I am a complete novice. I have created videos with Sony Vegas. I need to add audio. I need to create 5 unique “voices” that I can use over and over in various new projects. Can I save a voice to use over and over?
Can I record up to 5 voices in a dialog to put into a video?
Will Audacity work for what I am trying to do? If not, do you know of any other programs I could use?
I have Windows 7. What sort of equipment (microphone) will I need? I am on a limited budget.
Sure, but you’ll be recording five people. Audacity does not have tools to make you sound like somebody else – let’s get that out of the way at the top.
All we are is a sound editor. Audacity can be made to open many different video formats and play the sound, but it can only write new sound files. You’ll need a video editor to put it all back together. Which brings us directly to: What kind of sound files do you need? Do us a big favor and work in high quality WAV files or something similar and not MP3. MP3 creates sound damage and it gets worse as you crank through your show.
You can probably make good use of a USB microphone. Windows sound cards tend to not work very well, so digitizing your voice outside the computer is usually a god idea. That’s not the problem. The biggest sound problem you’re going to have (I predict) is finding a room to record in. I know people who record their voice in a closet with quilts along the walls to get rid of the echoes and reverb
There are no Audacity tools to fix this…
http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/clips/EchoSample.mp3
Have you ever recorded your voice before? Do you have a laptop?
Koz
Yes, I do have a laptop. No, I have not recorded my voice before.
Audacity looks like the perfect tool to put all these voices together for my video. Thank you for the tips.
Would you know what ‘termanology’ I need to state in my search engine to find a program that will manipulate my voice to create the 5 unique voices I need? Or even better, do you know any programs that will do that?
Thanks!!
Audacity can make a voice recording play faster/slower or higher/lower. It can increase/decrease the bass and/or treble frequencies, it can add a wobble to the voice and all manner of strange effects. What it can’t do is to change the character of the voice. I’m not aware of any programs that can do that. Probably the only people that could afford the sophisticated technology to manipulate the character of a voice would be the film industry, but it’s cheaper for them to pay a few $ million to hire an actor.
Try applying some of the Audacity effects and see if you can get anything usable.
Using the words “voice creation software” in Google I got the following among the hits: http://www.download3k.com/Press-Voice-Changing-Software-is-Creating-New-Content.html Sounds interesting?
Anybody can make the voice. What you can’t do with the software is act. You can’t get Ice Age’s “Sid” by converting your mom’s voice. You need John Leguizamo. There are actually stories about how he developed the character and presentation and got the director to let him do it. Also beyond the scope of software.
This came up in a very recent message thread. Change my voice without sounding like a machine did it. No. It’s always going to sound like your sister reading the script and a machine trying to convert her voice.
There’s another reason to get the actor. Time. Nobody is going to sit in a screening room for hours trying to get the voice conversion right. There’s too many other things to do and all the time the move is not released, the studio is losing money.
Hire the actor, perform the work, they go home with a check, badda-bing, badda-boom. Done.
Koz
This is from the web site:
…or a single voice talent.
See: Actor.
Koz
A note on games. I’ve shot voices for the game people up on 4West. They hire voice actors or do the voices with family and friends. There’s no one person trying to be the whole crew, and this is a division that knows sound software and production shortcuts.
Koz
One simple thing Audacity CAN do for you - it can record your voice to help you develop your own vocalization.
If you are doing all the voices yourself, you need to hear it being played back to you, because you really can’t hear it the way others do while you are speaking.
With Audacity, you can record and play back your characters, tweak it, try again, etc, to develop and perfect the different voices.
Once you’ve got them right, record a few sentences of the script in each character to keep as a reference.
There’s really no software that can do it as well as a human, but a single human can be a lot of different characters - ever hear of Seth MacFarlane?
it can record your voice to help you develop your own vocalization.
What he said.
Koz