Talk box fundamentals? THREAD NECROMANCY

[Volitions Advocate]

ok so.. traditionally a talkbox is powered by your guitar amps external speaker jack, or by daisy chaining it to your cabinet right?
So the driver is powered by your amplifier, and the microphone gets fed directly into your pa (when the talkbox is engaged it cuts the signal to your amplifier yes?)

OK so... lets say I want to jam with talkbox but i dont want to have to hook up to a PA.
I've been looking at a lot of DIY sites for guys wanting to make a talkbox of their own and I think I want to do this.

Here's what I'm thinking though.  I'd rather have the classic style with the tube and the compression driver rather than those digital ones where you actually speak into a microphone and the pedal blends it with your guitar sound.  I dont want to do it that way.

my thoughts...

Find a little practice amp,  the kind they sell in beginner guitar kits.  I'm sure there's lots of them around.  and pull out the amp to put it in an enclosure.  Or, for that matter, get an amp kit and build it myself, but it would have to be small, I dont know how much wattage would be required.  Just so long as the sound stays true to my guitar i'm happy (dont see the need for a 3band EQ that usually comes on amps.. but then again maybe that would be a cool addition to a talkbox).

ANYWAY im getting off topic.  So put an amp inside of a pedal enclosure (certainly needs to be a small one) and hook it up to a decent compression driver. .. now.. what if instead of hooking the microphone up to the PA and making the switch cut the signal to the amp, I made the microphone plug back into the talkbox and then put an output from the talkbox to the next pedal in the chain?  so the switch basically makes it go from bypass to basically adding a loop (compression driver output to XLR mic input) that is 100% wet.

I know at this point the signal going to my amp would be from a mircophone, does that cause any troubles would you think?

It would just be nice to have a talkbox that acts as a pedal rather than needing other gear to function properly.

 

[Funky Phil]

http://www.danelectro.com/effects_8.html

"Free Speech Talk Box"

I think this works in exactly the way you have described!
I tried one a few years ago, and it works, but can suffer from the microphone feeding back...

 

[jimh]

Spot on Phil.

I've got a Seabro TubeStation pedal (which I dont think they make any more) which is pretty much what VA described, but without the mic going back into the pedal.
There's a small 2W(?) solid state amp inside the pedal enclosure, which feeds into a compression driver and out of the tube.  Then use a standard vocal mic out to the PA in the normal way.

The HeilSound (Jim Dunlop) tradition style talkbox which was used back in the day, was fed from your cranked Marshall or whatever amp, and as you can imagine sent an awful lot of sound pressure up the tube and into your mouth.  I've read stories of people complaining of fillings being rattled out and headaches and the like. But they do sound cool as a penguin's bum.

 

[Volitions Advocate]

I suppose the trick is to have a good quality microphone, or at least one of the tricks.

What I dont understand is how hooking it up to your head doesn't mess with the impedance.

 

[Superlizard]

Talk Box Fundamentals?

I think it's something like this:

"wah wuh wah wuh wuhhhhhhh"

Translation:

"Do you feeeeeeel like I doooo"

 

[mayfly]

One thing to remember about talk boxes is that to get the "diction" right, you need to vary your distance and mouth position with the mic. 

So your pedal trick will work, but for best results I'd put the mic on a regular mic stand rather than trying to integrate it somehow with the tube.

 

[Volitions Advocate]

yeah, thats the plan.

Bascially what I think im saying is.. make like an A/B switch pedal
where the send is really the compression driver and the return is straight from a microphone

 

[rockskate4x]

you lost me, man.... I can't help you....

 

[stubhead]

Talk Box Fundamental -

DON'T DO IT. JUST DON'T.

I know Jeff Beck and Joe Walsh used them - what a hideous flaw in otherwise respectable careers(!).... what's wrong with you?  :icon_scratch: Can't you just see a psychiatrist or bugger a goat or something instead? God really should've gone for ELEVEN Commandments, there.... coarse he hadn't even invented electricity yet, how could he have known....

 

[nathan a]

I wonder, if you said really dirty things into the talk box, who would know?

 

[mayfly]

I wonder, if you said really dirty things into the talk box, who would know?

(quietly) ... I would know....

 

[Volitions Advocate]

Thread Necromancy!!

I'm going ahead with this project.  But my plan is to build my own amplifer for the pedal (rather than ripping one off an existing amp).  I've got a university prof that is excited about helping me do it,  I just need a schematic.  I recall somebody once shared a link to a page with a bunch of free schematics on it, one of which was a 1 watt amplifier.  I don't know if that is strong enough to power the compression driver but i'm sure it could be altered if it needed to be.

can anybody help me out here?  Basically I think the hard part woudl be building the amp, and building it small enough to fit inside a reasonable enclosure,  Aside from that it would just be mounting the driver and hose.  Wiring up a switch and some jacks (for a microphone and guitar in/out) would be pretty easy.  just a 3pdt switch, like modding a pedal for true bypass.

So even though It's been asked before, Where can I get some good amp schematics.. I'm thinking a tube amp with a nice little 12ax7 would be awesome but I wouldn't really be the expert on what would be best.

Also.  Recommendations on what Compression driver to use?  I hear good things about JBL for this application, thoughts?

 

[Tonar8352]

Those are fun, but I had more fun with a Wah Wah, Drill, Marshall and a good delay pedal, now that can make some wild noise.  :toothy12: