Comments on: Robot Voice

Question: Robot Voice

vronsky — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:39:17 -0800

I am looking for any examples of the use of "robot voice". For example, early 80's electro, the famous Robby the Robot, or "robot voice" used for artistic purposes such as this. Any and all suggestions welcome. utubes, songs, movies, anything.

By: LoriFLA

LoriFLA — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:46:30 -0800

Egyptian Lover

By: knave

knave — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:47:22 -0800

Reminds me of Joshua from WarGames (he appears around the 5m mark).

By: The corpse in the library

The corpse in the library — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:54:08 -0800

REPORT TO THE DANCE FLOOR

By: subtle-t

subtle-t — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 13:54:46 -0800

Console - 14 Zero Zero

By: Ian A.T.

Ian A.T. — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:03:46 -0800

The Fearless Four, an old school hip-hop crew best known for "Rockin' It," released a song in the early 80s called "F-4000" that was entirely done in robot voice.

(Actually it's a heavily vocoder-ed rap, dispassionately delivered, clearly meant to evoke a robotic voice...I'm not sure if you're looking specifically for synthesized speech.)

By: subtle-t

subtle-t — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:03:51 -0800

Air - How Does it Make You Feel?

By: disillusioned

disillusioned — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:08:19 -0800

PRIME TIME OF YOUR LIFE.

And a bunch of other things by Daft Punk.

Like, you know, ROBOT ROCK. (It's in the name!)

Technologic, too. Seriously, most of the non-sampled vocals Daft Punk.

By: MaryDellamorte

MaryDellamorte — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:08:41 -0800

Mr. Roboto by Styx.

By: JaredSeth

JaredSeth — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:09:52 -0800

I hope you meant that about any and all suggestions.

You can get a bunch of clips of the character JP from the movie Grandma's Boy.

By: kitty teeth

kitty teeth — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:11:14 -0800

Small Wonder

By: cog_nate

cog_nate — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:11:17 -0800

Pimpbot, whitebread.

By: scabrous

scabrous — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:12:37 -0800

Recently, the Flight of the Conchords wrote 'The Humans are Dead'.

By: disillusioned

disillusioned — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:15:01 -0800

The Humans are Dead doesn't use robot voices, though. It uses Jermaine and the other one pretending to be robots. 1 0 0 0 0 0 1... hehe.

By: MaryDellamorte

MaryDellamorte — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:17:35 -0800

Also, Kraftwerk used a lot of robotic voices in their music. "The Robots" that comes up in the search is one of my favorite songs.

By: dudeman

dudeman — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:28:15 -0800

I think some bands used the Speak and Spell. (Kraftwerk?)

By: kpmcguire

kpmcguire — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:30:56 -0800

Radiohead - Fitter Happier.

Many songs off The Apples in Stereo's New Magnetic Wonder use vocoder'd backup vocals.

Pink Floyd's Keep Talking. This is supposedly Stephen Hawking.

By: majikstreet

majikstreet — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:44:58 -0800

btw, the robot voice can be either a talkbox or a vocoder..

I think a lot of songs on Neil Young's Trans album have a talkbox..
Peter Frampton also uses a talkbox.
Daft Punk uses a talkbox to get their robot sound..
I guess a lot of 80s / synthpop bands use talkboxes or vocoders

By: santojulieta

santojulieta — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:53:32 -0800

I was just listening to Radiohead's OK Computer, and a track in the middle is completely computer voices. I don't know the name of the track, and I don't remember which number it is.

By: porn in the woods

porn in the woods — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:54:09 -0800

I think a lot of songs on Neil Young's Trans album have a talkbox..

Sample and Hold, Computer Cowboy, We R in Control, Transformer Man. Was just rocking this today. It's a great (and greatly misunderstood) LP.

By: porn in the woods

porn in the woods — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:55:59 -0800

(plus the reworked Mr. Soul and the awesome Computer Age, later covered by Sonic Youth.)

By: meehawl

meehawl — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:58:03 -0800

Cylob's Cut The Midrange Drop The Bass and Rewind use synth voice to good effect.

Black Neon did a robot cover of You're So Vain.

By: porn in the woods

porn in the woods — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 14:59:57 -0800

some of my favorite 80s electro with the robot vox:
Midnight Starr - Operator, No Parking on the Dance Floor, Freak-a-Zoid

By: vronsky

vronsky — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:08:37 -0800

good call on trans! I actually bought that on LP. I played it around my friends who were more of a rockist crowd, and got a lot of sideways glances. So I got new friends. Here is computer cowboy aka"Skycrusher" recently featured over at moistworks.

By: mmascolino

mmascolino — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:17:27 -0800

MC Hawking.

By: vronsky

vronsky — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:26:51 -0800

someone mentioned in the MWx post that Neil had begun to experiment with robot voice because his son, who is autistic, responded to it, so he would use it to communicate with him.

Great stuff so far! Thanks everyone.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 15:37:11 -0800

They Might Be Giants, "Robot Parade"

Transformers theme

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:03:43 -0800

Cylons saying "by your command" in the original Battlestar Galactica series and new series.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:17:43 -0800

GortTraum "Klaatu Barada Nikto"

By: gyusan

gyusan — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:37:19 -0800

Milch(r), "0-0109zisch"

The easy place to find it is on Cliff Swank's Robopop set. Bonus: this mix also includes the console bit mentioned by subtle-t above.

By: Jazz Hands

Jazz Hands — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 16:50:13 -0800

The movie Short Cicrcuit
"Number 5 is alive"

By: infinitewindow

infinitewindow — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:15:59 -0800

The songs "I am Electro," "Three Floors Above You," and "What Does It All Mean?" by Meat Beat Manifesto.

By: spiderskull

spiderskull — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:52:44 -0800

Benny Benassi uses computer synthesized voices and vocoders quite extensively (example [warning: creepy]).

By: DarkForest

DarkForest — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 17:54:57 -0800

There's always Laurie Anderson.

By: agentofselection

agentofselection — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 18:04:26 -0800

Still Alive and the rest of Portal.

By: ludwig_van

ludwig_van — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 18:12:09 -0800

I was just listening to Radiohead's OK Computer, and a track in the middle is completely computer voices.

As kpmcguire said, the track is called Fitter Happier.

I recorded a song about wanting to be a robot. Robot voice occurs around 2:25, followed by human voice morphing into robot voice.

By: Bookhouse

Bookhouse — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 18:18:14 -0800

Computer Love by Zapp & Roger.

By: Bookhouse

Bookhouse — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 18:24:12 -0800

Newcleus -- Compter Age (Push the Button)

By: TheSecretDecoderRing

TheSecretDecoderRing — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 19:40:39 -0800

First thing that came to mind was Beastie Boys' Intergalactic from '98. Great video, too.

By: fogster

fogster — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 21:28:40 -0800

Limp Bizkit's "Behind Blue Eyes" includes a brief bit of the Speak & Spell. (dudeman totally deserves bonus points for his link to the emulator!) Far from the lengthiest / most involved clip, but something about that little clip is downright awesome.

Seconding Pink Floyd's Keep Talking and the belief that it's Stephen Hawking.

By: kosmonaut

kosmonaut — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 21:47:07 -0800

Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger by Daft Punk

The first track of Made from Technetium by Man or Astro-Man, where the CD introduces itself to you (sample on the linked page).

Generate Bodies by MJ Lan

By: telstar

telstar — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 21:57:29 -0800

Totally what JaredSeth said. Grandma's Boy. Although the robot voice is actually spoken "live" by the actor, there is none more memorable in what I've seen.

By: Ulleskelf

Ulleskelf — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 23:11:59 -0800

Metal Mickey

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 02:45:29 -0800

Marvin, I Love You

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 10:08:38 -0800

The Simpsons, "Pray for Mojo."

By: p3t3

p3t3 — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 18:57:30 -0800

Jonzun Crew - Pack Jam
Freestyle - Don't Stop The Rock
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5 - Scorpio
Man Parrish - Boogie Down Bronx
Dynamix II - Just Give The DJ A Break
Cybotron - Clear

By: meehawl

meehawl — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:49:35 -0800

I don't know how I managed to forget this one, but it just came up on random play and I realised it's all vocoder:

I-F - Space Invaders Are Smoking Grass

Ferenc van der Sluijs's magnificent 1997 stomper is usually credited with kicking off the "electroclash" electro revival/mutation, even though he himself was pretty down on the whole thing.

By: tjvis

tjvis — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 09:52:29 -0800

Oh, why the hell not...

By: ekstasis23

ekstasis23 — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:01:36 -0800

Herbie Hancock rocked the Vocoder in quite a few songs...I'm thinking specifically of his Sunlight & Future Shock albums.

By: Ambrosia Voyeur

Ambrosia Voyeur — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 12:17:58 -0800

Dictionaraoke!