Inventor of the Talk Box sound device used by Peter Frampton
BOB HEIL, who has died aged 83, was an audio engineer with two claims to fame. He was the godfather of the modern sound system used by touring rock bands, beginning with the Grateful Dead; and he invented the Talk Box, a voice-bending gizmo made famous by Peter Frampton in the 1970s.
The guitarist Joe Walsh, a friend and collaborator, was first to use the Talk Box, and when Heil’s death was announced he hailed him as “An amazing musician... a mad scientist, a ham radio aficionado and evangelist, a tireless problem solver, a mentor to me and guide on my guitar journey.”
Robert Heil was born in Marissa, a small farming and coal-mining town in Illinois, on October 5 1940. He learnt the organ as a boy, and by the age of 14 he was playing for “six or eight hours a day” in restaurants, he recalled.
He became a protégé of the great Wurlitzer organist Stan Kann, who let him loose on the instrument that dominated the Fox Theater in nearby St Louis. He received a thorough grounding in the organ’s electronics, which set him on his eventual career path. At home, he developed a passion for ham radio, building and maintaining his own systems.
In his early twenties he began designing and constructing amplifiers, as well as working on sound systems at concert venues, which at that time were primitive, weak affairs.
In 1966 he opened Ye Olde Music Shop (later renamed Heil Sound). Local musicians such as Michael Mcdonald (later of Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers) and the band REO Speedwagon began bringing him their amplifiers to fix, and he started developing largescale sound systems.
In 1970 the Grateful Dead were scheduled to play the Fox Theater, but had a big problem: their sound man Owsley “Acid King” Stanley – who alongside his audio talents was a chemist with a sideline in manufacturing LSD – had been detained by the police, along with the band’s sound gear.
The Dead’s frontman Jerry Garcia rang Heil, saying: “Hey man, I heard you have a really big PA.” Heil began listing the equipment he used in his system and Garcia interjected: “Well, get it over here!”
The band loved Heil’s work so much they took him on tour with them, and he created the template for the sound set-ups that bands now take round with them. The Who read about him in Billboard magazine and recruited him for their “Who’s Next” tour.
Besides his work helping the monsters of rock roar, Heil came up with the Talk Box. There had been other devices that created a way to meld the guitar and the human voice, but Heil developed the first version that could be used reliably on stage.
Joe Walsh (like Heil, a radio ham), was the first to use the Box, while Peter Frampton recalled that he had first heard it when he was sitting in the sessions for George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass album, and he bought a model from Heil soon after.
Frampton locked himself away for a fortnight to master the technique of using his voice – through a plastic tube linked to the guitar via an interface box – to modify the instrument’s sound and notes. He used it extensively on his albums Frampton and Frampton Comes Alive!, most notably on Show Me the Way, a Top Ten hit around the world in 1976. Other high-profile Talk-boxers were Dave Gilmour of Pink Floyd and Jeff Beck.
In 1978 Heil published the sound man’s bible, The Practical Guide for Concert Sound, and later moved into designing and setting up high-end home-cinema systems, as well as lecturing, establishing a successful satellite-tv dealership and making microphones for radio hams and broadcaster.
He continued to play the Wurlitzer at the Fox Theater in St Louis, and amassed a collection of classic cars, notably 1950s Thunderbirds.
Bob Heil was married to Sarah, with whom he had two daughters and a stepson.
Bob Heil, born October 5 1940, died February 28 2024