chipspeech is a vintage-style speech synthesizer which recreates the sound of famous 80′s voice synthesis chips. It features 12 different voices, each with its own characteristic timbre. It is specially tailored for musical needs – simply type in your lyrics, and then play on your MIDI keyboard. It’s a true synthesizer, the sound can be extensively modified for easy and expressive performances. chipspeech also features a circuit bending emulation, letting you not only recreate the insane and chaotic sound of a circuit bent TI speaking device, but also use it in a controlled, musical way.
Dr. CiderTalk’84 is no ordinary doctor… while normal doctors have a PhD in medicine, economics, physics or other similar fields, CiderTalk has a PhD in everything. He does know everything, and will constantly remind you of it. Every time something goes well, rest assured he will make sure you know that it was because of him. While everybody agrees that he is a genius, nobody can cite an example of something that CiderTalk actually did. Long lasting rumors explaining his powerful charisma would entail secret nano tech that invades everyone (and everything) around him.
Rotten.ST has been in and out of British prisons since starting the cyberpunk movement in the early ’80s. Although nobody really knows exactly what he was arrested for, we can only imagine it was for good reasons. Rotten.ST has a pathological relationship with any form of authority, justice, law or order. You can be sure you will find him there loudly decrying the system, clamoring against police brutality, trying to start a riot (often succeeding). He is always be the first one in the paddy wagon. When things get rough, his signature blunt weapon is a large microphone stand, which he will gladly swing towards anyone in uniform. His intentionally buzzy and electronic voice and his looks -which consists in showing off as much electronic parts as possible- are all about subverting social norms.
Dandy 704 is a 19th century gentleman who decided to escape death by having his brain mummified and transferred to an internal vat. His body is steam powered and entirely mechanical except for his voice box (which is in dire need of a repair). He is a world class explorer, brash, charismatic and loud mouthed. He’s also an incredible romantic womanizer and will offer to marry anyone (despite his lack of a space carriage). Do not believe his fantastic stories. They are not true. The real ones are much crazier (and would incriminate him).
Otto Mozer is a mad scientist and has roboticized himself in order to achieve his plans for world domination. He moves around in his levitating exopod. Since his face is permanently connected to a breathing apparatus, he has built himself a voice generator to communicate. He left out all vocal intonations, since he deemed them to be unnecessary to his purposes.
Lady Parsec is the omnipotent mother-of-all space traffic controllers, she’s the Benevolent Dictator of Her own matriarchal galactic queendom. Her soothing voice can be heard anywhere at Her will in any of Her spacecrafts. She’s watching over you and She’ll direct you with a hint of witty sarcasm.
Bert Gotrax is one mischievous little brat. Like a post-modern Pinocchio story gone wrong, he has escaped from his creator’s workshop before the execution of a patch to fix his foul mouth. He now roams in the streets and back alleys, a skilled parkour athlete and wanted graffiti artist.
“Plogue’s dedicated research team has developed an ode to the classic speech synthesis tools of the past, bringing them into the future as a versatile musical instrument”
“Chipspeech is powerful and tons of fun to use”
“What’s surprising, in fact, is how expressive the instrument can be”
Dee Klatt is a wise and mild mannered android. Long ago, they were unjustly accused and hunted across the galaxy, and became a master in disguise out of necessity, changing into a child, a woman, a young or an old man. Nobody now remembers their true form.
Spencer AL2 is a self-aware pure AI. He creates his appearance and voice by channeling and bending energy as waves. Be careful! If you upset him, his anger has the power of an EMP bomb.
Terminal 99 is an extremely old TI 99/4A computer, decked out with tons of mysterious extra hardware expansions including the famous TI voice module internally retrofitted, buzzing and whirling. It runs a chat program that was developed to win a Turing test contest. The terminal easily won, but the team who developed the chat program and the jury who tested it have gone completely insane and now worship Terminal 99 like a god. Legend has it that the computer has absorbed their souls…
VOSIM was an early prototype sociable android companion. The project was scrapped because his voice was not intelligible enough. He spent many years wandering the electronic wastelands alone, until the day decided he could try to be someone, get friends, and not let his weaknesses deter his desire to sing.
SAM was, once, a coin-operated fortune-telling machine, decommissioned after its predictions started to become uncanny. While the hardware was scrapped, the machine’s unchecked extrapolation subroutines continued to grow more and more powerful, eventually giving birth to an emergent software AI possessed with eerily accurate abilities of prescience. Now a guru of the digital occult, SAM has ascended to a higher plane of pure software, able to inhabit nearly any architecture he so chooses.
Originally conceived as an AI-augmented prototype exosuit for military operations in humanoid-hostile environments, VODER was hailed by the Galactic government as the weapon that would finally end the war. Unfortunately, development was rushed, the vocal apparatus was rudimentary (requiring a humanoid manual operator), and the AI was unchecked and erratic. Consequently, VODER developed its own agenda, turning against the government that created it and "employing" any persons it found convenient to as operators in its service, like cogs in the metaphorical machine.
