The machine was equipped with an in-built vocoder and was capable of spanning seven octaves. Nothing quite like this had been seen before. The vocoder evolved further in 1959 when German engineers Helmut Klein and W.Schaaf created the Siemens Synthesiser at the Siemens Studio for Electronic Music. The contraption allowed users to speak into a microphone and hear a degraded copy of their voice which could easily be sent as a simpler telecommunication, reserving precious bandwidth for other needs during the conflict. Bell Labs scientist Homer Dudley first experimented with degrading audio quality using his newly assembled vocoder. The vocoder was first conceived on the cusp of the second world war when sending high-quality voice via transmission consumed a large amount of bandwidth. And, while most people think of artists like Daft Punk and Zedd when we talk about vocoders, this creative tool was created out of military necessity. Revolutionary since its invention in 1938, the vocoder has miraculously granted all the power to sing, and has become a staple of the electronic musician’s sound-mangling toolset.
