Making Voice filter based on video game character using Audacity

Question

I'm trying to edit my voice clips to sound like this chap here

I asked a Senior Sound Designer and he pointed me towards comb filtering. Got the plug-in but am not sure where to go from there. Any ideas?

Answer 1

i think there's surely a short delay/reverberator in this sample that provides that weird slapback / small room space(with more than one repeat).

Also there's some kind of vocoding going on , Im not sure if the vocoder is on the delayed vocal or on the main vocal with the mix turned way low.

Also maybe the vocoder is fed to the short delay.

I think if you put those 2 effects in a parallel channel and play with the fader for the mix to come close , you'll get something similar , after that you can use EQ & Compression to manipulate it further.

To clarify and explain my answer further :

Let's say we have a vocal track.

Go in your DAW and duplicate that track so now you have 2 identical tracks.

We are going to be messing with the duplicate track so you might as well mute the first one till the whole processing is done.

To analyze the Sample you gave , try to detach the normal voice from the effect , this will later become one , but for now , try to take the real voice out of the equation. Also keep in mind that the effect will be built step by step , so in each step you should achieve a part of it.

So , in the sample you provided i can identify some short reverbaration, giving the sense of a small space with some echoes. This can be achieved by taking a Delay effect and putting it in the duplicate channel.

Delay:

1. To make it short , try to use anything more than 10ms time , to 100ms time , this is a "short" delay.
2. Then you have feedback which is the number of repeats, you want to keep that in the 2-4 repeats area , (allways compare it to the initial sound and try to focus on the reverberation)
3. Last , your delay effect should have a mix knob , or otherwise Dry/wet, turn that all the way to full wet , or full mix

The reason the effects we are going to use are full mix is because we have the clean channel and we can "mix" just by configuring the level of the wet (FX) channel.

So now you have a reverberated signal.

Now at anytime , if you use more than 1 FX in series you should think them like a chain, the first node feeds the next one. This has an effect on the result, sometimes the difference is dramatic sometimes it's not , this is often judged by the kind of effects and how excessively they are used.

So a delay preceding a reverb , is a different effect from a reverb preceding the delay.

Having clarified that,when you play with not so standard effects like the ones we try to use here , changing the chain order can lead you to better results.

Adding the vocoder effect after the delay will "vocode" the repeats , adding the vocoder before the delay , will make the delay repeat what the vocoder has done to the initial signal. Pretty straightforward.

Now FX processing can become really deep for instance if i was in your state i would do something like this:

EQ(keep the mids) -> delay(short) -> *EQ(again to fix possible issues) -> *Compression(to keep it steady) -> vocoder.

So each effect is feeding the next one here. The effects i have noted with * , are effects that i think of as nor mandatory.

After setting up such a chain, moving the vocoder to another position let's say

Vocoder -> EQ(keep the mids) -> delay(short) -> Compression

Could have a dramatic difference compared to the 1st approach.

After you've finished adding FX to the "Wet" channel , it's now time to unmute the original channel , and try to find a good relationship between Dry & Wet just by moving the faders.

So , all in all , when you are using effects , it's creativity time, so sky is the limit , you can do as many as you like , however you like them.

I gave you an idea , or a point where i'd start judging by the sample,now it's your turn to see if all that add up nicely and bring you closer to your target.

Good luck.