I am making a fake commercial for a toy action figure, and I need to make the voice clips I’ve recorded for the toy (which talks) sound like a crappy old talking toy from the 70s or 80s, kind of like a Speak 'N Say. How would you go about giving a voice track that kind of distortion and fuzziness? Whether through Audacity or some other (preferably freely available) method. Thanks!
You can get the distortion from Effect > Leveler, and Effect > Equalizer will take out the bass, but the warbling and speed changes are going to be much harder. Those tools tend to be one setting for the whole show, not one setting per phrase or word.
Koz
Thanks. Where can I find the Leveler Effect? I have Audacity 1.2.6 but don’t see that as an option in the Effect menu. I assume it’s an additional plugin I can download? I’ve also got an Effect > Equalization, but not Equalizer. Are those the same or is that a different plugin as well?
This free windows software produces nasty “speak ’n’ spell” speech … http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/Audio/sayit/Freeware.htm
Bear in mind “speak ’n’ spell” is incomprehensible to anyone under 30.
You could try this free “decomator” effect on your own voice, it will be more understandable,
set the Decimator smoothness to 0 and Decimator resample rate to about 6000, e.g. attached
[Speaking toys have low bit depth, so look for “bit crushing” effects]
Hmm, thanks, but I’m looking more for something like “The Cow Says: Moo” than the totally synthetic Speak ‘n’ Spell. I need the voice to be recognizable, yet tacky and cheap sounding - just like any talking action figure you could buy.
Just saw “The Cow Says: Moo” video. That sounds like a vinyl record rather than a digitized recording.
For that you want a narrow band equalization (200-4000Hz ish ), and some “needle on record” noise, e.g. here ,
or here … http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=104794
You may need to speed up the “needle on record” sample: the disc in the toy would be spinning faster than a 45rpm.
You can get two free warping effects for audacity here: namely “turntable warping” and “Random Pitch Modulation”.