This video is an amazing historical demo, from 1939, of the VODER – considered by some to be the first attempt to synthesise human speech by breaking it down into its component sounds and then reproducing the sound patterns electronically.
Per Wendy Carlos:
Homer Dudley….invented the VODER (Voice Operating DEmonstratoR), an electronic speaking instrument, which was unveiled (and demonstrated hourly) at the New York World’s Fair 1939-40.
Inside the tall rack of sturdy electronic gear was a pitch controlled reedy oscillator, a white-noise source, and ten bandpass resonant filters. For a Voder to “speak” a talented, diligently trained operator “performed” at a special console connected to the rack, using touch-sensitive keys and a foot-pedal. These controlled the electronic generating components. The results, while far from perfect (it was damn difficult to operate!), were still entertaining and instructive of the principles involved.
Related Posts
- Commodore 64 Speech Synthesis
- An Audio Introduction To The Moog Synthesizer
- Free Synth VST Turns Noise Into Music
- Akai EWI, With Circuit Bent Speak And Math CV MIDI Synth
- The Plague Bearer – A Quad Voltage-Controlled Resonant Bandpass Filter
Tags: demo videos, history of electronic music, speech synthesis, strange musical instruments, vocoder, VODER, voice synthesis, voice synthesizer
4 Responses to “The Voder, A Speech Synthesizer From 1939”
Please Wait
awesome find, I recalled seeing in my childhood something on educational tv about voice synthesis in the 30-40s could never track it back to this video.
awesome.
David – thanks for the feedback.
I love retro-future stuff!
that only tells me one thing.
they have probably captured and have been studying ufos for a long time, even before 1947.
Awesome!
Thanks for posting.