Jeff Beck used one in the 70’s. In terms of most tasteful, I gotta go with Joe Perry in Sweet Emotion at the start of the track. I don’t register it as Talk Box, which is impressive. Ben Harper is fine - not someone I seek out but I respect what he does. He’s just so damn…handsome.
Re: Talk Boxes.
I wish they’d talked to Mrs. Carlos about the subject. It probably would have made far more sense. The talk boxes weren’t vocoders, but they make similar-sounding noises through an entirely different method. Vocoders were developed for a different reason, but they were sometimes used to make the same “robot voices”, among other things.
Autotune is trying to do one of the many things that a vocoder can do, which is making a voice part artificially on pitch.
In fact, if this show has one failing, it’s short on the tech that makes these things happen. I know it’s not a science show, it’s a cultural history show, but the studio is one of those things that exists purely on tech. A few explanations and animations of how things work would have been nice.
What was incorrect about the Talk Boxes?
I always thought they worked off air pressure as they are a flexible tube. The electricity explanation didn’t make sense.
Read my post. I explain that it’s not electrical; it acoustic.
Ep4 - great! Yay Charlie Christian!! But where’s Chuck Berry when it comes to replicating horn lines with a guitar?
Love the emphasis on DEVO!! And the track I Feel Love - so good. But where’s Kraftwerk?
And love Stevie Wonder and Eno’s ambient stuff. Where’s Bowie?
Episode 5: Four on the Floor was only okay, IMO. It was going fine until they got to EDM and modern techno and rave music, and then they completely blew it. I thought the disco part was good, and I liked the attention given to James Brown and Santana. Loved seeing Sheila E. (I still have a crush on her, apparently :p), but I guess I know too much about the history of EDM and so I was really disappointed in how they covered it.
ETA: Let’s go to the quarry and throw stuff down there see WordMan, sometimes you just have to keep reminding yourself that they only have about 50 minutes, so a lot of stuff doesn’t even get mentioned.
I’ll have to wait to watch Episodes 6-8 until I get the BR. Seems they aren’t available unless you are a PBS Passport member or have a local cable provider. 
I just watched episode 1 yesterday and thought it was great. I won’t be able to watch the rest of the series in the next week…darn!!!
Thanks to seeing this thread last week, I binge-watched episodes 1-4 yesterday afternoon via the PBS app on my Apple TV. Sooooo good! Thank you, HyacinthBucket!!
It seems that the rest of the series is already available via that app, but I decided that I’d rather record the remaining episodes as they air – including episode 5, which had already aired but was repeated this morning. It’ll be on the TiVo when I get home. I’ll be watching the rest the day after they air.
Umm…in the opening theme/montage? 
I enjoyed the episode. Agree about Little Richard; he and Eddie Cochran are my favorite early rock n’ rollers, so any light shined on them is great. Surprised Ray Charles didn’t even rate a mention for the Gospel-to-Secular migration.
Also surprised Carlos got such a robust mention. I just don’t put him there (high in the pantheon) but clearly the Afro-Cuban influence into modern Dance is key. Gregg Rolie is featured in all the clips but never name-checked.
Same with Bootsy and James Brown. So glad they featured James Jamerson and Bernard Edwards’s bass lines. And glad Jellybean and Sheila E are featured. Talk about the old Ginger Rogers line about doing what the man did, backwards and in high heels - watching Sheila Escovedo throw it down on a full drum kit in a transparent spangled uni and spikes is a head-shaking experience on many levels.
As for EDM, tell us what you think they missed, Bo - I only know EDM from the outside. Funny to hear Tiesto refer to “The Grateful Death.”
Hard in today’s climate to not see how the Disco Sucks backlash directly tracks with what is happening today. A movement gathering different tribes across race, sexual preference, etc, is smashed by people who think it is bad and should not be popular (I was one of those people back then; loved individual songs but proudly against Disco as a concept.). Thank god the moral of the story was that it never, ever came close to going away, it just went underground for a bit, got some new words and looks to repackage it, and came back to dominate.
I am not a big fan of EDM - and it is funny to hear Jellybean Benitez and Mark Ronson say “I get it and am happy for them, but no, not for me” - but any backlash is just music wars, not a statement against race or gender. Keeps it in perspective.
As a geographer, I loved learning (for example), early in Episode 6, how Jamaicans brought the dub-party technology to the Bronx in the 70s, setting the stage (literally) for rap/hip-hop and beyond.
At NYC’s PBS station’s website, I found the episodes. I did not log in as a member; just Googled the page: Soundbreaking | Video | THIRTEEN - New York Public Media
It said I had 5 days left. Good luck!
Saw ep7 - about the rise of MTV. A fine overview, but I found myself wondering what the heck the emergence of videos has to do with creating music opinion the studio. So ultimately a pointless episode as I see this series. :mad: At least Bowie was featured as an artist who influenced the video stars.
I liked the music video episode. Liked Tom Petty’s observations on pressure to make videos he really didn’t want to do. Billy Idol, (IMHO) is starting to look and sound very Keith Richards-y. Biggest disappointment was no interview with my long ago crush, Martha Quinn.
I just watched Episode 6: The World Is Yours (thanks for the link, WordMan!) and I thought it was an excellent if concise history of sampling.
I promise to come back to this question. Right now I have to keep making my patented cinnamon maple vanilla pecans. I can watch while I cook, but I can’t type too well so I’ll come back to this after the cooking is done.
To be clear: the quality of the episode is as high as the other episodes. I just don’t see how it commented, at all, on the use of the studio in recording.
Watched the last episode. Focused on the evolution of listening formats. So again, not the studio, but very relevant since it speaks to the listeners on the other end of the recording process.
Love the examples cited - Hound Dog moving from Big Mama to Elvis; Sinatra as the first concept album creator; Miles Davis, etc. Love the fact that Tommy James was part of the story as music moved from singles to albums. The Greatful Dead get solid coverage from a taping/bootleg standpoint. Well done.
Solid series all along. Glad I heard about it.
I thought Tom Petty had two of the funniest (but telling) lines. In one episode: “No one can hear ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’ without thinking of Alice in Wonderland – except me!” In another: “Everyone thinks the music of their teenage years was the best ever. But in my case, it was true!”