Sit N Spell sound.....

A

asi9

New member
Here's a good one.... how do you get an effect on your voice that sounded like the Sit N Spell (I think that's what it was called) back from the 80's (the one that was dissected on ET and used for his 'phone home').

I've heard this effect used on several albums, off the top of my head, I know they use it at the beginning of "Living Dead Girl" by Rob Zombie, and on a few Linkin Park songs.

Or did they find one of those games that would let you talk through it and just record that? It's a cool effect.
 
asi,

> how do you get an effect on your voice that sounded like the Sit N Spell <

It's been a long time since I heard one of those, but as I recall it's a speech synthesizer, not an effect applied to a real person's voice.

There's a great freeware speech synthesizer program called Doc Talker (or something like that), which is included with Shit Talker, a hilarious program you can get here:

http://www.shittalker.com/download/listing2.html

--Ethan
 
Hey, it's called "Speak & Spell", get your facts straight :) You must be thinking of the "Sit & Spin", a device that made me puke many times as a small child.

I used to have a Speak & Spell...I wonder what happened to it...that would be damn cool to have now! I sort of remember taking it apart in an attempt to "phone home" after seeing ET....not sure what happened to it after that...hehe.

Slackmaster 2000
 
Holy crapola remember those things......those were the days...I haven't thought of "speak and spell" in eons......or etcher sketchers either...........Thanks for taking me on a trip down memory lane
 
"...that is correct"

My brother's 16-odd-year-old one is in my mother's basement--in perfect working order! (With extra word cartridges :) ).

Some of those crappy "be your own DJ" kids' toys have some strange built-in sound effects. (Like that Mr Microphone kind of reverb.) Speaking through the attached mic and thru it's speaker adds all sorts of that $1.98-sounding distortion. I used to have a ray gun that let you talk through the back and it would add cheesy "robotic" sounds to it (though I think it was just marketers calling poor sound quality a "feature").

Other than badly misusing EQs, intentional impedance mismatching, using Walkman headphones as mics, etc,
I don't think you can get the real sound from expensive equipment. ;) Think crappy. Think appalling. Think that you can get the sound you want at Toys R Us for less than $20. :)

Who remembers the Magical Musical Thing? (late 70s!) Or those battery-powered Tomy games, or the Merlin?? (Yup, my brother had Alfie too...)
 
Dude!

My old band's first "demo" was recorded using just walkman headphones as mics. Seriously... I took my mom's cassette deck off her stereo to use as a preamp, and put a couple pairs of walkman headphones in between my 10 watt Marshall Park amp and my friend's old Yamaha Power V drumset. We recorded the guitar and drums at the same time into my old computer (using SoundEdit 16). Then I'd overdub the bass and the vocals into the computer using a similar method... then "mix" to taste. Haha! Actually, those recordings came out pretty decent (if you take into account the lack of playing/singing talent).

Ahh, those were the days!

Rick
 
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