With words losing their meaning in politics and society, it seems useful to generate gibberish to do the talking for you. Phoneme gibberish is a very useful way to make sounds that sound like speech but achieve an end-goal of making zero sense. This episode of Spoken Word with Electronics (phonetically pronounced: spəʊkən wɜ:d wɪð ɪlektɹɒnɪks) demonstrates how to connect a sequencer to a phoneme generator to babble for you. All music and tones in this episode's video are generated by phoneme:
What is a Phoneme? The phonetic sound of a word, called a phoneme, is the perceptively unique part of a word. It is different than a vowel or a consonant. There are actually more phoneme sounds than letters in the English alphabet, explained on this useful page. Phoneme Generators are speech synthesizers, often using speech chips from the 1980s and 1970s. You encountered them in use on Speak N Spell toys and in other applications like early automated phone messaging. It was the sound of QBert jumping. Most famously, a phoneme generator was used in the 1983 film War Games as the voice of the computer:
The programming of a phoneme generator to say basic phrases is tedious. You need to dial in each phoneme, along with a length of time for the sound, and then dial in the next phoneme. Eventually you have a word and a sentence. Or even a tariff or executive order! It's far more fun to just connect a sequencer to a phoneme generator and let it sputter out garbage. The economy of the world is better off and you still make mouth sounds, too, so everyone is happy.
Make your own gibberish. This demo includes an SSL Scat Talker, which is sequenced by a Rucci 16 Step CV Sequencer. The Scat Talker changes the phoneme voice by CV control, so you can dial voice sounds with note signals. Whenever you also send a gate signal, the voice changes. Great for vocal garbage that the best GOP can't top! The vocal chip of the Scat Talker is a Votrax SC-01. If you're looking for a good phoneme generator in eurorack based on modern code, you can try the Mutable Instruments Plaits (which is widely cloned and also available on VCV rack). If you're looking for a lovely FREE formant generator on iOS, check out Howl.
Music by Phoneme. Things gets more interesting when you use a VCA and ADSR to trim each phoneme into notes and percussion. You can slow phonemes down into drone-like tones and pitch shift them into bright snares and key leads or even pads. Two demos using phonemes as drums, tones, keys, voices:
For more information, including sending phoneme audio as CV into video inputs, watch: SWWE #91: Phonemes and Bees. Let's talk garbage!
Ethan Persoff is a sound designer based in Austin TX and the author of the Charlie Pickle books. Subscribe to Spoken Word with Electronics wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to check out the new SWWE TV.
