How to make voice raspy?

Special Interest Groups Audio Processing
1

I’m trying to introduce a little rasp into a voice in Audacity. I’m sort of getting the result I want with the Vocoder but it’s also making it tinny. Is there a way to reduce that or another way to get the result I want?

If it helps, here’s the voice I’ve got:

2

Try some Distortion Effects.

3

TalkBox is a high-resolution vocoder.
Talkboxing with off-white noise makes voices sound hoarse.

before-after

I dunno where to find a 64-bit talkbox plugin, mine is 32-bit

4

Appreciate the help, but I can’t get it to work. Maybe I’ll try getting a 32-bit double so I can manage, in the meantime are there any alternatives I could try instead, or something I can do with the tools I already have?

5

Hello there @Trebor I would really appreciate if you could help me get the exact same result with detailed steps. As of now, I tried the following however didn’t find any difference. Thanks for your help in advance.

  1. Installed plugin for Mac using link provided
  2. Enabled Talkbox in Audacity
  3. Created voice in mono track and added white noise with 0 amp in another mono track
  4. Mixed and rendered both track together
  5. Clicked on Talkbox and when trying to toggle with settings, I don’t hear any differenece. Is it because I kept white noise with 0 amp ? ( I followed your instruction of “Talkboxing with off-white noise makes voices sound hoarse”
  6. Attaching my screenshots of settings for reference

Thanks for your help in advance!
(sorry couldn’t attach pic / image as i am a new user, how to share the settings pic? )

6

You have to make a stereo pair before applying the MDA Talkbox effect…

hoarseness
before-after

7

Truly appreciate your prompt response @Trebor

I tried the steps however for somereason it’s like not mixing up, sounds like my voice plus additional noise

Please refer to the recording and let me know where am i going wrong

8

@Trebor attaching the output as well for reference

9

You have joined the tracks correctly, it seems MDA Talkbox has not been applied.
I have applied it using Audacity2 running on Windows (I don’t speak Mac).

MDA Talkbox is an old 32-bit plugin, it will be incompatible with 64 bit Audacity.

10

You are correct! Seems like bit mismatch issue but strangely there is no notification / error saying that the plugin is not supported ( similar to how I am some other plugins ). I also found this related article on reddit mentioning the same https://www.reddit.com/r/AdvancedProduction/comments/1ahr1m7/mda_talkbox_in_2024_for_mac_users_looking_for_a/

I am actually trying to create a raspy punk voice in some other software ( cooking up something in the lab ) and since I couldn’t figure out what exact effects to be applied thought of giving it a short in Aud. Do you know by any change what effects can be applied to a regular voice to get this kind of desired result for me to play around with?

Thanks again!

11

Audacity has a native vocoder, but it’s not high-resolution like MDA Tallbox: voices are difficult to understand/ unintelligible .