Does your voice sound cool?

I'm looking for somebody who can record me a dozen or so phrases that are spoken by my fps games player (eg. "This door is locked", "Picked up a key"...). UK or US english would be nice.

If you're interested, contact hanshuber008 ät yahoo.com

I used my voice in my asteroids game and sphere racer, and will probably use it in many other projects, because it's quite convientant and I have good access to it.

I usually effect my voice though so it sounds less like me and doesn't feel as embarrasing when listening to it over and over, which I'm guessing is probably your problem too. It's not that a voice sounds cool or not, it's more that it sounds silly because your voice doesn't sound like how you hear it!

Anyway, if you want me to voice a bunch of things I don't mind doing it, I don't have a 'cool' voice, but it's not your voice so it'll probably sound ok!

Mine sounds idiotic.

Is that what you think after having heard it on a recording?

Rob, of course I want. Please send me a mail.

I'd help but I sound like Joe Pasquale.


(not really)

Sometimes I play with the idea to take voices from for example TV news channels and cut the words within a wave editor together as they are needed for the scene.

I don't think it is a violation of copyrights if you for example from "Its raining today in the north" and "troops went out of the country" make a new sentence: "Today in the north troops went out", because at least what I am understand of copyright laws a protected work requires some level of originality and nobody can demand copyright for banal phrases like those above. A problem of violation of personality rights may arise if in the scene is maintained that the real existing person XYZ speaked the text, but if you use an invented speaker there should be no problems at all.

Any opinions about the legal position ? (do we have a lawyer in the forum ;) )

That seems to me to be a very basic misunderstanding of copyright. You're saying it's ok because the words are bland, but it's not the words you're copying. If you spoke the words yourself, that would be copying the words and it would indeed NOT be copyright infringement because they are bland and commonplace. But you're not just copying the words, you're copying the voice, and that's almost certainly a copyright infringment on the broadcaster.


Pretending it's someone else doesn't reduce the infringement any more than me copying an Eminem CD and saying "That's Bert Spiggs from down my road singing, it's funny but now you mention it, he does sound a bit like that rapper with the blonde hair."

I don't think it'd work. You can't just randomly cut words here and there, paste them after eachother, and expect it sounds remotely near natural. You get words which are sometimes high, sometimes low, sometimes short, sometimes long, etc. It would truly sound like a giant cut/copy/paste mess. Kinda like cutting eyes, ears, heads, nose, mouth, neck etc. from random photos, and construct a new head from it, without smoothing the edges or unifying skin color.



Beware of Flame-:o>-Duck .. :P

@Gabriel: pardon me but I believe the missunderstanding of copyright is on your side. Natural attributes like voice can not be subject of copyrights but only of personality rights. That is why someone could analyze your genom, find a resistance against a certain illnes and makes it his patent -not yours.

Depends on the use and how long the snippet is. It might fall under some sort of sampling law (that thing that rap artists hide behind).

Yes, it might, and I was tempted to say this in my reply too, but didn't want to confuse two different issues, particularly since CS_TBL already referred to the problem with this. You'd probably have to use very short snippets in order to achieve this, and fall foul of the technical issue that CS_TBL referred to.


If you were recording their voice yourself this would be true - because it's the individual you would be infringing ( or not in this case ) but you're not doing that. You're recording a broadcast, which means it's the broadcaster you're infringing and the caveat you're relying on no longer applies.

In much the same way that Wagner's music is not copyrighted if you play it yourself, but it is if you copy a recent production by someone else. It's the performance/broadcast which carries the copyright, not the underlying sound.

Sure...listen: "Another visitor"..."Stay a while"..."Stay forever" ;O)

Sorry Gabriel, I'm still not convinced The copyright protection of a work arises from its originality, not from any technical details of its transmission. Yes, the performance of a Wagner opera or a declamation from a Shakespeare drama is protected because here an artist made an act of creation, but this rules not for common banal text sniplets, where no specific achievement lies within.

"Another visitor" is not even from a natural speaker but from the C64's sound synthesizer. I think it is not protected and I could have wrote a different C64 game and introducing it also with "Another Visitor". (I remember a C64 tool named "sam reciter" or something like this emulating human speech ).

Well if you wanted everyone to tell you what you wanted to hear, you should have said so in the first place.

jfk: Why not use one of those online speech-generation websites, and create placeholders with it? If the game has potention you can always hire real voice actors, or at least ppl with a suitable voice.

Oh Gabriel, "I'm not convinced" is just a polite phrase to continue the debate.
I don't want to hear my opinion from anyone, but if I'm told a contrary opinion, it must be convincing to retreat from my point of view, and thats all.

Well I'm sorry but I dont't have enough spare time to debate. If you're not convinced and it's not worth your time researching what I've said, then you'll have to carry on as you are.

I think he already has (try one of his demos).

I have a buddy who spent several years as a radio DJ who is not on the air any longer but still does demos, image spots and so on. My friend has done TV promo work, movie trailers, commercials, etc. You can check out his website at http://www.imagespots.com/ but the sit seems to be in transition right now (most of it is missing). There's only one demo up right now which is just some radio stuff he's done in the past, nothing fancy.

SpaceAce

That Jeremy Alessi is a good voice talent.

JFK, Email sent!

I do technical support for Comcast. I've had plenty of time to hone my vocal skills!

I've so far had 3 customers in 8 months tell me "My you have a sexy voice" and
"You have very good diction" and "You should be on the radio".

I kid you all not. Not that I'm able or willing to actually record any phrases
for you jfk, sorry. I just came on here to gloat, really.

I'm a terrible person. And I'm late for work.

If anyone wants a geordie twang, I'm your man... like! :)

Ya nar wat I mean... like pet!

:D

Dabz

I sound like a thirty year-old radio announcer.

You can hear my voice, a sort of camper version of Julian Clarey with added butch camp. I'm the main commentator on this: http://www.simtouringcarcup.com

I dont mind doing samples for anyone, but you get what you hear there... i'm no voice actor.

@xMickey: To the rightts issue. It is not legal. I'm a sound producer and I can tell you for sure. You're coping the sound enginering of someone else. the Eq, the mastering, sound processing, etc. Also, the person that says every one of the words 'stolen' have "image rights" on his or her own voice. you can't use it without explicit permission. (not sure if the expression 'image right' is used on english, just directly translating from spanish).

Ziggy, I think it is called "mechanical rights" in the UK. I just heard someone tell me that this evening. She said since she was requested to record a gig on her laptop she had the mechanical rights to it, even though she is not going to try to enforce it.

jfk: I do voice work...this small task will take me 30 minutes tops to complete. If you're still in need of help email me your script, file requirements and if you need them dry or with effects (and what effects if any).

@markcw: "mechanical rights"? You have a very strange language! :D hehehe Thanks markcw for the tip :D
One of the beneffits of using the wonderful Blitz Products is that, in addition to the creative task of programing, you can learn languages and expression on this forums. :D (Obviously if you're not from a native english region)

Hi everybody, sorry I was busy and AFK. Interesting discussion here.

The "Voices from TV channel" idea: they have very professional announcers. As somebody said it's not easy to cut and paste words, the melody of the phrases (other than football players in an interview, who know only two tones, some even only one) is an important factor. You may know those word based speech apps. They all sound like "" Amy - want - banana - now!". It needs a lot of work to find the right words and add them together. Additionally you may have to use pitchshifting on single words to correct the broken "melody".
But even then, I also agree, this ain't legal. Especially if it's for a commercial project.

The sampling law probably can't be used here, because no matter how much you scramble the words, in the end you'll use a very long audio recording (not only the 4 (?) seconds of the sampling law ). Considering the fact that this voice belongs to a professional announcer who worked hard to sound so clear etc., the content is not "banal text", but a spoken audio performence. And remember they got good lawyers.

Maybe it's still easier to record the voices.

Thanks to all who offered their help. Rob is already doing some records for me. But I'll note your adresses and I may contact you in the future.

@Banshee
How do you sound like if you're excited? :O)

Ziggy, sorry I misread your post so confused the issue.

I meant "mechanical rights" is for when you make a recording on a machine of someone else, I don't know what the rights of someone's recorded voice is called.

I have done voices.. i also got tools to realisticly on-the-fly modify your voice. :-)
I will do voicework for my new game (Sean's Adventures) also.
That will be like a "Pharao" of the past telling a story. bwhuahauhua

..my voice sound like shit..only womans like it..I dunno why .. :)

Mine's cool when I have a cold and it's dropped a whole 2 octaves (think Barry White) - Man you could melt butter with it (so the wife says - actually she says other things but when I've got a cold it's out of the question!).

I've done all the voice work for a korean language tutor program I'm wirint gfor taekwondo theory. It sounds okay, but the main problem is it's weird that it's my voice. I've only ever been told that it sounds good by other people though.