talk box" ourselves by pre-amping a little driver speaker and then attaching a plastic tube to it with gaffa tape. Said tube was then tied to the mike and when playing yer mouth went over the tube to get the sound required.....it worked too! erm until the inevitable spittle ran down the tube and fried everthing!!Ahh yep, those were the days! ta ta for now, Decks.

I can remember seeing Peter Frampton in concert back in the seventies and he used such a device frequently.

You can hear the results on his famous "Live" album.

Dave.