Wendy thanks for this video.

It proves that it's possible to create good voices, and that's what I needed to see to be convinced. :)

Do you own a headset mic? I am using a USB mic and I am dealing with echo problems and voice return (I bought it in 2005, meeh... :P )




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I have a directional mic plugged into my microphone audio in jack

Some of this is going to have to do with the environment you record your sound in and how good the recording is. Just because the mike is USB, does not necessarily make it the best for vocal recording. And sometimes an analog microphone will give you superior results --but it depends on the equipment that you have and how noise rich your background is. I am not an expert on sound engineering, but I have come to understand that what you record on is just as important as the software you use. I'm not doing any sound work at the moment --I am actually building a "quiet box" for recording at home. (I am not building a strictly sound proof studio --so there's no confusion. My house is pretty quiet to begin with, and I just want to minimize background noise like computer fans, ceiling fans and stuff) Sometimes the background noise our ears filter out for us, end up on your sound recording and can cause issues with the final result.  There are more than a few youtube videos on sound recording and vocal recording. I suggest before getting too in depth that you reasearch a bit more about vocal recording techniques. If you put a bit of effort into getting good techniques down with the right hardware, you can do a pretty decent job. There's no instant "voice chango" thingy --a lot of this requires a little research on our part in order to develop a system of doing it that works for us. 

This video here gives a bit of good information on voice recording that could be of use to you:



You've got to make sure you get yourself into the right equipment for the task you set. Not every USB microphone is good for vocal recording. You might want to look into how-to video's in order to help you select the right mic for this purpose and how you can cut down on some of the noise in your recording sessions. Of course it doesn't hurt to learn as much as you can about your mic's capabilities --it could be that you could adjust the settings and get an even better sound out of it. It all depends on what you have and how much effort you're willing to put into getting a good sound before you start trying to morph it.

What Will2Power71 said:exclamationmark:.  Recording dialogue and sound design are complete disciplines within themselves.  You can't just expect to hookup a mike to your computer and get decent sound.  At the very least you should surround the recording space with sound dampening to block all reflections and echoes.  It is my opinion that sound is even more important than the video quality.  Tread carefully.

MICROPHONE:

I have a Samson Meteor microphone.  Very beautiful.  And very sensitive.  It is a bit too omnidirectional for most of my needs, and has no "gain" control, but I'm satisfied with the quality.
About $60-70.
https://www.amazon.com/Samson-Meteor-Studio-Microphone-Chrome/dp/B004MF39YS
(I think Walmart lists it for $60.)

I keep looking at the Blue Yeti microphones.  They have three setting for directional, etc., and have a "gain" knob on them.  Their price is a bit high for a hobbyist, but they get a lot of good reviews.
About $110-120 (list price is $150), and since I have a decent mic already, I continue to not buy this one.
https://www.amazon.com/Blue-Yeti-USB-Microphone-Silver/dp/B002VA464S


RECORDING STUDIO:

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iClone 7... Character Creator... Substance Designer/Painter... Blender... Audacity...
Desktop (homebuilt) - Windows 10, Ryzen 9 3900x CPU, GTX 1080 GPU (8GB), 32GB RAM, Asus X570 Pro motherboard, 2TB SSD, terabytes of disk space, dual  monitors.
Laptop - Windows 10, MSI GS63VR STEALTH-252, 16GB RAM, GTX 1060 (6GB), 256GB SSD and 1TB HDD

I am posting a link to another thread I had with poster Animagic.   He mentioned Amazon Polly.  Amazon Polly is the best route IMO....though I believe it is best to use everything available to you.  However I have tried all the ones mentioned here and ALL sound robotic and not realistic.   The voice is just a higher pinch or lower pinch and thats about it despite the different plugins,  preferences,  etc.  when it comes to Human voices. 


https://forum.reallusion.com/329553/How-many-built-in-human-voices-does-CrazyTalk-has-Also-can-you-create-new-ones


https://aws.amazon.com/polly/

genao87

Hey, thanks for the reply and the link.

Isn't polly a text-to-speech software though? How do you convey emotion and life in your voice if it's a text-to-speech?

I am worried that I will achieve a good human voice, but lose all the emotion that a normal person can convey with his voice.



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What is your budget?  If you want quality sound with real emotion, there is no replacement for a human.  I am using this service to hire my own actors. https://www.voices.com/
Take out an ad and tell them your budget.  Or get a friend or family member to do some voice acting.  This is the only way to get quality.

I tried out Polly; sounds good but you will need to make some "Lexicons" to customize pronunciation.
http://docs.aws.amazon.com/polly/latest/dg/managing-lexicons-console.html#managing-lexicons-console-synthesize-speech
I did not get deeper into this matter yet :crazy:


I also think that it should be possible to find, AFTER you made the script,
to find people who would have fun doing it and also fit to your character(s).
Why not ask some (amateur) musicians from the neighborhood,
they even make you the musik for intro/outro if they get some credits
or they/you can make a music-video out of parts of the movie :satisfied:


Toystorylab on Vimeo :     Crassitudes (my "Alter Ego") on Youtube: 

It's true that, the only way to get actual quality is to ask a voice actor (friend or not) to do the voices for you.

It's just that, as I said in my first post, I enjoy doing the vocals myself. I used to be in a theatrical group for 5 years, and now it's the first year that I won't be able to be a part of it, due to my job being too time consuming. So playing all the characters in a movie would be a cool substitute for me missing the theater this year, which I love. 

Of course, if I am not able to create decent voices, I will hand this over to friends and family. But I 'd love to try first! :)


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Phoenix   ;)