Using my own voice to create characters for a childrens video

[Pixcels]

Hello all.
Perhaps you can help me here.
Please bear in mind I am a complete beginner with Audacity and sound programs in general.
I work with images.
I am producing for my friends some short stop motion animations featuring toys.
I have a lot of trouble sourcing voices for the toy characters and thought a way around this would be to use Audacity to record my own voice saying the lines I need, then doing a little sound magic to alter them enough and give each toy a defined child friendly character.

The aim would be to create a set of presets that I could bring into play to give me the various childlike characters I am animating.

Is this possible ?
Any guidance would be most appreciated.

I am using a Mac Pro running 10.13.6 and I have installed Audacity 2.3.3

[steve]

“Sound magic” probably isn’t necessary if you can do some “performance magic”. If you listen to some “classic” British readings of children’s stories (example: “Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day” read by Richard Briers) there is no “sound magic” other than very high quality recording and magical performance from the reader. Other examples that may provide some inspiration: “Noggin the Nog”, “Bagpuss”, “Captain Pugwash” - or going a bit more abstract, “The Clangers”.

My advice would be to imagine that you were reading a bedtime story to children. Too much technology can seriously get in the way of a magical performance.

[Pixcels]

“Sound magic” probably isn’t necessary if you can do some “performance magic”. If you listen to some “classic” British readings of children’s stories (example: “Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day” read by Richard Briers) there is no “sound magic” other than very high quality recording and magical performance from the reader. Other examples that may provide some inspiration: “Noggin the Nog”, “Bagpuss”, “Captain Pugwash” - or going a bit more abstract, “The Clangers”.

My advice would be to imagine that you were reading a bedtime story to children. Too much technology can seriously get in the way of a magical performance.

Thanks Steve but that won’t quite work for me.
I’m an experienced grandpa and pride myself on the range of characters I create during bed time stories BUT voicing the individual characters for my animations is a different thing all together.
There are little girls/boys/dogs/cats and other animals who all need to speak dialogue and I’m seeking some ‘voices’ for each of them.
This is not simply the case of a voice over but more like individually lip syncing each character.

[steve]

You could perhaps try Screaming Bee, but voice-acting is still required.
(This is not free software. Current price $19.95. Free trial version available. We have no association with this product, so this is just a suggestion, not a recommendation.)

[Pixcels]

You could perhaps try Screaming Bee, but voice-acting is still required.
(This is not free software. Current price $19.95. Free trial version available. We have no association with this product, so this is just a suggestion, not a recommendation.)

Thanks again Steve.
I did try to use MorphVoxPro free edition but not too impressed. First of I downloaded onto my MacAir running Catalina and the mic just refused to work. My results on my MacPro however worked but very glitchy. I will persevere though !
Slightly secondary question: Can I save presets in Audacity ? e.g. if I have a tonal balance for a voice can I save that and reload later ?

[steve]

e.g. if I have a tonal balance for a voice can I save that and reload later ?

If you are referring to the “Graphic EQ” or “Filter Curve” effects, you can click on the “Manage” button and save the settings as a custom “Preset”.