While everyone else worries about emulating the same synthesizers for the umpteenth time, Plogue have been lovingly recreating the greatest chip sounds of all time. They’ve done Chipsounds, the instrument, and Chipcrusher, the effect.
And now, finally, your computer will sing to you – not just with any voice, but with the speech chip that launched them all. From computing to arcades to classic tracks, this legendary voice has echoed through the decades with an unmistakable sound.
This is the first-ever commercially-available chip to include speech synthesis.
In 1974/1975 Dr. Forrest S. Mozer licensed his unique voice compression technology to Telesensory Systems, Inc. (TSI).
Encoding words was a very complex and time consuming process. Something only he and a few of his colleagues could do. Most of the TSI/Digitalker-using consumer devices of the late 70’s and early 80’s used Dr Mozer’s own voice, compressed by a factor of 100.
This is the voice you are hearing in the video.
Last year we’ve obtained his authorization to use his voice for our ‘chipspeech’ project.
Thank you infinitely Dr. Mozer!All other materials used property of their respective owners.
Berzerk Arcade filmed on location at http://www.classicarcademuseum.org KEEP THE ARCADE ALIVE, please visit them!
Character art: https://twitter.com/pixoshiru
End “ATTACK humanoid 2015” Track produced by https://www.youtube.com/user/Wasreich
I actually vividly remember the first time I heard this very chip. I was in Kindergarten, and the effect was simply magical. Maybe more than any other moment, it launched my love affair with computers. Here was a box that was able to speak. The fact that it didn’t sound human made it somehow more futuristic, like listening to an alien machine from the future.
The news of the TSI chip coming to the desktop has already gotten some celebrity mentions. Chip musician goto80 mentioned it on Twitter; none other than Future Sound of London declared HUMANOID is back on their Facebook page.
But the best part of this is, it’s coming in a playable instrument you can use on your modern computer. Plogue’s work on Chipspeech has flown mostly under the radar until now, but they’ve teased a bit:
And here’s why it’s fun to play this with a MIDI keyboard:
There’s more to say about this – just not yet. But I can tell you this chip is just the first part of the story. Stay tuned to CDM; we’ll have the scoop.
And speaking of Future Sound of London, more is coming from them, too. Here’s a track from their forthcoming album (yes, you read that right – just in case you thought of them more as the Past Sound of London):
Really looking forward to that, in fact.