The forgotten techno speech synthesiser

[@Ant2be]

one is great example of using U-96 - Das Boot. Thanks for the video!

[@Testgeraeusch]

It took me a while until I realized that I had actually heard this before in a few songs; thanks for pointing out Das Boot :)

[@bazedjunkiii_tv]

@@Testgeraeusch to me U96 was the most obvious reference, probably due to having listened to the album a lot after i had bought it in the early 90s.

[@pakozdiattila]

One, two, three... Techno...

[@erroltheterrible]

I remember from my childhood that there was a pc dos tennis game from the mid 80's which announced the scores and tennis lingo(like "fifteen love") via speech, over the pc speaker. The game wasn't much fun, but it turned out that the speech wasn't prerecorded, it was generated on-the-fly by an external program that shipped with the game. You could run the program and give it text to speak as a parameter. That was a LOT more fun than the actual game was...

[@wasiuuu1]

this actually brings memories from the past , thank U 🙂

[@mathiasfriman8927]

"Maximum velocity" "One two three techno" Missed oportunity 😁

[@bazedjunkiii_tv]

'das boot' is what i was thinking.

[@TransistorSounds]

Yeah, in all fairness I wanted to keep things moving along so didn't include U96, Quadrophonia, Lionrock, FSOL, Snap!, etc. There were lots of fine uses of ST Speech, to be sure!

[@matti_j]

Thank you for this clip! I never bought , all my disks came with a second hand purchased ST in the mid 90's, and yes, ST speech was probably included. I used this voice extensively in cheesy dance music.

[@AboveTheTrees00]

ohh my god i remember this from the 90s maybe late 80s my cousin had 1040ste and showed me this software .. what a blast from the past

[@ThePlughugger]

It's absolutely fantastic! A cool tip if you are using plugins - record ST Speech then put it through the granular engine of Omnisphere or Pigments etc. Marvelous fun!

[@TonyLongworth]

Great video - love the ST

[@katelikesrectangles]

I remember playing with this on my friend's ST!!

[@fisk0]

I remember hearing a 90s techno cover of Yes Sir I Can Boogie using this around 1994, but I've never been able to find that version again. I particularly remembering its stumbling way of pronouncing Boogie-Woogie.

[@yodathejedi]

Cool video and facts! I remember the software a little. Had both st and amiga

[@Jasmine69420]

As someone whose just getting their toes wet with electronic music and using a lot of plugins that do mostly everything for me videos like this are a great resource for helping me develop a deeper understanding of whatever it is I am doing actually. Thanks Zoe, we love you.

[@KeritechElectronics]

Somewhat reminds me of the Voder :)

[@canecreek00]

Great stuff, I was waiting for you to type in “Humanoid” lol

[@TransistorSounds]

Ah, I believe Stakker Humanoid sampled arcade game Berzerk. That'd make another neat video too, but it'd involve going out...

[@recursiveidentity]

INTRUDER!

[@tinotrivino]

Hello Zöe, hugs from Spain :) Thanks for the Video :) I never used synth with amiga500 but i know about that :) (I was C64 user and the synth was very limited lol) Although we had a very good SID Chip! I later worked with Pc (Soundblaster PRO, later Roland) By the way, the voiceprogram you could really manipulate, if you write Nö and pitch it down, and write it NöNöNöNöNöNöNöNöNö it later was like a motor sound lol

[@MrOuija-rr8kq]

Cool video.

[@DirgeVendor-uu9bm]

Thankyou for sharing sounds wicked

[@thebmxband1t]

wow i had forgotten about that program on atari. ive still got 2 of them with that mono screen in the loft with a copy of logic and ‘ahem’ that copy of cubase everyone had. what i wanted to say is i did manage to find an original speak and spell in a charity shop. what struck me at time i found it is its hardwired power supply and home made jack plug output. it gets me thinking, i wonder if my old speak and spell was ever used in a studio or a band for something iconic? 😳😮😬😃⚛️☯️👾👽

[@creepinwhileyousleepin]

Blackout by overload. Classic eurobeat banger. I had no idea the speech came from this but I instantly recognized it.

[@TransistorSounds]

Ah, yeah, that's the ST accent alright!

[@RikMaxSpeed]

I used to love getting these things to speak French for example: “bor zhoor may zah mee”!

[@MattWhitehead80]

Love the ST voice synthesizer sound. So crunchy. Pretty sure Juan Atkins used it in ‘Techno Music. “I program my home computer”

[@TransistorSounds]

Hmm, I'm not sure what that one is... I'll have to look into it!

[@MattWhitehead80]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZoPXpoV6Zaijatksi=R8ovMhkrpv5d7W4p

[@dalek604]

Yes, you are correct

[@MattWhitehead80]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZoPXpoV6Zaijatksi=E4zq5yMOOqzTMNlC

[@bazedjunkiii_tv]

wasn't that line taken from kraftwerk? 'i program my home computer, beam myself into the future...'

[@Elnufo]

Das Boot 1 2 3 Techno!

[@deathsyrup]

Love it.

[@recursiveidentity]

It sounds very similar to others I remember, but I never had an ST sadly. I remember SAM on Amiga and C64, and also this sounds a lot like one I remember at EPOCT back in the day. Also that Atari monitor is bass ass!

[@MiniZilla1999]

VstSpeak3 VST by Wavosaur does a good emulation of this, had it on my hard drive forever. Might be better emulations out there tho. Excellent video.

[@jadekaay]

Huh.. I've got an Atari ST 520 under my bed. Had no idea i could have been making music with it 😮

[@TransistorSounds]

Totally! With its built-in MIDI ports, it was a popular choice for musicians. There are lots of MIDI sequencers for the ST, which were at the heart of making electronic music in the '80s and '90s, before DAWs replaced them. Most required a whopping megabyte of RAM, but there's a few that used just 512 KB. Tiger Cub and Sweet Sixteen should both work just fine on your 520 ST! 😊

[@dalek604]

"have you got any funky beats for me today" classic from Bassomatic's In The Realm of the Sences

[@TransistorSounds]

Ah yes, a prime candidate! I can't believe I missed that one, I love that album. I'll check them side-by-side to make sure, but it definitely sounds like it. "Close your eyes and let the music flow." Brilliant, thanks!

[@DirgeVendor-uu9bm]

Aphex used this on his polygon window album “electronic techno music” “acid mind population” (UT1-dot)

[@TransistorSounds]

Yes, that's one of the examples I typed into it.

[@Marko-nx9eq]

nice flashback

[@IanWaugh]

Ha! I remember that. But never used it for some reason 🤔 Really loved the ST. It probably crashed but I have no memory of it doing so - unlike my PCs...😠

[@TransistorSounds]

Yeah, with the right apps, it's pretty robust!

[@benmorrow1701]

I love it! Was only familiar with the mac version.

[@lucian2701]

A genuinely fascinating video, thank you! - I had no idea about the history/post work of the authors (I got st speech as part of my discovery pack so just assumed it was made by Atari). And it's not entirely forgotten ; Billain used it in his 2023 neurofunk track 'F4K YOO' (which is NSFW btw) - at least I'm pretty sure it's ST Speech.

[@TransistorSounds]

Yeah, that definitely sounds like a contender, cheers! And yes, the authors didn't exactly make it obvious who they were, which is kinda surprising. It's a really good program to just give away and not tell people you made it, you know? Calling it "ST Speech" didn't exactly dispel the notion it might be by Atari, either!

[@smooth111012]

Shall we play a game…….

[@mylarmelodies]

Ace, and is that a g-shock square?!

[@TransistorSounds]

Yeah, a GW-M5610 (module 3159). It syncs to Anthorn each morning, it's solar charged, it tells me the date as well as the time, and half the day it beeps every hour to remind me to check the time and maybe go and eat. 😅 Sure, modern smart watches also sync often so they're also always less than a second out... but they have to charge once a night rather than once a year, and need pesky updates. None of that with a Casio watch and Atari ST!

[@mylarmelodies]

@@TransistorSounds Yaas. Strong agree, that's my favourite G-Shock as well!! I want to get the newer one as it also displays the current time with a timer active.

[@jandobbelsteen8953]

Nice! I've got a Casio Pro Trek (module 5571, PRW-6600YB), also solar charged. And much for the same reasons. PS: Nice video, brings back good times :)

[@jdmjesus6103]

Straight away when i heard that voice i thought of underworld, then you typed it. Nice!

[@stephenspackman5573]

Ah. Dr Alban. Enter choice, enter choice. It's my life.

[@TransistorSounds]

OMG, I never realised It's My Life was by the No Coke guy! A positive selection indeed, yes, that sounds like it... Thank you!

[@flazay_da]

is there a softsynth of this or one similar? The best thing I've found is Vital's text to wavetable feature

[@manuka1823]

rad vid, as per, keep em coming forever

[@TransistorSounds]

Thanks! There's a lot I want to talk about, and show, it's just a question of finding the energy...

[@manuka1823]

@@TransistorSounds You can do it! Your ideas are always so unique and interesting, honestly such an asset to the synthy "youtube landscape"

[@TheAtomicTom]

I've definitely heard that one before. I would have thought it had to render the audio first, but apparently it works in realtime

[@TransistorSounds]

It's realtime, and in 512 KB of RAM too!

[@ProfessorSynth]

Nice presentation, thanks Zoe

[@plynth]

What’s the track in the background? It’s unbelievably good, I need to know what it is

[@TransistorSounds]

Thanks! That would be my own track "Voice", which you can download for free from www.zoeblade.com if you'd like. I used ST Speech in it, so it seemed appropriate.

[@MrKrisstain]

Hey Zoe! Hope everything is fine. It's been a while!

[@TransistorSounds]

Yeah, I'm OK, thanks. Just worn out! 😅

[@wishbonebrewery]

Nice. (I really dislike my one word comments!)

[@Scourgething]

I like the background music in this. Who's the author of it?

[@TransistorSounds]

Thanks! That would be my own track "Voice", which you can download for free from www.zoeblade.com if you'd like. I used ST Speech in it, so it seemed appropriate.

[@pluto9000]

It reminds me of Kraftwerk.

[@TransistorSounds]

Ah, now they quite prominently used a Texas Instruments Language Translator on Computer World.

[@Ghost_Swe]

anyone knows where do get it?

[@TransistorSounds]

Yes, if you have an Atari ST or emulator to run it on (I recommend Hatari), then you can download it from my site at notebook.zoeblade.com/ST_Speech.html -- the link's near the bottom of the page.

[@Ghost_Swe]

@@TransistorSounds thank you 🙂 I use the real hardware 👍

[@kernelpaniiic]

@@TransistorSounds Thank you so much for the video and the software. I am new to Hatari/Emutos, I can't figure how to load your .tos file into Hatari. I watched tutorials on creating .ts disks but I must be missing something obvious...

[@ZanaGBYT]

i am probably the only one being incredibly off-topic with this. But i really hope you can get that CRT fixed. The geometry isn't looking so good.

[@TransistorSounds]

Yeah, it's a bit more tilted than I'm entirely comfortable with. Does it warrant fixing, or were the tolerances just that loose back then?

[@stefangieck2914]

Humanoid

[@shinysun2283]

Amigaaaa

[@TransistorSounds]

Oh, if I had the space, I'd have both! I've never made mods on the original hardware, just in DOS and macOS.

[@shinysun2283]

@@TransistorSounds i played with trackers on amiga in the time. and one tracker had a speech engine that sounded the same as the one you showed. Idk was it octomed?

[@TransistorSounds]

@@shinysun2283 Huh, I haven't heard anything about any trackers having speech synthesis built in. The Amiga did come with Say though, although it would have been tricky back in the day to get its speech into a sample file.

[@shinysun2283]

@@TransistorSounds you must be right. it had to be Say that i used back then. i loved the speech it created. thx for correcting me.

[@TransistorSounds]

@@shinysun2283 Oh, Say's a much fancier speech synthesiser compared to ST Speech. More realistic, less stylised. I used it in one of my songs a few decades ago now. Good stuff!

[@borstenpinsel]

All your base are belong to us😅

[@Swenglish]

I thought that was AnalogX SayIt or something.

[@borstenpinsel]

@@Swenglish I have no clue what synth that game used. I'm sure it wasn't this one but it reminded me of it :D

[@Swenglish]

@@borstenpinsel Oh, I meant the flash animation/song. Were there even speech synthesis samples in the original game itself? I don't remember that.

[@alexandermathar7780]

Uboot lenzen !!

[@garethde-witt6433]

And it should stay forgotten

[@spacetrucker2196]

Gorf

[@TransistorSounds]

Ah, the Votrax SC-01! A Detroit company -- now *that's* techno!