Question: How can voice sound be varied using Audacity? For instance: If the narrator wants to distinguish between a character’s thoughts and a character’s spoken words, so they sound different on the audio file, how can that be done in Audacity?
In the following example, the character’s thoughts are in parenthesis, and the character’s spoken voice is in regular type with quotation marks. (I think this movie is boring.) "Great movie! I’m glad you invited me to watch!
How can Audacity be used to make the character’s thoughts sound different from the character’s spoken voice?
I don’t know… Any change is going to sound unnatural… You might try a little reverb (but just a little).
Assuming it’s a movie… Usually with “director’s commentary” the original soundtrack (dialog, sound effects, and music) are faded-down constantly, or during the commentary. But you can usually still hear the original soundtrack in the background. When the soundtrack fades-down, it’s a clue that the narration is coming-in. And, the fact that the narration voice is not synchronized with the actors on-screen helps.
One famous radio talk-show host uses Equalization to cut the highest & lowest frequencies to get sort-of a “telephone voice” when he’s playing a clip from a previous show. The Limiter set to Hard Clip can also add some “grit” to the sound for a telephone-like sound.
A little reverb, or even a little echo, might make it sound “dreamy”, but that may not be what you’re looking for, and too much is just going to sound weird.
A little pitch-shift might work if it doesn’t end-up sounding like a different person. (I think pitching-down will make it sound more “relaxed”.)
P.S.
If the narration isn’t recorded yet, maybe the actor has a different natural speaking voice than the character’s voice, or maybe he/she can do a narration-voice. …If you’ve ever heard Clint Eastwood interviewed, his natural voice is different from his tough-guy movie voice.