The secret story of the vocoder, the military technology that changed music

The vocoder was never supposed to revolutionize music. It wasn’t meant to be anything In music, really. Its development began a century ago, when an engineer at Bell Labs was looking for a simpler way to send phone calls over copper telephone lines. An engineer, Homer Dudley, has built amazing technology that can capture and synthesize the human voice.

As with a lot of great technology, the vocoder immediately took on a life of its own. It played a major role in World War II, enabling secret communications across the ocean. After only a few years, she began to become a musical phenomenon. Initially, few artists were fascinated by the ability to play their voice as an instrument. Then it was everyone. And we never looked back.

In this episode of release date, We tell the many stories of the vocoder. David Pearce joined The pop was turned on Co-host and music journalist Charlie Harding, along with Dave 1 and B-Thug, who perform as the legendary electro music duo. Chromeo. Together, the group explores how the vocoder became so popular, and why musicians are drawn to it — and to similar technologies like Auto-Tune and Talkbox. Dave and Pee also brought a vocoder and talk box to the studio, and they have some serious demos to do.

This is the third episode of the third season of the series Release date. Here’s how to get every episode and all the other fun stuff as soon as it drops:

If you want to hear some of Charlie and Chromeo’s favorite vocoder tracks, you’ll want to Check out this playlist:

And if you want to learn more about the history of the vocoder, from Bell Labs to World War II to music studios everywhere, here are some links to get you started: