The Steel Guitar Forum

Who uses a talk box today with pedal steel? A good idea? I'm thinking of getting one for the outlaw country band I'm in and freaking people out.

You mean one of those Peter Frampton things? I've listen to some of your band's recordings (pretty cool, by the way) and I can see why your bandmates are freaking out. I think it's kind of a goofy novelty that has had its day. If you just want a different sound on a couple of tunes maybe a wah pedal or envelope filter? Or an old string-through pickup lap steel that will overdrive your amp for a different sound, plus you'll have another steel!

man, steel players are freaky enough already....have you seen the pics of Pete Drake playing that contraption...it looks like some home made iron lung / life support device made from surplus hospital equipment

Today? I don't know of anybody.
Yesteryear? Here's Pete: http://youtu.be/Cm77Xck34GE
And Pete with Jim Reeves when Jim still did country (before he turned into Perry Como in cowboy boots) http://youtu.be/k-a5vxj1Oww

Buddy Charleton did an excellent job with "Going Once, Going Twice, Going Gone"
It's featured on the intro and ending of Leon Rhodes' 1965 vocal, "What Am I Bid"

Here's a link:

http://picosong.com/PYtx


Best regards,
Craig Baker 706-485-8792

cmbakerelectronics@gmail.com

C.M. Baker Electronics
P.O. Box 3965
Eatonton, GA 31024

Spencer Cullum of Steelism uses one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdWhsNkbg4U

Alvino Rey invented the "talk box" back in the 30s !! Pete Drake brought it back in the 60s? Then a lot of players started using it !! I guess it's kinda gone by now ?? But it was a fun gadget !! olde geeze - AKA Eddie "C"

I used one on guitar in my early 'Rock' days. It was home-made and after a while the energy coming out of the tube started to hurt my throat. It sounded good though. I just might resurrect it one day for a laugh!!!
Sandy

Our guitar player experimented with one this year and found it difficult to work with. It takes a few minutes to setup and you have to switch out of your amplified sound to the tube only. With that .. you also need a good sound man to raise your mic to pick up your voice box. Not easy .. and he gave up on it after a few gigs.

We tried to list out all the famous songs (mostly rock) with VB:
There really aren't that many ...

Rocky Mountain Way
Show me the Way
Do you Feel Like we Do
Tell Me Something Good
Sweet Emotion
Livin on a Prayer
Walk this Way
Me and my Gang - Rascal Flatts

there was Alvino Rey and stringy, the talking steel.

Joe Snow wrote:there was Alvino Rey and stringy, the talking steel.

I call him Creepy.

Great info. And sorta what I expected.
I may get one.

[quote=
Rocky Mountain Way
Show me the Way
Do you Feel Like we Do
Tell Me Something Good
Sweet Emotion
Livin on a Prayer
Walk this Way
Me and my Gang - Rascal Flatts[/quote]

Awesome!

Leo! You forgot -Kickstart My Heart-MotleyCrew

Alvino used the Sonovox, a slightly different animal, based on the throat mics of WWII

I'd love to get my hands on one of those.....

...and I totally agree w/Mr. Bovine- that little guy was creepy!

who uses a talk box?

no one!

Lane Gray wrote:Today? I don't know of anybody.
Yesteryear? Here's Pete: http://youtu.be/Cm77Xck34GE
And Pete with Jim Reeves when Jim still did country (before he turned into Perry Como in cowboy boots) http://youtu.be/k-a5vxj1Oww

Dang Lane, that PD clip was something out of Klaatu barada nikto J-rod stuff. Weird to see that from that old a clip. Sounded like a wah though. The Perry Reeves clip didn't work btw.
Third party problems so it said.

It helps if one knows how to sing to use a talk box. I think with all the busy work a psg guy has, adding that tube is pulling too many hats out of the rabbit.

But experiment away.

Here's a good unit if you can find one;

Here's another video of the same song, but without the goofy graphics
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LhTSZcA7kG8

And it would have to be that version to hear Pete. Now that I know the title, Jim had another version out, different arrangement. More Mr. C. Thanks.

Leo Melanson wrote:We tried to list out all the famous songs (mostly rock) with VB:
There really aren't that many ...

Rocky Mountain Way
Show me the Way
Do you Feel Like we Do
Tell Me Something Good
Sweet Emotion
Livin on a Prayer
Walk this Way
Me and my Gang - Rascal Flatts

Don't forget Steely Dan, Haitian Divorce

I played with a guitar player MANY years ago who made his own. There's not much to them, it was just small speaker from a car stereo, 4" or so, mounted inside a little enclosed wooden box. He drilled a hole for a little brass fitting opposite the speaker, shoved a rubber hose on it and plugged it into the back of his amp when he wanted to use it. It was... interesting...

chris ivey wrote:who uses a talk box?

no one!

Actually, a horn driver is used to get the SPL's to drive enough air into the mouth cavity for the sound to be shaped by said cavity. This then makes the device a little dangerous if you close your mouth over it like blowing your ears clear if you misjudge the volume from your amp.

Finding a sturdy enough horn driver proves to be expensive for the DIY guys finding one small enough so the box retains a small footprint.

A 50 watt 16 ohm driver, in the case of the vintage Maxon, MD-TM101 is the what is used.

A wild guess would be the Atlas PD60-A, a 60 watt 16 ohm driver used as driver replacement in Leslie speakers. That's a $200 driver. And it is a chunky one.

Like everything, there are preferences in tone over other drivers for this app as talkbox.

Maybe the Atlas PD-5VH with 40 watts will work as well. Smaller driver, a little less in the Fed Res printouts dept.

Getting a good no-leak seal from the driver to the tube is not unlike plumbing work. And a speaker switching circuit with the right type of switch is needed as this device connects to the speaker out of your amp to turn the device on/off.




Atlas PD60-A



Atlas PD-5VH








That said there are "effects" pedal types that will simulate the original talkbox head grenade. Not sure how effective they are.


Danelectro DTB-1










This u2b clip gets closer to camel-ville for the Dano box;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRkEXfbAfxA

May as well give the guy responsible for the most prolific use in recent memory a represent for his product since his songs were mentioned.

I read about the box Frampton devised a while back, don't know much but here it is. I hear Keeley makes/made an electronic version now. Not sure of the status or models.

MXR has an entry. This one has its own amp as seems to be the trend these days for these.






https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWpu9jsyhrM#t=21


I had a home made box back in the day someone sold me.
Looks like the idea has some staying power.

I have a Maxon now, but this new MXR looks attractive.

Thanks for the help guys. I wanted to circle back.

I did get a talk box (Rocktron's Banshee) and started to integrate it into band practice and now we have a country record coming out in April with talk box pedal steel on a few songs.

Success!