The effect is called a "talkbox." You can Google that term for much more info. They're cheap and fun.

ikkyu beat me to it.

That wikipedia article was a very good reminder as to why I dislike wikipedia. My word but that's a poorly constructed explanation.

But the effects in the Frampton ad are rather cool.

Yeah. To summarize the wiki article:

1. You plug an instrument (typically a guitar) into the talkbox.
2. The talkbox produces the instrument's sound into a long, flexible tube, the "out" end of which you stick tape to a microphone, facing your piehole.
3. The sound of your instrument blasts out of the tube and into your mouth and then bounces back out onto the microphone.
4. How you shape your mouth affects the timbre of the sound the mic picks up.

Since there's a lot going on in the human vocal system besides just shaping your mouth to produce harmonics, a talkbox doesn't end up sounding like speech, exactly, but the harmonic effects of mouth shape are such a big part of speech production that it can be fairly decipherable. And it's unquestionably a speech-like sound.

It's neat stuff. Super simple, but catches people's attention.

Okay, now, how are they doing this weird talking trumpet thing in the middle of this B.B. King track (starts about 2:10)?

I can't listen to the track, chrismear, but is it done with a mute? Most "talking" trumpet things are. Like the grownups in Charlie Brown.

That's a mute on the trumpet.

Although, there it sounds like there may be a weird effect similar to a talk box in parts, it would be hard to pull off a talk box with a trumpet just because of the nature of the instrument (Miles Davis used wah pedals and delays).

I'm guessing most of it is just a mute and a talented trumpeter.

"... how are they doing this weird talking trumpet thing ..."

Vocoder. Which is how a lot of "talk box" effects are produced, too, in this increasingly digital world.

Wasn't there an awesome MeFi post a few years back that talked about the differences between all the different talky technologies? Vocoders and voice digitizers and so on? Maybe it was only in the discussion in the original thread with the Portal game trailer.

The trumpeter may have played through a vocoder (which would have given it some of the flange), but most of the "talking" is a mute.

Vocoders are really cool. My SO and I picked up a microkorg awhile ago (to replace the Juno 6) and love it.

You can make a talk box fairly easily. It amounts to an amplifier a horn speaker and a hose.

I actually considered doing a 'jonmc defends the indefensible' about Peter Frampton (who is punk as fuck in his own way), but I never got around to it.

What about Peter Frampton needs defending? Frampton Comes Alive (which still sees regular play on my iPod even after god knows how many more than 30 years) is one of the last reminders of a mis-spent youth. All I have to do is put it on, close my eyes and I'm 16 again.

I went off that record when my brother crashed his car. It was close to our house, and the neighbours told me about it... I ran down there to find him and our friend Robbie lying on the hillside and his Ford EXP in two pieces. He had jumped it (Dukes of Hazzard style) over a little hill in the road and it crashed down on the frame and literally broke.

Do You Feel Like We Do was still playing on the stereo... Hell, I thought he was dead.

When he stood up and started looking around for the beer they'd just bought at the store, I thought I was seeing a ghost.

Anyway, that song went off my playlist.

i never did get into peter frampton, but i loved his scene in the "homerpalooza" episode of the simpsons where homer accidentally launched the flying pig was priceless.

roadie: oh no, peter frampton's gonna be pissed!
frampton: you're damn right i'll be pissed! i bought that pig at pink floyd's yard sale!

his cameo in almost famous as the manager of humble pie cracked me up.