[Audacity] Create a computer voice
[Audacity] Create a computer voice
Friday, January 11, 2013 - 17:56
Using your own voice and one effect in Audacity, you can turn yourself into a computer.
What You Will Need
- Audacity. It's free and easy to use.
- Plugins - You won't need any extra plugins for this effect.
- eSpeak (optional) - If you don't have a microphone or don't feel comfortable with your voice, you can use this for text-to-speech synthesis. The output isn't amazing, but it can suffice and is unencumbered by any licensing restrictions.
Creating the effect
- Take a recording of your voice in Audacity. You can load any WAV output from eSpeak in as well.
- Select all of the sound by using the selection tool or press Ctrl-A.
- Go to Effect->Delay... from the menu.
- In the dialog that appears, type in the following values:
- Decay: 6
- Delay 0.009
- Echoes: 30
- This will apply the effect once on the voice, and it may not sound like it did much of anything. Press Ctrl-R to repeat the effect 2-3 times. Play it back each time you apply the effect again. I've found 3 to be enough in most instances.
- You may notice that your waveform has grown in amplitude and may have some artifacts on the higher frequencies. To bring it back down, click Effect->Normalize..., and use the default settings. In 99% of cases this will do the trick.
Optional
If you're looking for a more sinister-sounding computer, you can pitch shift the voice (Effect->Change Pitch...) prior to adding Delay in Step 3. 1.5-2 octaves is usually enough to do the job.
Hey, thanks for this neat and super-simple tutorial!
I made a video based on these instructions: http://youtu.be/j8BZz62ZaM8
I think you meant "Delay" and "-6" as the first attribute and parameter. :)
Awesome. Thanks for the kind words. I think my HTML might have gotten eaten there for that value. And yep, it is Delay, not Decay. When I had originally been writing it, I was also working on something explaining the ADSR envelope and must've gotten my wires crossed.