If you've listened to pop music in the past 40 years, you've probably heard more than a few songs with a robotic sound. That's thanks to the vocoder, a device invented by Bell Labs, the research ...

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. Originally developed for telecommunications and military applications in the 1930s, the vocoder, ...

On Version History: how to play your voice like an instrument, with a little help from Chromeo. If you buy something from a Verge link, Vox Media may earn a commission. See our ethics statement. is ...

On his 1982 album Trans, Young used the vocoder to empathize with his son's struggles with communication, a result of his cerebral palsy. Neil Young was then sued by Geffen for not sounding like Neil ...

From Stevie Wonder and Queen to Vangelis and Dua Lipa, we bring you a short musical history of this influential vocoder When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission ...