Sequencing an SP0256-AL2 Speech IC from Ableton Live

The SP0256-AL2 "Narrator" chip has appeared in many arcade games in the 80's for speech synthesis purposes.

This video shows a hardware ("real") SP0256 IC sequencer from Ableton Live via internal MIDI routing and a serial connection over USB.

In the video, the left track is the SP0256-AL2 and the right track is a drum track that is playing back on a virtual sampler.

I didn't really try to make words or phrases. Instead, i have tried to use the chip in a more musical way.

I really like the sound quality and some of the address sounds heard from the chip. Nice and grainy.

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http://little-scale.blogspot.com

Category:

Music

Tags:

• sebastian
• tomczak
• little
• scale
• adelaide
• arduino
• ableton
• live
• max
• msp
• SP0256
• SP0256-AL2
• speech
• synthesis
• electronic

[EA78751]

I like it. sounds cool. are some of the noise/hi-hat sounds coming from the SP0256, or is it just making vowel sounds?

[littlescale]

Hi there, yes you are right... some of the hi-hat-esque sounds are coming from the SP0256, but not all of them. Thanks for the comment!

[patto2k]

ever tried renoise seb?

[littlescale]

Well i have a copy on my computer, but I haven't had a chance to learn it. Why?

[patto2k]

oh thought you might like it.

[littlescale]

Ha, yeah I am sure I will too, just haven't had the time, you know? ;-)

[EA78751]

make any new tracks with this? I'd like to check it out.

[purplenoise2002]

Man, and I thought I had come up with an "original idea" I just ordered some speech chips to do pretty much *exactly* the same, thinking, no way has anybody thought of this. Well congrats, I like it, and like your beats. Thumbs up. What micro are you using to drive the chip?

[JohnLRice]

Sounds really cool!

[alexdatsko]

impressive! makes me want to grab a ti-99-4a with the old speech synthesis addon, thing was cool =]

[CyroPyro84]

sounds kinda like aphex twin