Recording guitar talkbox effect

J

JMac52

New member
I'm working on a new song and I was thinking a talk box - you know, the plastic tube in the mouth, Peter Frampton, Joe Walsh, etc. thing - would sound pretty cool in one section.

The irony is I used to have one, the Dunlop, and after playing with it for about 15 minutes I decided it was the single stupidest gear purchase I ever made because I would never use it, so I sold it. And now, well... another guitar player I jam and record with has one, and I would probably have him play the part anyway.

So I was wondering if anybody has recorded the talk box, and wanted to get advice on the best way to go about it.

Mic? I only have a 57 and 58 at the moment..

How far away from the mic?

Seems like a pop filter would be problematic... windscreen though, maybe?

Thanks in advance for any and all suggestions.

J
 
Since there's about a **** hair's worth of difference between a 57 and a 58, I think that decision is already made. ;)

So I say use a green bullet type harmonica mic plugged into a smallish tube amp and stick one of your mics in front of that.

The other questions will probably be answered within five minutes of fucking with it.
 
The official unit of measurement is a red **** hair.

Just sayin.....

:D

The black ones are thicker and are out of spec.

:laughings:
 
You have to almost eat the Mic in order to get the effect you are looking for. The 57 will probably work better, only because the ball on the 58 will deflect the tube off to the side. Sound wise, it will make no difference.
 
ashcat_lt said:
So I say use a green bullet type harmonica mic plugged into a smallish tube amp and stick one of your mics in front of that.
Click to expand...

Interesting idea. I was thinking when I expand my mic collection, a Green Bullet wouldn't be my first add. Maybe I'll hang around the local blues club and ask the harp player in the house band if I can borrow his. And his amp too.
 
I'd never heard of talkbox until I read this thread. After a little Googling, I realized I had heard it many times but simply hadn't understand how it was produced. Question: is there any other way to do that besides mechanically, i.e. with a tube in the mouth fed from a physical speaker? I saw a Frampton clip in which it looked like here was nothing but him and the microphone, i.e. it's an effect.
 
Not really. There are some "formant filter" effects out there. Some have envelope control or foot control or other ways of sweeping through the vowels, but it's not going to follow your mouth or really sound like it's saying anything intellible without the tube.
 
JMac52 said:
Interesting idea. I was thinking when I expand my mic collection, a Green Bullet wouldn't be my first add. Maybe I'll hang around the local blues club and ask the harp player in the house band if I can borrow his. And his amp too.
Click to expand...

Good luck with that. You'll get the same response from a guitar player if you ask to borrow his axe and amp....... usually something like GTFO, or NFW.
 
About 10 years ago, when I first started recording, I recorded a talkbox in one of 2 ways. I haven't recorded one since, but I would probably use method 1 below if I had to do it again.

1. A 57 with the tube taped to the side of the mic, and just record the signal coming from into the 57.
2. A 57 with the tube taped to the side of the mice, and then into a PA system (with some compression, eq, etc.) added, then I mic'ed the PA speaker with a 58.

Here is a song that has the talkbox in it with method 1 used to record it. Its throughout the song, but you can mostly hear it at the end of the tune. This was probably the first song I recorded with a talkbox

BTW - we recorded the whole song with 2 58's and a 57... good times.

purevolume.com/basementnoise (red cloud is the song with a talkbox in it)
 
ThreeChordMe said:
About 10 years ago, when I first started recording, I recorded a talkbox in one of 2 ways. I haven't recorded one since, but I would probably use method 1 below if I had to do it again.

1. A 57 with the tube taped to the side of the mic, and just record the signal coming from into the 57.
2. A 57 with the tube taped to the side of the mice, and then into a PA system (with some compression, eq, etc.) added, then I mic'ed the PA speaker with a 58.

Here is a song that has the talkbox in it with method 1 used to record it. Its throughout the song, but you can mostly hear it at the end of the tune. This was probably the first song I recorded with a talkbox

BTW - we recorded the whole song with 2 58's and a 57... good times.

purevolume.com/basementnoise (red cloud is the song with a talkbox in it)
Click to expand...

That's pretty cool. I like all the guitar tones. And my idea for the talkbox on my song is really to make it a different tone, and not to try to verbalize/make words. Kinda like Joe Walsh on Rocky Mountain Way, or him again with the Eagles on Those Shoes (except for the part where I think it's trying to say "Get Out").
 
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