| The Texas Instruments Speak&Spell built from 1978 throughout the 80th. It was designed as a children spell trainer, equipped with 8 bit speech synthesis capabilities. When certain contacts of the synthesizer- ROM- and controller-chips are connected with a switch, pot or LDR, this device will start to talk in alien languages, somewhere in between schizofrenic robotic monologues and insect chatter. It is also possible to loop parts of phonemes, and bend the pitch. Reed Ghazala calls his bent versions Incantors. Check out his gallery to see various models of the Speak&Spell series transformed into strange sound beauties.
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A Speak and Spell from the shelf... |
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...what you will find inside...
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...and there is your alien language teacher.
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The circuit-board with the component description
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The part side of the circuit-board
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A circuit-board template for bending notes
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Standard Speak&Spells can be found on eBay for around 20$. Get one, bend it, and tell me on which which planet your mod works best for communication...
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Some links with lots of info about the Speak&Spell series:
Reed Ghazalas bending tutorial, work through it and at the end click on the lightning... http://www.anti-theory.com/soundart/circuitbend/
Michael Osters bend page, a Speak&Spell talks to a Casio SK-1... : http://www.f7sound.com/circuitbend.htm
all about the different texas instrument speech toys: http://www.datamath.org/Album_Speech.htm
bending the Speak&Spell for dummies, a good starter for beginners: http://www.oscillateur.com/bending.htm
information about the Speak & Spells synthesis method: |
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to the Omnichord bend page
to the Omnichord history page