Voice modulator?

Is anyone using a voice modulator? How well do they work with SL? Can anyone recommend some good ones (free or commercial)?

Thanks,
Princess Ivory

I haven't gotten around to playing with it yet, but Screaming Bee's Morph VOX seems quite good.

http://www.screamingbee.com

hey chosen, you wouldn't happen to know a good (cheap, free is even better) suite for making layered echoed reverberd voices (only good example I know is 'the many' from System Shock 2), or computer voices ( alittle less majel roddenberry, and a little more hal )

I think Morph VOX has all that stuff in it. At least it seems to in their demo videos.

Beyond that, I could name some good audio editing programs for doing those kinds of effects in post, but I don't think that's what you're looking for.

MorphVox Rocks

i think the effect youre referring to is known as 'chorus'. cant be sure because the only voice i remember from ss2 was the wickedly awesome shodan.

I find these creepy. I've virtually stopped using public voice chat anyway since there's always someone with feedback, or too loud, or whatever ... but unless someone can't actually speak RL I can't understand why they'd want to sound like ... that ...

no no I'm looking for post production effects... I couldn't care less about live chat =)

@nina:
yes I think I've heard it called that or similar, doing a custom version of shodan WOULD be fun too... I still play that game (but then I still play original civ sometimes too)

You can find some free/cheap ones online--however, the quality is poop. The high-quality ones are going to cost you a pretty penny.

I have no links or examples, I just know from passing exchange.

People are huge into RP. That's one of the big reasons certain citizens don't use voice. But voice-modulation is an alternative. Changing your voice in SL is no more different than being in SL to begin with--it's all fantasy and role-play.

Try Audacity if you're not doing live stuff. It's one of the better free sound editors I've seen.

Oh, well in that case, there are lots of good audio editors that will do the job. My favorite is Adobe Audition. As with most Adobe programs, you'll need to fork over some change for it ($349), but if you're gonna use it regularly, it's more than worth every penny. And it's considerably less expensive than most of its competitors, even though it's more powerful than just about all of them. It's a wonderful program.

Audition (formerly Cool Edit Pro) basically puts all the power of a professional recording & sound effects studio right in your PC. Want to change the gender of a voice? The pitch shifter works wonders. Want to give it a deep, swirling, iron demonoid kind of sound? Drop the pitch a few steps, throw in some chorusing, stereo echo, maybe a tiny amount of multi-tap delay, maybe just a hint of distortion. Want to sound like a whole crowd, talking in unison? Layer one voice onto several tracks, throw in some harmonization, delay each by a slightly different amount, vary the pitch a bit between them, and you've got the whole of the Borg collective at your disposal. The possibilities are endless.

And it doesn't stop with just voice, of course. You've got a full 128 track professional studio at your disposal. You can do everything from splicing songs together to make medleys (thank God my girlfriend, a dance teacher, finally learned the program well enough to do that on her own so I don't have to do it for the whole damned studio anymore), record your own music from scratch, remove the voice from existing recordings to make your own karaoke tracks, sync voice-overs with video, etc., etc., etc.

You'll need to learn a little bit about audio though to make all that work, if you don't know it already. Just like Photoshop doesn't have any magical "make my picture look good" button, Audition doesn't have a "make this sound like that" button. The good news is it comes with a great help file.

If you don't want to spend that much, you can do a lot with freebies like Audacity or GoldWave, but it's gonna be slower going since they're not as powerful. If Audition is on the level of Photoshop, those programs fall somewhere between MS Paint and old versions of PSP. If you know what you're doing, you can get great results from them, but you won't be able to do nearly as much as quickly as you could with a more professional grade program.



Agreed. But I think it goes beyond just roleplay. As I see it, it's primarily a creative freedom issue. In a world where you can change your appearance to anything you want at any time, why not do the same with your voice?

Also, there's definitely something to be said (no pun intended) for anonymity. Your voice is arguably the most recognizable part of what makes you you. I often find that I recognize people I haven't seen in a while by their voice first, and their face second. It's not uncommon at all when I run into someone I don't know all that well for me not to know quite who they are just by looks. But as soon as they start to speak, it clicks, and my brain goes "Oh yeah, you're that Larry guy from Suzie's wedding, the insurance salesman. I remember now."

There's a HUGE amount of our real identities in our voices, and I can totally understand why someone might be uncomfortable sharing that much of themselves online. Also, not everyone is comfortable broadcasting their RL gender.

On the other hand, I can completely understand how it might seem creepy, or at the very least, disconcerting, to some. In RL, we do things to alter our appearances all the time, at least to a small degree (clothing, makeup, glasses, etc.), but we never do anything to alter our voices. That's just not a natural habit. The only reason (adult) voices ever really change in the real world is due to illness or injury, and in movies it usually is something only badguys do. So of course, there's a natural prejudice against it. It's not something we've had enough exposure to to be able to accept.

I think that will change over time, as technology like Morph VOX becomes more and more common, and people find more everyday uses for it. People were creeped out by the anonymity of the text based Internet when it first appeared too. Many are still put off by places like SL where people can assume all kinds of unreal appearances, but that's becoming more and more normal every day. Voice alteration is just another layer of the same thing. In a few years, no one will think anything of it. For now, it's totally understandable why some people would be hesitant to accept it.

Oh...for POST production.

Free: Audacity

Cost: Adobe Audition

If you're looking for high quality audio apps for music and recording, these are in an entirely different category, and are expensive (a high quality sound card is recommended also).

You're anonymity concern/relation only deals with real life...not Second Life. Nobody is going to 'pin' who you are by your voice...because they've never met you in real life, and most likely have no clue who you [really] are. Your voice will only relate to your AV, and will not leave the SL universe. This is a completely different thing when talking about 'anonymity.'

I can't quite agree with that, Michael. Audition is fantastic for pro quality music recording, as long as you have decent recording equipment at your disposal.

James Earl Jones' avatar might disagree. So would Sarah Vowell's.

Anyway - anyone know of a voice modulator dat works with a Mac?

Mari

lol...this is all you got?

On a logical, rational level, you're absolutely right. There can be no argument.

However, people don't act and react based on logic alone (nor should they). What I'm talking about is how people feel about it, which is an emotional thing. It can't be reasoned away.

Sure, no one's gonna come find me on the street because they've heard my voice online, but they can certainly tell a lot about me based on how I sound. There's tremendous personality in voice, and not everyone's going to comfortable sharing that much of their intimate selves over the Internet. Some will, of course, but it's understandable why many wouldn't.

Anonymity isn't just about protecting a listing in a phone book. It's also about maintaining a degree of emotional separation. If you've caught a glimpse into my private inner soul, who cares if you know my name or where I live? You already know more about me on a personal level than a name or address could ever tell you, and I can completely understand why not everyone would want you to have that kind if "information".

I'm not saying that that is or isn't how I actually feel about it for myself, just that I can respect and appreciate how some people would feel that way for themselves. I think to deny that, or to assume that you could ever talk someone out of their feelings based on a logic-only explanation, is to ignore what may be the largest part of what makes people tick. I can agree with you logically 100%, but emotionally I'd have to say you're missing the boat.

Hmmm...

Is it Mark of the Unicorn? MOTU?

http://www.motu.com/

At these levels (professional recording and mixing)--you're going to need special hardware and software (not to mention recording equipment).

I [think] the software my buddy's studio runs is on a completely different level than Adobe Audition.

Bingo. Nail ---> Head

You've said exactly what needed to be said. I completely agree, and completely understand. Nuff said.

audacity + numerous freebie vst plugins in what youre looking for.

Yup!

Chosen, I think this is a pretty good attempt to understand where some in SL are coming from.

Now, take that and expand it beyond voice. And that may help explain why some people prefer the virtual world concept vs. 3D web concept. And why they become alarmed by indications that preserving a virtual world feel isn't on the agenda.



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PS for the overly literal minded "virtual world" in this context has nothing to do with computer graphics.

pro studios run protools on macs nearly exclusively. like it or not, thats the standard daw.

YES --I couldn't think of the name of the software.

MOTU (best hardware for audio recording) works best with PROTOOLS. And with these two things, you'll need a hefty soundcard...

All of these things are going to cost you the same as a moderately priced car.