![](https://www.preservationsound.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Mech_voco-981x1024.jpg)
**update 07.09.21 – audio clip added! see below! you can now HEAR this monstrosity!**
Download a 4PP article (+advert) from the June 1951 RADIO ELECTRONICS on the subject of a novel (+fairly creepy) electro-mechanical speech-synthesizer designed by Bell Labs.
![](https://www.preservationsound.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Untitled-1-1024x767.jpg)
This has got to be one of the wildest electro-mechanical synths every created. I wonder what New Jersey basement it ended up in. I’m preeeeetty sure that this abomination provided the historical-basis for the device that Tony Shaloub’s character was developing in the first season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Anyhow. It’s weird and far-out and I think you will enjoy reading about it.
T.F. provided us with this audio clip so that you can hear this device in action. it’s pretty remarkable TBH…
![](https://www.preservationsound.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/MEchnical_Vocoder_Schematic-1024x754.jpg)
![](https://www.preservationsound.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Mech_vocoder_2-1024x964.jpg)
One reply on “Bell Labs’ Electro-Mechanical ‘Speech Synthesizer’ circa 1951”
Were Kubrick and Clarke referencing this demonstration when HAL sang the same song as it was being dismantled in 2001: A Space Odyssey?