I've been reading up on the Atari Punk Console that uses a pair of 555 timers. I was wondering what would happen if I just eliminated the first timer (the astable half) and fed an audio signal into the trigger line of the second monostable part and a speaker on the other end (the timer output)? Would it distort a voice or create some weird static or am I not understanding things well enough yet?

 

The output of the monostable is simply a DC pulse each time it is triggered. If it is triggered by a voice then it would just make some pops, clicks and other noises. Try it.

A 555 is overloaded if it tries to drive a speaker that is less than about 35 ohms when it has a 9V supply.

 

you need to draw the circuit out to see how to modify it.

 

The Atari Punk Console project is in Google and there is a video with sound of it playing.