Talk Box

Here is one for $99
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/Danelectro-Free-Speech-Talk-Box?sku=151905
Check out the sound samples :D

This shouldn't need an "extra" mic, but you'll need to sing into a mic in order to get the proper effect. I would think that it sounds really weird inside your head, not much like it sounds on the outside.

Are there any more costly talk boxes that may have better features? The reviews on that unit say many had to buy an EQ to eliminate feedback issues.

You could always buy a Dano EQ for about $29 if one was needed. It probably depends on what equipment you are using and how loud you need to be among other things--the dog

Rocktron and Dunlap have them for $129 and $149 on MF :D

Aside from performing live, do you think that the Danelectro Free Speach will be good enough for me to use without buying a separate mic?

If you are just playing around the house or practicing with a band at a relatively low volume I would think the Dano box talk box would be just fine :D BTW I remember reading a article in one of the musicians magazines about 30 years ago on how to make one but I think it would be a lot simpler just to buy the dang thing :lol: . The talk box goes way back to the 1930's. --the dog

So far as mics, you just use the vocal mic you're already using. If you're not singing into a mic, well, you're going to have to buy one, and an amp or PA for it. That's how the thing works. You can't send it back into your guitar amp. The talk box is just a remote speaker for your guitar amp, a horn driver that's hooked to a tube into your mouth. It's an output device only. Works just like a speaker cab as far as the amp's concerned. The sound that's been shaped by your mouth then has to be miked and amplified.

The dano talk box does't require a mic :D the following was pasted from the Dano add off of MF:

"Danelectro Free Speech Talk Box Features:

New mic-free, plug and play technology
Groovy retro look
Great price"

If you are just playing around the house or practicing with a band at a relatively low volume I would think the Dano box talk box would be just fine :D BTW I remember reading a article in one of the musicians magazines about 30 years ago on how to make one but I think it would be a lot simpler just to buy the dang thing :lol: . The talk box goes way back to the 1930's. --the dog

Geez, I think remember that article. Didn't know where to get a horn driver, so I built mine with a Pignose amp, funnel and a garden hose. Looked really stupid, but worked.

Anybody remember Alvino Rey?. He played "steel" guitar with the King Family, and used a talk box.

Don't know how a "mic-free" talk box could work well. It would be a feedback circuit, plain and simple. It'd have to have a driver connected in parallel with the amp's speaker, and a built in mic feeding back into the amp, either mixed with the guitar input or into the return of an effects loop. Similar in a way to a reverb circuit feeding back a modified version of the amp's signal. I'm not familiar with that Dano box, but I'd expect it'd be very hard to get good results with something like that.

I think I'd just build a traditional one.

Oh, OK, I went over and looked and listened to that thing over on MF. It's a pedal with a speaker and mic in the bottom end of the tube that goes in your mouth. Does wah effects.
:roll:

For some reason none of the sound links on Musicians Friend work for me, Riocchet, would you mind expanding on your last comment? Did you think that it sounded bad?

No, it just does pretty much what any wah pedal will do. That's all I heard before I got tired of listening, anyway.

So it didn't sound like a traditional Talk Box effect?

P.S. Sorry for the continuing questioning Riochet, but your comments are really getting my curiosity fired and leaving too much unknown. Unfortunately the only way I can find out what the Dano Free Speach sounds like is to order one, and then I might lose money if I didn't like it and had to return it.

All I heard 'em play before I clicked it off was a bunch of "wah, wah, wah" stuff. And I really don't see how it could do much more with the sound source and mic both being at the opposite end of the tube from your mouth. You can obstruct or open the tube, and you can change the volume of the resonant cavity at the end. (Your mouth.) I don't think you could get real "talking" (like Peter Frampton did in "Do You Feel Like I Do?") with an arrangement like that. But I didn't listen to the whole thing. Maybe I missed the miracle.