Sound Design Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for sound engineers, producers, editors, and enthusiasts. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
Is there any software that will make a voice of someone sound like a voice of someone else?
A guy in my skype list claims he has a friend who works in "SoundDesign business" who has such a tool, and he doesn't want to tell me the name of that sofware.
Any idea what he's talking about?
I could use such a tool for creating a dub.
Yes and no - there is no tool that does this fully automatic - you have to set up and tweak the chain your self, but once you're done it can be used with any input (i.e. "live").
(tl;dr: good impersonation -> pitch-shift w. formant control -> matching eq)
Details
Like you suggest yourself in one of the comments, you have to use a mix of both a good pitch shifter (pitch correct) with formant control and an EQ that allow you to sample the profile of another sample.
If you use a simple pitch shifter it will not sound natural - the formant control is important:
Besides Melodyne, there is the Pitch Correct plugin in Cubase (not VariAudio as there is no formant control) and a free one: MAutoPitch
By ear, set the pitch shift and formant as close as possible to the wanted sound.
Now put on a profile matching EQ, e.g. Steinbergs "Match EQ" or Izotope Ozone Matching Eq and "learn" it profile of the wanted sound and use that to give it the final touch. Here is the trick explained in way too many words ;-)
In this discussion about the video and process, they mention the following plugins/tools: MAutoEqualizer, ReaFir (in subtract mode) and Voxengo Curve EQ.
Now you should have a set up that allow you to process any signal. The only thing left is a good impersonation with typical phrases and words of that person ;-)
For what it's worth, Adobe announced a tool (Project Voco) at Adobe Max last year that goes way beyond the typical 'voice changer' apps and EQ setups. It can literally change one voice into another with a sufficient sample of the desired voice. Scary and potentially very useful. But mostly scary (-:
One of the most common plugins used for voice transformation would be a pitch shifter. You can usually find one included in most DAW software (Logic, ProTools, GarageBand, etc). When used tastefully in small amounts, it can contribute to altering a voice while still sounding somewhat realistic. If you use GarageBand, I know there are some basic vocal presets (male to female, female to male, etc) that utilize a pitchshifter (and a few other plugins) to transform vocals and make you sound like someone completely different.
You can use a match EQ to read the EQ curve off of one sound recording and apply it to another. It can be used for example on a compilation album to make all the tracks sound like they were recorded in the same session by applying the EQ curve of one track to all of the other tracks.
If you use a match EQ to apply the EQ curve of a recording of Bob to a recording of Bill, then Bill will sound more like Bob. But it’s not magic. You’re not going to fool anybody’s mother with it. But if the 2 recordings were backing vocals, you could make Bill and Bob have much better blend when they are heard simultaneously. Or if Bill and Bob have very similar voices in the first place, then you could possibly patch some of Bill’s backing vocals with a phrase that Bob sang and get a good enough result that nobody notices.
Logic has a built-in match EQ that is imaginatively named “Match EQ.” Steinberg used to sell a VST plug-in match EQ.
Have a look at Flux IRCAM Trax vocal transformer. It can be used to changed gender and age of the voice.
Otherwise you might want to look at Symbolic Sound KYMA. This is a very expensive option however, and you need to find someone who knows how to use it well.
There is various ways to make your voice sound like other people, but the most interesting and most accurate way is called voice morphing where your voice is mapped out by letter and syllable to sound like another voice. Probably the best commercial program I have seen for this ks called MorphVox which sounds like what you are looking for. However there are even more powerful programs that out there used by the goverment and the black market because they are so accurate, that they can trick people on the phone into beleiving you are talking to another person. It is very remarkable and complex technology.
If you just want to trick your friends and sound like an alien or troll you can probably use a daw with sound effects and a busing application to make your voice able to connect to skype. Use a pitch changer and some reverb and you can get some interesting results. Have fun!
