Posted on 03/04/2024 6:37:55 PM PST by nickcarraway
Revered music industry technician Bob Heil, best known for inventing the Talk Box effect unit, has died at the age of 83.
According to the Belleville News-Democrat, Heil passed away after a cancer battle in Belleville, IL., leaving a legacy that included the advancement of live concert sound systems, pipe organ tuning and maintenance, ham radio and running a music store.
Peter Frampton – whose use of the Heil Talk Box on 1976 release Frampton Comes Alive! made the device’s reputation – said: “I am so sorry to hear of the loss of my friend for so many years, Bob Heil. A musician, inventor… Heil Sound and microphones.”
Describing the Talk Box as “a very important present” which he’d received for Christmas in 1974, Frampton added: “Can never thank Bob enough. Rest in power my friend.”
Joe Walsh – for whom the Talk Box was developed in 1973 – recalled Heil’s motto, “So waddya got that doesn’t work?” and commented: “[A] tireless problem solver, a mentor to me and guide on my guitar journey, Bob was our wizard in the Midwest. He was also my friend for more than 50 years.
“’So waddya got that doesn’t work?’ Well, I don’t think my phone is working because you’re not picking up. RIP, man. I love you and miss you already. Sending love to… the world of audioheads you leave behind.”
The News-Democrat reported that Heil came to the rescue of the Grateful Dead in 1970 when they needed a sound system for a show in St. Louis. The band were so impressed with Heil’s powerful rig that they invited him to tour with them.
The following year he provided a similar service to the Who, then Walsh and Jeff Beck, and became a trusted advisor to many in the music business.
Hear Bob Heil’s Talk Box on ‘Frampton Comes Alive!’
“I started in 1955 as the pipe organist at the Fox Theater in St. Louis,” he said in a 2008 interview. “I was fortunate to learn how to voice and tune that pipe organ as a teenager. That's where I learned to listen – listening is a real art.”
How Bob Heil Made Touring Easier for Big Bands
He said ham radio was his first love, and that a microphone he developed for the hobby was so good that fellow aficianado Walsh used it on stage, which had given its builder a new business line.
Another initiative that made Heil proud was his modular approach to building mixing desks. He explained: “[W]hat if you’re a group out in the field and channel six dies? What are you going to do? ‘I’ve got to send the board back.’
“Just unplug channel six and send it to me. You’re still working. You’re down one channel but you're not down ten channels. Pretty ingenious for 1971.”
Read More: Talk Box Inventor Bob Heil Dead at 83 |
I'm sure 500 Bob Heils have crossed the border though, ready to innovate and make life better for all of us. So we have that going for us, which is nice.
Frampton Comes Alive! is a classic!
Wasn’t the Talk Box, or at least a similar effect, used in numerous radio “sounders” and during the late 60s and 70s ?
“Do you feel like we do?”
RIP
without Talk Box there would be no Autotune.
Without Autotune, there would be no Taylor Swift.
So, damn him to hell....
I had a chance to talk with Bob in person about 5 years ago. He was a very high profile person in the amateur radio world. He was at every. Major convention and all over YouTube. You could tell he loves the hobby and happily shared his expertise! He will be missed. De ka6s
Sonovox, dates back to the 1940s.
Ditto. I have Heil microphones on all of my mobile ham radios.
My Icom 7100, with supposedly a 100 watt transmitter only put out 30 watts until I replaced the stock mic with a Heil studio type mic.
Then it put out the full 100 watts.
The interviews with him on Youtube are well worth watching.
RIP, a great man.
No, that was the Sonovox.
The Sonovox applied a vibrator to the throat in order to excite the vocal cords without the use of the lungs. Speech or singing was done by using the mouth, teeth, and tongue as usual. It goes back to Alvino Rey, who was also a ham radio operator, you can find videos of it with his wife who was one of the King Sisters.
Bob’s talk-box was actually invented by Pete Drake, who was a studio musician at RCA’s famed Nashville studio B. Hie played his “talking steel guitar” into a speaker that conducted sound into the mouth via a tube. Bob Heil improved on it and made it louder for use with rock music.
PAMS of Dallas created many jingles using the Sonvox and even recorded a long piece of instrumental music for use as a bed named the “Sonowaltz”.
Frampton needs to at least raise a glass to him.
Thank you both.
What a source of knowledge is to be found among the FReepers !
Rocky Mountain Way IIRC was the first song to use it.
Peter has always been very thankful for Bob’s contributions to his career, which started when Heil was doing the sound for Humble Pie on tour. The manager, a mobster of some note, said “I’m taking the Pretty Boy (Frampton) solo!”. Peter’s girlfriend, Penny McCall, went to Bob after a concert and asked what he could recommend that she get for Peter as a Christmas gift, and Bob had the inspiration to think of the talk-box, and gave one to her to give to Peter.
You can find interviews on YouTube where Peter tells this story, but I heard it from Bob himself who was a good friend. I was shocked to hear of his passing after chatting with him in person just over a month ago. Cancer is a horrible disease that robs us of many of our best people.
Wikipedia......
In its role distorting vocals, Auto-Tune operates on different principles from the vocoder or talk box and produces different results.[7]
The two are not related.
You might be thinking of the vocoder.
BB— Great post. The kind that makes FR my favorite-ever website.
Bkbm
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