Review: Rocktron Banshee Talkbox
If your are in the market for a talk box you more than likely have heard of the Heil Talk Box. The Heil is the classic talkbox made famous by such guitarists such as Peter Framptom, Joe Walsh and others from the 70’s and 80’s including Bon Jovi’s “Living On Prayer” and “It’s My Life” tones.
Normally I am a stickler for sticking to the original. Not in this case.
The Rocktron Banshee Talkbox is equal or superior to the Heil in just about every way.
The biggest plus is the ease of use of the Banshee. In order to use a Heil Talk box you need to connect the speaker outs from your amp to the unit to drive the internal speaker. Most of us with combo amps do have have the luxury of speaker out jacks. Plus if you use your speaker out how are you supposed to play through the amp for normal tones ?
The Banshee has a built in preamp/amp to drive the speaker. The diagram below is a basic setup. You can use the footswitch to bypass the Banshee. There are three controls. Gain, tone and output level.
The unit is plenty loud to practice with without mounting the tube to a microphone.
The tone out of the Banshee is excellent. It totally nails the classic tones of the Heil Talk box.
If you are in the market for a talk box do not hesitate to buy the Rocktron Banshee over the Heil.
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Rick said,
April 17, 2008 @ 2:34 pm
I purchased one. It’s great if you own a PA system or 2nd amp to play it through. The set up instructions never tell you where to run the Mic cord to. Everything said how simple it is to set up. That isn’t true!!! From what I can see you need a PA system or 2nd amp to get your talk box sound out of the mic. Otherwise you can’t switch to normal guitar sounds through the same amp. If I have one amp where do I connect the mic?