Junkyard Jam Band

6   The Droid Voicebox

The Droid Voicebox is a descendant of the venerable talk box guitar effect. This is an effect made famous by Peter Frampton, who used an early model to make his guitar “talk” in his signature hits “Do You Feel Like We Do?” and “Show Me the Way.” (If you’ve tragically avoided these seminal Frampton hits, please take a moment to swing by YouTube and educate yourself.¹)

In a commercial talk box effect, a specialized speaker called a compression driver pumps the sound from the guitar into a tube that the musician holds in his or her mouth (I know this sounds nuts; please stick with me).

The guitarist is then able to use his or her mouth to sculpt the guitar riffs into flutters, wows, trills, and even fairly intelligible speech, ...