One of the more esoteric electronic instruments of the 70s and very early 80s was a thing called the vocoder. Long before the evil Auto-Tune (which I can’t stand), the vocoder was allowing singers to electronically alter their voices into something robotic and otherwordly.
The most popular ones looked like a small keyboard synthesizer with a mic input. You sang into the mic and used the keyboard to manipulate the voice.
It made its way into thousands and thousands of songs. What’s fascinating is that it has its roots in World War II for encrypting high-level and super-secret information transmitted between the Allies. The Nazis may have had their Enigma machines, but the good guys had their vocoder.
If you’re fascinated the history of musical gear like I am there’s a great book called How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II to Hip-Hop by Dave Tompkins. It’s published by Stopsmiling Book.
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Ongoing History of New Music
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