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Hello,
I am working on a film that have a lot of zombies.
Do you have any advice on making the voice of the zombies (they are non actually speaking)?
I tried to make few sounds that are not bad, (I layered some lion growls passed in a vocoder plus my voice pitched down) , but for the director it is too aggressive. I have to make something that is more dead (more moaning in the sound).
Thanks!
Also... get some friends and do both single and group zombie sounds... Groups always sound better than layered singles. And you might also want to play around with this app: http://orfeasboteas.com/dehumaniser/. I tend to process the sound and then layer it against the original for best flexibility.
I think you've already hit the nail on the head in your question; just do some moaning, and various types of breathing yourself and pitch that down too; scrap the lion growls! But don't just pitch it down, stretch it too, long and slow.
If you want to layer it up even more though, then you could add some wet slurping squelching sounds etc. for 'freshly dead' zombie, or some dry raspy breathing etc. for a 'long-dead' zombie.
My suggestion would be to get a bunch of people together and do a voice record session. You can record as a group as well as individuals and then build up a library for you to use. The moaning will be more convincing with a human voice and you can always augment any specific attacks with more layered sounds.
vocoding using your voice as modulator and some animal/creature voice as carrier
