Altering my recorded voice to make it sound like "my" voice

[beamer159]

You know how when you record your voice, it sounds less deep and a little whinier than what you think you sound like? Well, I was wondering if there was a way to alter my recorded voice to sound like what I think I sound like. Has anyone done this before or know what I could do to accomplish this?

[kozikowski]

I'd probably start with the Equalizer tool.

Effects > Equalizer

The line down the middle is a rubber band and you can grab it with your mouse and push it around. Up is louder.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/voiceEq.jpg

This is a very simple three-point equalization. Put lumps up and down from left to right one at a time to see what effect it has on your voice.

You should probably be in Audacity 1.3. It's equalization tools are much easier and nicer to use.

Screen shot 2011-04-04 at 9.55.29 PM.png (65.43 KiB) Viewed 1131 times

I know your next question is going to be where to put the curves and what they do. That illustration is just random points to show you how they move.

It depends on your voice and where you want it to go.

Low pitch tones are on the left and high on the right.

We can't hear what's going on inside your head, so this is all about you from here. We do warn that you need to be doing this on a full-range speaker and amplifier system or a good set of headphones. If you don't do that, you will be tuning your voice to your cheap speakers and the effect will be very different depending on who gets your work.

Koz

[kozikowski]

I have another one or two. The first illustration above gets rid of nails-on-the-blackboard screechy sounds.

This next one was is designed to get rid of the sound a metrobus makes as it goes by outside your house. Low rumble.

http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/100Hz_Rumble.jpg

Koz

[kozikowski]

I thought there was another variation to this...

Screen shot 2011-04-04 at 10.09.09 PM.png (34.71 KiB) Viewed 1131 times

Unfortunately, that's an Apple/Mac tool.

Koz

[steve]

I thought there was another variation to this...

Unfortunately, that's an Apple/Mac tool.

This is the Audacity Equalizer with the "Graphic Eq" view selected:

Click on image to expand.

Equalization.png (44.07 KiB) Viewed 1121 times

[kozikowski]

This is the Audacity Equalizer with the "Graphic Eq" view selected:

Which is apparently Windows-only.

Koz

[steve]

Which is apparently Windows-only.

I think the Graphic EQ view should be available on all platforms.
What happens if you click this button?

koz-eq.png (69.74 KiB) Viewed 1115 times

[kozikowski]

[Gasp!]

There it is. It even has curve formatting like I think I asked for a long time ago. Of course, with a limited point control suite, you may not have a lot of choices.

20dB is the limit?

Koz

[steve]

20dB is the limit?

For the sliders, yes.
Hardware graphic equalizers typically have a +/- 15 dB range. If you need more than +/- 20 dB, switch back to the "Draw Curves" view.