Q 01/05

Sound designer Ben Burtt mixed his own voice with an ARP 2600 synthesizer to create which Star Wars droid's speech?

A) R2-D2

B) C-3PO

C) IG-88

D) R5-D4

Answer · why

A) R2-D2

R2-D2 owes his beeps and whistles to an ARP 2600. Burtt later used the same machine for the eerie sounds of the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the ...

Q 02/05

Which pop group used a Moog synthesizer on a 1967 album after its drummer bought one of the first twenty sold?

A) The Beach Boys

B) The Hollies

C) The Monkees

D) The Turtles

Answer · why

C) The Monkees

The Monkees were among the first pop acts to record with a Moog. Micky Dolenz played his own on the song Daily Nightly, while session man Paul Beaver ...

Q 03/05

Which musician's 1968 album Switched-On Bach, performed on a Moog synthesizer, won three Grammy Awards?

A) Isao Tomita

B) Wendy Carlos

C) Suzanne Ciani

D) Laurie Spiegel

Answer · why

B) Wendy Carlos

Wendy Carlos built the album one note at a time over about a thousand hours, because her Moog could sound only a single note at once. It became the se...

Q 04/05

The Roland TB-303, a flop designed to replace bass guitars, became the defining synthesizer of which 1980s dance genre?

A) Italo disco

B) Drum and bass

C) UK garage

D) Acid house

Answer · why

D) Acid house

Acid house began when electronic musicians picked up cheap second-hand units after Roland dropped the machine. The 1987 single Acid Tracks is often cr...

Q 05/05

Which robot-voice effect began as a 1930s Bell Labs invention used to encrypt voice calls during World War II?

A) Vocoder

B) Talk box

C) Auto-Tune

D) Flanger

Answer · why

A) Vocoder

The vocoder was the work of engineer Homer Dudley, who wanted a way to synthesize human speech. The wartime SIGSALY system built around it weighed abo...