Is there any way of taking an audio in to a Speak & Spell?

LektroiD

I've bent my speak and spell, which now has some nice glitches and also a demonic 'possessed' voice. I'd like to know if there is a way of extending the vocabulary by taking a line input into the unit, for it to resynthesize my voice? Or any way of making it say words that are outside its vocabulary?

oootini · Joined: Oct 15, 2007 Posts: 80 Location: ireland

very unlikely.

radial77 · Joined: Dec 08, 2009 Posts: 2 Location: USA

try adding an LFO via 555 timer based circuit

electri-fire · Posted: Wed Dec 09, 2009 7:02 am Post subject:

Sam_Zen · Joined: Mar 08, 2008 Posts: 251 Location: NL

I made a device using the GI speech processor SP0256.
Info can be found for example here

alienmeatsack · Joined: Mar 04, 2010 Posts: 137 Location: Oklahoma

FWIW, Casper Electronics has a nice LFO schematic that works for all the Speak & ____ series. It's not what you want, to input something new into the Speak & Spell, but it's something.

Regarding what you want to do, the only thing I can think maybe you could try is simply something that uses the tone/volume of your voice to modulate the S&S itself, sort of a voice driven LFO?

The other option would be to maybe add a voice recorder/real time processor to the guts of the unit and then try and find a way to interface the S&S with it in a way that the output affects how it works. If that makes sense? Like, for example, use the Speak's wiring and power to drive it, and perhaps it's output to affect the sound coming from the recorder, sort of a modulation of the sound.

The example that comes to mind is to put an output reactive LED on the out of the Speak. Then, put a photo resistor somewhere on the recorder/playback portion, so that when the speak and spell does it's thing, the photo resistor then causes the recorder to do things too. You could enclose the 2 in a small pen tube or similar so the only light the photo resistor gets is from the Speak's output.

just a thought.

oootini · Joined: Oct 15, 2007 Posts: 80 Location: ireland

sorry, but why would you even want to put a line into the s & s?

alienmeatsack · Joined: Mar 04, 2010 Posts: 137 Location: Oklahoma

thrush, I think what he wants is to expand what it can do.

They did make expansion cards that added new words/features, those are hard to find however.

What the OP is asking however isn't possible, not a straight "I talk in and the Speak and Spell says what I said in it's digital voice". But some effects and a voice recorder added in would at least give some options in that regard.

electri-fire · Posted: Fri Mar 12, 2010 6:45 pm Post subject:

The Speak&xx speech chip uses 4 parallel data lines that get serial input from the ROMs.

Untested idea: what you could do is convert audio into a binary signal. Send it through a diode to pass only positive voltages, use an opamp to amplify this to , ermm... say 5V, send it through a CMOS schmitt-trigger like CD40106 to clean the signal into a squarewave and send this to on of the 4 data inputs of the speech synth.
I haven't checked where Caspar Electronics sends his LFO, but that point would be a good target I presume.

alienmeatsack · Joined: Mar 04, 2010 Posts: 137 Location: Oklahoma

Electri-fire, I -just- bent a Speak & Math today! (Well, yesterday technically.)

I have an cb S&S already, pretty plain Jane, but it was the device that got me into the whole bending thing in the first place.

For the Speak & Math, I used stuff I found online. Referencing the misc info I gathered... I combined and separated to pick out the glitches and loops I liked mostly. (Out of fear of destroying it since I seem to be doing that lately.)

I didn't go crazy with it, and I left out lots of bending goodness. But, I loooove the sound these things make. And the loops and glitches for the S&M seem to be more "fruitful" or something. I just get a richer wordier variety it feels like.

I really wanted to explore and make notes of what I found. I figure, while I am pretty sure all the bends have been explored by someone out there, that I could easily find a few outside of the box. I just decided that what I did do was excellent, even if it was "the norm".

If I stumble across another, I'd like to try it completely from scratch to see what I get.

The one thing I do love about these devices in particular... You can go with the 3-4 different variants of bends and get a kick ass bent instrument. But, you can also just poke and prod yourself, and find similar/same and different choices to "poke and peek" the contents and force them to make crazy noises.

I love how bending is partly fact that A+B=Glitch. But I also love that if you explore, you might find that D+9=Glitch. And yur glitch might sound similar to someone elses but it might not.

alienmeatsack · Joined: Mar 04, 2010 Posts: 137 Location: Oklahoma

I also like your idea... sort of an LFO, but not via a 555 or similar.

I'm totally interested in trying new means to change up the sounds of anything. Sort of like when someone figured out that if you take a LED that is based on logic or output, point it at a photo resistor, then use that to force the device to do something.

One of my electronics engineer friends told me he likes that people like us are trying new ways to do things. He's a total X leads to Y which leads to Z kind of guy. We take that formula and stick a 500k pot in the mix and then add some output jacks. Very Happy