Voice of the Cylon Pt. 1 The Synthesizer

Battlestar Galactica fans & synthesizer community, rejoice! For the first time in history the mysterious sound of the Cylon voice is revealed. I tracked down probably the last person alive who knows the entire formula, very private individual still works in visual arts. To him it was just a job he did 40 years ago, to me it's one of the most mesmerizing sounds in musical/sci-fi fx history. 6 parts to this series as of 11-2019. You can contact me at the "about" page of my profile.

[@anthonylloyd6094]

Found this by chance. This is fricking awesome. BG was a staple of my childhood.

[@markbooket6477]

Omggggg, the Cylon voice used to scare the bejeezus out of me and my baby brother!! , but we watched it anyway.

[@eusebiou-say-bee-oh326]

Imagine if Siri, Alexa or any number of translators have this voice today 🤖

[@bobbiusshadow6985]

I wish they make it optional in their next devices.

[@eusebiou-say-bee-oh326]

@@bobbiusshadow6985 Yeah, me too. Especially for voice commands replies like when we ask for the television the heat or air conditioner to be on or off, we get a reply of, "By your command" 🤖😄

[@jeffharder8706]

Siri would still suck lol

[@eusebiou-say-bee-oh326]

@@jeffharder8706 Jeff Harder lolz, I lolz, somewhere Alexa lolz 😅

[@favoritemustard3542]

Know a dude that has a HAL 9ØØØ smart home rig. It's "professionally" made... KickStarter & you can pick which 🤖 is the base for him, too!

[@MP_Soundbox]

My nostalgic BSG searches brought me here and I'm so happy. What an incredible surprise! Thank you!

[@cylonvoiceguy]

This has perplexed me for 40+ years! one more important video coming, several new discoveries!

[@mauriciocespedes2066]

One of the most iconic sounds from the 80`s...

[@cylonvoiceguy]

1978-1980 :) YES the most iconic of all!

[@johniii8147]

70s

[@robd1329]

By Your Command! Wish we got a continuation 70s style of Galactica!

[@billpagan3070]

Yes, I agree! I love it!😁👍

[@thomaslthomas1506]

70’s

[@schot2643]

The nicest robot voices are those of the original Cylons! The Cylons are so cool. Watched the series when i was a kid, now i'm 48 and still like this freakin' Cylons. Impressive how they did it in 1978. I hope you put more demo's of Cylon voices on your channel! Well done sir! And HOW did they make the Cylon eye 'warble' sound ??? Hope you can also remake this cool warble sound. Greetings from The Netherlands

[@nicepush2574]

I have the original warble sound that came with the costume. I can send it to you as MP3 HQ file: [e-mail] Ik ben ook een Hollander

[@JustWasted3HoursHere]

Yep. The Cylons had the coolest voices and they also had the coolest looking ships in all of sci-fi in my opinion (their fighters not the Base star). I'm hoping that the reboot is a little more like the old series than the 2004 series was.

[@RobertWilkinsonJKekMaloy]

@Alonzo Liam stop spamming.

[@intromix]

YESSSSS!!! What an absolute treat!! Been waiting my WHOLE LIFE to put this ancient piece of history and mystery to an end! ARP 2500 synthesizer was and is a very unique synth to this day,, that would definitely explain why NOBODY has been able to “replicate” the oscillator alone that drove the parameters of the Vocoder to its full potential 😃😄😁

[@cylonvoiceguy]

Yeaahh!! So glad I reached out to you & picked up where you left off with the "cheater" oscillator, we would have never guessed all this crazy chain of gear, lucky goldcylon came through with the info!

[@axel4196]

Hmmm. That probably explains why the German Cylons sounded different.

[@favoritemustard3542]

@@axel4196... hmm... yes, that is definitely one reason. 🤖📢💨🇩🇪⁉️

[@zechmerquise5281]

Omg!! This is epic!!! Thank God the secret has not been lost. I love the voice!

[@quietlightning4063]

Vulpa had to wait for almost the entire first episode of Gun on Ice Planet Zero before he and the other gold Cylons at the pulsar station there got voice upgrades. Vulpa was a capable up and coming golden centurion with a promising future.... his “by your command” to Baltar was the only “by your command” ever said by a golden centurion. Vulpa was a great Cylon... RIP

[@DanielAppleton-lr9eq]

Was Vulpa a cross between the Centurions & the IL series ? Just curious.

[@quietlightning4063]

@@DanielAppleton-lr9eq I think Glen Larson wanted to make Vulpa a recurring character. Distinct from other golden cylons. But it never happened.. . We never got the information

[@DanielAppleton-lr9eq]

@@quietlightning4063 I had a Marvel comics graphic novelization of the pilot, & I think that he was in it when they met the Ovions. He was very urbane like the Il series.

[@ronaldswett8438]

​@@DanielAppleton-lr9equ6

[@zapso7742]

Great voice The best performance voice in history of robots Greetings from Chile 🇨🇱

[@favoritemustard3542]

Twiki 🤖📢💨: WtF, Buck? ...err, Zap?!

[@robwalsh9843]

The Cylons and the Ko-Dan troops from The Last Starfighter sounded really threatening. Harsh, mechanized and direct. Scared me a bit as a kid.

[@themagus5906]

"Greetings, Starfigher! You have been chosen to defend the Frontier against Xur and the Ko-Dan armada!" ALL the alien villains from the 1980s were great representations of evil, not the re-imagined counterparts of the 21st century. We knew who our enemies were back then just by listening to them. Oh wait, we still do.....

[@nicepush2574]

YESSSSSSS !!!!!!!! Finally, finally, FINALLY Thank you so much !!!!!!

[@tahotoy]

Leave it to a veteran underground techno DJ to take on a this huge with so few clues and prevail. Splendid, dear boy. Splendid indeed !

[@nakdad]

Loved it. Yes I’m old enough to have seen the original series.

[@ericmelson9352]

💙 Thank you for this!

[@AGFio]

These videos are the best use of KZbin I have ever seen. So awesome.

[@cylonvoiceguy]

*the mixer shown is a custom Electrodyne that belonged to Neil Young; and the silver Helios preamps in the rack are from the Rolling Stones live rack *_*

[@thegood9]

This is awesome...i just want the helmet with the oscillating Red LED in the eyes now....PLEASE!

[@LarryandNance]

I talked to a guy in my hometown back in the late 70's early 80's on the CB radio that was playing Cylon sounds over the CB. He said he built a homemade Verbatone. He was able to make custom sounds in the Cylon voice.

[@pwnmeisterage]

It's always been easy to emulate robotic cylon voices through early vocoders and synths. Can be tweaked into a surprisingly good match, most people would never hear any difference without side-by-side comparisons. But it's never been easy to exactly duplicate the peculiar quirks. The strange harmonics, the frequency drift, etc. These are all artifacts from the particular equipment and the particular operator. A bit of science, a bit of art.

[@matthewdavies2057]

Wish somebody sold a software based Cylon voice converter.

[@davidwillard7334]

TRUCK DRIVER : SO ! WHICH ! CONVOY ! DO ! YOU ! BELONG !! TO !?? BREAKER ! BREAKER !!!

[@rainbowrailroadcrossing7798]

@@matthewdavies2057 Exactly

[@donovansantos179]

Hats off to you for hunting this down. Amazing piece of history. I've been trying to figure this out for years and spent thousands of dollars on gear trying to get this sound. And now I know I can't afford to remake the sound LOL! I'm using the SVC 350 and Juno 106. But thank you for cracking a huge mystery!

[@cylonvoiceguy]

You can make great tones with that combo but not Cylon voices- 11 band vs 16 band. It gets worse- there are two more expensive rare vintage EQ's involved, I'll be doing 1 more video on them soon!

[@jeffersonvandike9349]

Cool beans!! Thanks for sharing :)

[@darkstreamfish2729]

I remember watching this show as a kid and just being absolutly awed when they talked. Growing up, this was the only thing that gave Star Wars a run for its money in my mind.

[@cylonvoiceguy]

Agreed! They really knocked it out of the park with the sound design

[@VoiceEncoder]

You SHOULD put this series together in one video.

[@bubbaayoub825]

this is incredible, great work! You should come to Knobcon. The worlds only synthesizer convention is a Mecca for people like you and me

[@WeirdMedicine]

"The world's only synthesizer convention"? No, Supajc, come to Moogfest instead! :-)

[@bubbaayoub825]

@@WeirdMedicine Moogfest is a music festival that incorporates a pavilion for synthesizer and effects manufacturers to peddle their wares. Knobcon is a convention devoted to synthesizers where people who do things like this can meet other people who are on their level and share their experience with less knowledgeable folks while having fun and goofing around with synthesizers. Completely different experiences and types of events. Just don't call anything that isn't a con a con because that's lyin'

[@WeirdMedicine]

@@bubbaayoub825 "Knobcon is a convention devoted to synthesizers where people who do things like this can meet other people who are on their level and share their experience with less knowledgeable folks while having fun and goofing around with synthesizers..." TOTALLY different than Moogfest. :-)

[@billba]

Loooove your work!!!

[@johnadams7899]

I love the quality of presentation and production. Very professional and well thought out!

[@UltraKryptonian]

Great video! I love the Cylon voices - used to watch the show, as a kid. Thanks for doing this!

[@Derpy1969]

I’m back and rewatching it because of the other cool video!

[@badbiffa2]

Robot Booth App for Iphone has two Cylon voices to choose from which is pretty good, I had been looking for a while and finally found something. Just used it on a project, and worked well.

[@kixxalot]

Haha, the intro is awesome!!

[@battlestarmarc]

Best sci fi show ever. Should have been a mega franchise.

[@VoiceEncoder]

It's great, but 'Star Trek': TOS will ALWAYS be the greatest and BEST!!! Even though it has no vocoder (vocoding) in it.

[@nicepush2574]

Hey Joe, I used your samples this year for Halloween 2021 in my BSG Cylon Centurion suit. THANK YOU SO MUCH again for your work. LOTS of attention, videos and pictures. I just turned barely 51 but your voice are BY FAR the closest of the late 70's and 80's. Keep em going man!!!!!! Happy Halloween. FRED

[@cylonvoiceguy]

Outstanding! They're getting better and better, one more mega gear roundup video coming hopefully by end of year! !

[@scottdunn2178]

I was 12 in 1978 when Battlestar Galactica was on Saturday afternoons. Great memories.

[@ussexeter4601]

TOS BSG was never on Saturday afternoons in 1978, it was a prime time show.

[@mksounds6326]

I remember going through a Cylon battle on the tram at Universal Hollywood back in the early 80's when I was a kid. Thanks for the vid and best from the Bay Area! MK

[@stevedenis8292]

As a kid we just used to talk into a rotating fan . It always gets me that back in the day it took a room sized piece of equipment to do what something the size of a cellphone can do now.

[@cylonvoiceguy]

Nothing sounds like this long chain of tubes, tape, transformers, inductors... nothing! We wish it could... software sounds weak, thin, and digital compared to the real thing

[@LO_P4N]

I used to love this as a kid. I listen to a lot of break music with the implementation of synthesizer samples ❤

[@Theomite]

Doing the Lord's work you are.

[@BoMcD1963]

Fantastic!!!

[@duanedahljr1669]

Even 40 yrs later sounds awesome and unique. Drives my dogs nuts!

[@reggiep75]

This is total gold as I think everyone meddling with synths & vocoders has got close to the voice but are missing something. I'd love to see a physical image of a few cycles of the waveform as I'd be able to understand it much better, having chopped up waves/samples for well over 30 years now. Just a look at 'that' waveform and I get to work layering oscillators to get close the core waveform. Great vid and iconic sound.

[@OneMinuteGalactica]

Nice start to the series.

[@wilfredodiaz8743]

Love the Cylon voices They were always amazing to hear

[@lekk]

Excellent! Thank you for putting this together!

[@intromix]

Scott,, thanks to Joe here and a friend of ours from the Netherlands, and our grateful expertise from our Source from universal that worked on the original voices, we got SUPER lucky to get our hands on the gear they used. I’ve been working on trying to duplicate these for 24 years and we are both a HAIR away from getting a few more pieces that we need to finalize the project!!!

[@sky173]

This is fracking cool!

[@wmr6735]

As a kid, I used to wrap a piece of waxed paper around a pocket comb and speak into it. It sounded pretty good when I would say "by your command"

[@ehudgavron9086]

Well.. After all these years. I knew about vocoders and synths. I've even attempted some circuits in high school (right at Glactica 1980 which I'll pretend never existed). But. To. This. Day. Nobody has scratched that itch until this video. Thank you!!

[@leonardomattarmonteiro2824]

THIS is one of the coolest,most entertaining vids ever made. THANKS a bunch SENSEI! 🙌🏼✨🤘🏻🤘🏻

[@stevenstokes7509]

The Atlanta International Airport's people move used to have the Cylon voice for when someone was blocking the door... but long ago they changed it ...

[@cylonvoiceguy]

I found a recording of that on youtube, it's very similar, some kind of computer vocoder or speech synthesis. People have told me it was identical, maybe some of them were leased out

[@RandyPiscione]

Saw the larger description on Matrixsynth, good that you mentioned the Marshall Time Modulator, I thought that's what was used.

[@intromix]

The Marshall time modulator was a good guess/speculation , but only a rumor,, it’s so awesome that when Joe asked his source from Universal, he touched Joe that the Marshall wasn’t in production at that time when the original voices were being worked on,, cool piece of history info!

[@VoiceEncoder]

@@intromix Yes, I used to think the Marshall 5002 Time Modulator was used. Good to know this.

[@BattlestarPacifica]

Just had to comment and say how amazing this is! For years I've been searching the interwebs for any info as to how they achieved the Cylon's sound and the equipment that was used. Thanks so much for your time, dedication and perseverance! Outstanding work!! BY YOUR COMMAND

[@cylonvoiceguy]

The pleasure is all mine! I'm still reconstructing piece by piece my ARP 2500 clone and Electrodyne console (500 series preamps, RARE 9-band EQ's...) it is a labor of love!

[@FreihEitner]

Nice! I love me some Cylon "By your command" recordings. I have that as a notification sound on my cell phone for when my boss messages me.

[@cylonvoiceguy]

It's such a mesmerizing tone, never duplicated!

[@mattnobrega6621]

Machines creating machine voices. That should be the voice of the future

[@robd1329]

Had the re-imagined Galactica used real actors in costumes...it would have been Epic! CGI cannot outdue real costumes!

[@DeckSeven]

Awesome! Thanks for this presentation and info! So it's an ARP 2500 synth with 4 oscillators capable of creating that unique Cylon vocoder sound, built from 1970 to 1981. You know, even today every electronic music producer, including myself, would love to own this hardware. Ofcourse only if you can afford it and know where to buy a rare functioning unit. I just checked more details on wikipedia. Apparently the retail price back then was between 7 and 20 thousand dollars!

[@cylonvoiceguy]

I'm pretty sure it's 3 out of the 5 possible. Sine, Triangle, and modified PWM. THey altered the PWM to differentiate when more than 1 was in a scene. Genius

[@johnnygray8160]

Fascinating! Thanks for the great video.

[@crisfossey]

One of my greatest childhood comforts that sound

[@mid-atlanticrrandairplanes6512]

This same equipment was used for the voice recordings heard in the space ship in the movie Hangar 18 if there are any who remember that movie.

[@paulcrisp9861]

Metal mickey meets knight rider, classic show, I've just started watching all the old episodes again. Fantastic and way ahead of its time. April 2021 🙏❤🇬🇧🇬🇧🇬🇧❤🙏💎💎💎

[@paulpisano8538]

Having different voice sounds gave them personality IMHO.

[@foxglove9]

This was so great. Now to find out how they created all the G1 Transformers voices.

[@cylonvoiceguy]

Roland SVC-350 vocoder, you're welcome! :)

[@foxglove9]

@@cylonvoiceguy But were all the characters voices created with that vocoder, or just Soundwave? I'm talking Insecticons, Grimlock, Junkions, Megatron, Combiners, and so on.

[@cylonvoiceguy]

@@foxglove9 ah I was thinking mainly the theme song, from what I listen to it sounds like a lot of harmonizers/pitch shifter effects blended into the natural character voice.

[@VoiceEncoder]

@@cylonvoiceguy For the song. BUT for Soundwave it was the Roland VP-330 Vocoder Plus. More LIKELY the Mk 2 (Mk II) version since that's the CLEARER-sounding one.

[@VoiceEncoder]

For the song. BUT for Soundwave it was the Roland VP-330 Vocoder Plus. More LIKELY the Mk 2 (Mk II) version since that's the CLEARER-sounding one.

[@rodneyrussell-to4ng]

I always liked the show, but I loved the Cylon's!!! I know that they were the bad guys, but I always thought that they were so cool!! I loved the way they sounded, and I always wanted one of those costumes!!! They were always my favorite part of the show!!! By Your Command!!!

[@JK-Visions]

This is sooo cool! I now give up ever recreating the cylon voice;) Even the robot app doesnt do the job.

[@ubiquitousreverser]

That was really cool! I never watched the series but am a huge synth/sound design lover. Thanks for sharing this unique gem of synthesis iconography.

[@u2ooberboober]

They were always so shiny!

[@SevenDeMagnus]

Time for the tools used for: Soundwave (Transformers 80's)

[@madtrucker3757]

Love this show. Didn’t miss an episode.

[@mr.bonesbbq3288]

Thanks, been wonderin this fer many decades, Amigo!

[@cylonvoiceguy]

We all did! One more blockbuster episode coming soon!

[@Allwaysontop1949]

I can remember creating a Cylon voice with several tone generators and a ring modulator for commercials and film narrations back in the '70's. Fun times.

[@cylonvoiceguy]

The clashing sine/triangle is reminiscent of the ring mod sound, that was a good guess people had about the tone, but now it has been unravelled, no more guessing!

[@mfrostel7459]

Amazing job thanks for your dedication

[@BobbyBriscoeBeats]

This was a very cool project. A nice similar one to do would be the "ahh this stuff is really fresh" that all the DJ's scratch. It's at the end of the french version of "Change the Beat" by Fab Five Freddy. I've tried to recreate it to some extent with little success. It sounds like a vocoder with white noise as the carrier, ran through maybe a flanger and chorus. If you are interested in looking into it - let me know.

[@cylonvoiceguy]

I have reverse engineered that sample and recreated it on my Loopmasters sound library "Vocode Galactica". I should do a video about it!

[@BobbyBriscoeBeats]

@@cylonvoiceguy ya that would be awesome. I think I'm pretty close to it, but ableton's vocoder doesn't quite do it

[@cylonvoiceguy]

@@BobbyBriscoeBeats I really wish software vocoders were as good as analog but they physically can't be....

[@BobbyBriscoeBeats]

@@cylonvoiceguy Would you be interested in helping with a special project? The goal is to recreate as closely as possible the "change the beat" chain - then feed other famous hip hop scratch samples through it. We love scratching these sounds due to the white noise, but it would be cool to have some fun with other sounds.

[@cylonvoiceguy]

@@BobbyBriscoeBeats I'm workin 55hr weeks now, ugh no time- when I did that library I was injured and out... back to the grind stone!

[@user-iz4rs5vf3n]

I'm sure Pete Townshend from The Who has used an ARP 2500 and a 2600... "Pete: I still had the full-size barn studio that I built for mixing Quadrophenia and, while working on the demo for this track (Who Are You), nearly blew my own brains out developing the backing track for the song. The weird background guitar sound on this was created with a top-secret ARP 2600 patch I invented, but the sawing guitar sound at its heart was generated with an 'E-Bow.' "Also The Foo Fighters did "Love Reign O'er Me", which featured a keyboardist that used an ARP Synth

[@SusanHollowayart]

Wow! Thank you for your attention to detail, your ears and your pursuit! Great story! Fascinating information and thank you for your generosity in sharing with us!

[@cylonvoiceguy]

It has been so much fun to acquire, interpret, and relay this information.... one more fantastic video coming !

[@glenesis]

Thanks for this! Lucky for us, with Alan Pearlman's involvement and blessing, a company named CMS has been hand-building ARP 2500 modules and clones for 35 years. Also, Behringer are releasing an inexpensive line of exact recreations of 2500 modules. 4 of them are already on the market. EMS Vocoder 2000 is more difficult but there is (IMHO inadequate) software that emulates the EMS 5000 Vocoder... I thank you very much for documenting this!!

[@cylonvoiceguy]

I have four of the CMS modules- gotta be grateful they even exist! Yes all software fails embarassingly compared to hardware vocoders

[@glenesis]

@@cylonvoiceguy Lucky dawg! Congrats on the CMS modules! I want everything they make LOL.

[@biercom]

Wow! Just Wow! 👍😍

[@Spock910]

Just saw this. I wish I had a recording but back when Battlestar was out I could talk like that. Blew my teachers and classmates minds. I was around 12 at the time.

[@mylesl2890]

This was kewl, when i was a kid, i was desperate to try to re create that cylon voice I made my own syn i came kinda close for a kid w/just perf boards ...was fun playing w/it and my friends.

[@evilengine9]

Holy cow! I haven’t heard that voice in 42 years.

[@frikandelkroket9335]

I have waited for this all my life.

[@thetinkerist]

look out! behind you!

[@scottlowell493]

At the time...the coolest thing on tv....

[@WickedScott]

Dang! I thought it was just a dude talking thru a fan. You're like Mr. Spock traveling back in time and building something from old technology. The complexity of this astounded me!

[@Workerbee-zy5nx]

Let this groove song, blue sky also used it. ELO and Cool and the Gang from the 70s..its the coolest robo sound if all time.

[@actionau]

All modern homes/ apartments should have that background whirring drone that plays from the beginning till around 0:27

[@MGower4465]

TBH, I did not understand most of this, but I was utterly fascinated anyway.

[@ToysintheStatic]

Nice! I got the synthrotek roboto just because it had a cylon on the front. But it doesn’t hold a candle to an arp 2500. I’m surprised they used something so rare

[@tuanvandersluis4433]

weird but cool. it takes me back a all.

[@Sparky-Tim]

Nice bit of nostalgia. Wasn't this also used as the voice of the spaceships computer in Hangar 18?

[@mattbettany1174]

Pretty sure the same voice was used in the unofficial Bond film Never Say Never again when Bond played against Lago in the world domination game

[@cylonvoiceguy]

Was definitely a vocoder, different synth tone however. Great movie!

[@the1spyderryder]

The sound generator in the commadore 64 pulls this off easily plus it has an internal mixer that will allow you to mix a regular voice with it. You should try it . I used a "SID CHIP" in many synthersis projects ! The SID CHIP was one of the very best sound chips ever used in consumer electronics.

[@cylonvoiceguy]

Not a chance

[@mkhud50n]

I used to know the original guy that did the Cylon voice and drink coffee with him all the time. He said they used some of these effects to clean it up but mostly it was his real voice. Really. I’d get him to do the voice at least once a day. He was really old then (20 years ago) and hearing that voice coming out of an old man was surreal. 🤖

[@cylonvoiceguy]

please no trolling LOL !

[@mkhud50n]

@@cylonvoiceguy no troll real story

[@cylonvoiceguy]

@@mkhud50n I gotta meet this guy now and get to the bottom of it! Email me from my channel "About" page

[@scottgibson807]

Back in the day all you needed was a box fan.

[@kdanagger6894]

I had a friend that owned a vocoder back in the 90's. He used it for sound processing for the band they he worked for part-time. As I recall he said it only cost him around $150. You could adjust it to make your own voice sound exactly like a Cylon.

[@lenBrill1971]

I always loved how the cylons were filmed in their UFO with blue lighting. I know their fighter UFOs had a name but in all the years i forgotten. I'm not using Google to cheat. Cylons, chrome, blue lighting AWSOME

[@cylonvoiceguy]

They were really blue in Galactica 1980. Looks great on blu-ray!

[@ninline2000]

Those old style synthesizers are basically the end of an era. Digital tech replaced all that and the sounds are very hard to reproduce. The SID chip in the Commodore 64 computer is basically irreplaceable today. I have a new replacement that attempts to emulate it but the difference is very clear. Games no longer sound quite right.

[@paulofranco7099]

When all boys at my school tried to speak exactly like the cylons and there was a contest to show the best cylon copycat. 😁😁😁 Even nowadays i like that "sound".

[@trevorinthailand]

The voice of these robot creeps scares me to death😮😅😅😊😊😊

[@JV-tg2ne]

What’s so goofy is they’re robots, who certainly didn’t need to speak because they could basically communicate lighting fast via radio binary code

[@ChrisReise]

I used to speak through the low end of a harmonica when I was a kid.

[@mfpinterceptor]

I'd love to have a few custom sentences (clean) recorded in a Cylon voice like Dick Tufeld used to do for folks B9 robot replicas....

[@brettbaker9310]

wow gave me chills ...flash back