Voice changers

this post just screams , i'm playing a different gender lol.......

So what? Is there a problem? Many do it. I don't have a problem with a guy playing a female av nor vice versa. It's because I don't do cybersex and then find out and feel "eek am I gay" about it. My identity is much too strong to be shattered by a roleplayer, besides I don't think gays are eek anyway. It's not us female non-voicers having a prob, it's homophobic males.

So, does that mean you are admitting to being a man playing a woman, or a woman playing a man

Not that there's anything wrong with taht of course.

Eh, well, there are also the men who genderbend as lesbian AVs -- they are, I find, easyish to pick out even without voice (because I think it's really, really hard for them to be convincing as a woman to "real world" women for any length of time), but the discomfort of some (women in this case) with that is not really related to male homophobia. I don't , however, hear the same shrill outcry among women about the issue as I do from men, and I think that's because generally the men who are worried are motivated by some form of homophobia (and we all know how shrill that can be!), whereas in the case of men genderbending as lesbians, the women who are concerned about that are not "homophobic" (they are lesbian themselves), but irritated that men would violate the "women only" nature of many of the lesbian spaces in SL by masquerading as a female AV.

The main issue underlying all of this is that there is this huge elephant on the table between (1) typists who think that the RL gender of other typists is critically important information and (2) typists who aren't terribly concerned about the RL gender of other typists. That's a pretty hardcore divide, it's nearly a philosophical one, and it cuts right to the core of the SL experience for the typists involved. There won't be an agreement about this, pretty much ever, as it is not a new issue.

It's most definitely philosophical, the philosophy of what we all use SL for. Is it an extension of RL, where even if disclosure is not given, you are of the mind tthat the person behind the avatar is important in your interaction, or you are of the fantasy mindset,where the avatar is taken as is. Neither side is any more in the right, it's all a personal choice.

Good point hun.

Of course once Voice changers are widely used and people realize its no different than before voice - Some people will be pushing for Web Cam in SL .

Hehe -- I can see it now -- let's get rid of "avatars" altogether, because they're just a facade people "hide behind", pretending not only to be a different gender, but to be attractive, outgoing, etc. Let's get rid of all that and just have cams, that way we all know exactly who we are dealing with!

After that - when Cam Changers are made, and people use those -

paranoia will again return and SL will evolve into a Airline.

Probably about the only way lag could get *worse* in SL ....

last time i checked rl female. don't like to use voice. used it very little in yahoo didn't like it there either. if i lived alone and no one around maybe. just don't like to think some one could hear what i am saying. as far as people rp other sexes who cares. if i like some one if for who and what they are not the sex they are. so other words if think of them as a friend and they play a female don't care what they are in rl. they could be a dog for all i care.

Now that is funny laugh out loud funny - my co-workers are giving me strange looks.

I laugh too easily it seems. Yes please. I am going to get James Earl Jones to come on as me. Then have him use a voice changer male-to-female. Then come on as myself and really screw with people.

"This is CNN . . . I mean Lexxi Gynoid . . .I mean . .. "


"Wait is that a woman now, or a voice changer?

no....i'm not playing out side my gender . i thing the problem i have is the attempt by some to deceive .

When my g/f and I would go on the Beta Grid to use voice when it first came out she'd wear her normal girly dresses, hair, skin and whatnot but put on a buff male shape and walk around.

If I had nothing better to do I think I'd do that and just keep my voice. I'd walk around Los Altos!

(On a side note...this was the same day I was wearing a poncho with bandoliers, a stetson, boots, a bandana over my face and nothing else while I rode around on my BMX bike.)

If their RL gender is important to you, then you have to either get comfortable with what it is or not interact with them. Voice is not the solution to this, because people can always use voice changers, and some people (admittedly a small %, but it's there) are very good voice actors who could deceive you over voice as well, just when you're thinking you have "proof positive". Frankly, unless you've met them in real life, you just don't know really.

And after webcam SL, people will push for real world SL where you aren't just a video but a tactile human being interacting with other human beings.



In other news, I don't know of a voice changer, but if you find a good one post it. I foresee hours of fun playing with one of those. Preferably one that makes me sounds like Vin Deisel.

www.screamingbee.com is the best I've seen...the MorphVox Pro. You can even be a dog!

Bingo! Monalisa wins t3h big prize! Yes... I go and buy my 'Clone Trooper' avatar and it comes with the approrpiate voice-changer / vocoder profile. Plug it in and go. Same with any of the many dragon avatars I own and use (I wish!!!). I notice that Luskwood is doing a promo tie-in with Screaming Bee and have already prepared a collection of voice profiles. It's definitely the next step for avatars, especially anthropomorphic and cyberpunk / robotic / alien ones. You buy your avatar and it comes with the skin, attachments, shape and voice profiles... all of which could be modded by the end-user to suit their own tastes.

In the last year or so the body shape market has really taken off in the human community. I can see that in a short while we'll have people preparing packs of voice profiles. Not just for people who want to play 'the other gender' but also for role-play purposes. Not everyone has a voice that suits their avatar (You only need to look as far as the SouthPark WoW episode for hilarious voice -to- avatar mismatches) and a voice changer would be the perfect tool to modify ones' voice in order to make one's character plausible. Voice-changing technology is going to bring a whole new dimension to the furry / anthro scene in SL. Now if only I could get my voice to work reliably

AAAAAH I need a microphone. I would like to bark at people.

A step in the right direction, to be sure. Except it still does nothing for those of us whose RL situation makes communicating vocally on SL an impossibility. For example a RL mom with a pre-teen kid and hubby might be fine doing SL in the family room in text, while kid and hubby watch a movie in the same room. But imagine her having to use a mike to communicate. You get to treat everyone to the TV background noise, to a child's questions about the funny things mommy's saying to the computer screen... O^o! There are a lot of things I am willing to chat about in text while I build or do other visually innocent work in SL, but which I wouldn't dream of saying aloud where an 11 year old child can hear my side of the conversation! Nor do I wish to deafen people when my huge dog barks right next to me...

I have to say that I would find anyone talking to me with a voice changer very unnerving.

I couldn't care two hoots if a female avatar is really a male or whatever, I doubt many members of the furry community are really animals or vampires are quite so pale skinned in the flesh, heh.

if you don't want your voice heard, don't use it. Just like if you don't want your face seen, don't post a rl picture.

Sorry if I sound like I am being arsey but if someone is changing their voice I would be inclined to feel they were trying to trick me. And that makes me feel very uncomfortable.

But then again, I am a funny old bugger

Be like an actor faking an accent or speaking another language wouldn't it?
Furrys/bots we use changers to try and be more the character we want to be not trick people

There are people in SL who are mute.... that is, they are physically not able to speak in RL. When they wish to use the SL voice communication option, they must use a 'computer voice'.

So, the next time you hear someone with robot/computer voice... there may be a slight possibility the person is doing the best they can to be part of the group and enjoy communicating via "voice" within SL.

My reaction is rather different. It's not gender - I'm not into pixel sex. But if I heard someone obviously using a voice-changer I think I would automatically put my guard up and feel suspicious of that person on general principles: Why do they have to hide like that? I would not feel able to trust them.

With one exception, I think: If they are role-playing something - a furry, a dragon, whatever, I might well just take the artificial voice as part of the rp, and not worry about it.

One other quirk for me: A man's voice coming from a woman or a woman's from a man would just sound ludicrous to me. I'm not sure I could keep a straight "face," so to speak in a conversation like that.

I know, I know, it's all quite illogical. But there it is. People are funny, ya know? And I'm a people...

YES,, now you too can sound like Stephen Hawking.

Angel.