You also have to understand that effects work differently with different voices. I've never had positive effects with multiple filters/layers that I couldn't make better by using less. Less is more for my voice. I can't really tell what's acting and what's editing with your files, which is a huge detraction for me, because I can't tell if your acting is good or if it's being carried by your editing and vice versa. I also don't believe that you should advise people on what to do based on what paying clientele ask for because when you're being paid for your work, it's not yours to do with as you fit - instead, you must adhere to what other people think is good, and what other people want, and their opinions likely run counter to your own design philosophies.
Another big factor in my decision making is the quality of whatever it is I'm trying to emulate. For SC:BW, which generally has far superior audio quality to SC2 in its edits, certain voices sound decent or iconic but fail to suit the personality of the unit or hero. For example, the dragoon's voice acting makes no sense when you consider the lore of the unit: it's hanging on for dear life, having suffered a mortal wound years and years ago. To exist as a dragoon is to be under some form of stress. I would expect the acting to represent that with strained intonation and perhaps even stuttered or pained pauses, but instead we get a high-pitched robot speaking to us from a very light filter. I sought to show the player a bit more substance in the acting, while improving the editing technique to better amplify the acting.
If I were editing someone else's voice, there's a good chance I'd have to modify my editing procedure just on the basis of their voice being different. That's not a knock on my editing technique, because edits aren't one voice fits all. You have to adapt to how someone sounds, especially with post-processing once the core edits have been completed. What's ideal for you probably isn't ideal for me, and I have used your filter specifications in your videos in the past and they produced poor results - again, not a detraction from your technique. It just doesn't work as well for my voice as it does for yours.
In any case, I've got two more demos to add to the showcase. The first is a triumvirate of diverse speakers - a protoss archon, a zerg cerebrate, and a terran admiral. I'm still looking for optimal effects for the archon and the cerebrate, but unfortunately, the original edits in BW are very lackluster - the archon's just makes things unintelligible, and the cerebrate's is very minimalist. The latter isn't necessarily a problem, but when I attempt to mimic it, it doesn't quite sound 'zerg' enough. I'll keep iterating on that and see where it leads.
The second is meant to be a deity, or some other extremely powerful entity. Think Amon with less edge. I'm still iterating on this as well but I'm generally happy with how it sounds.
Both files are available for your listening pleasure in the first post of the thread.
Unfortunately, your files suffer from Vile Egression syndrome, where the audio edits you're placing on them are swallowing up the fidelity of the voice acting. I use more minimalist filters to prevent as much quality loss as I can from the raw recording, while still giving it the protoss feel. Compare my voice acting here to Brood War voice acting, and then compare yours to SC2's. SC2 has genuinely intolerable edits for most of its protoss and hybrid dialogue - even the "Dark Voice" (cringe) has a problem with its original delivery being demolished by the filters that Blizzard's audio team ran it through.
Ideally, your setup when it comes to editing voice acting shouldn't require more than one flange filter, if it requires one at all, and making multiple copies of the file (or using the 'delay' effect as it does a similar thing) should be avoided. Echoes are also incredibly destructive when they're allowed to extend forever past their origin point before they fall off, as evidenced by Narud's voice acting in . Listen to how much nonsense, particularly repeated 's' sounds, are echoing for multiple seconds after their origin point. That's insane! It's hard to tell in a cinematic, but in-game, when there are sounds of battle and carnage, unit responses, etc, practises like that inevitably lead to a very clunky and unintelligible mess of audio. This is referred to as the 'loudness war' by most people who are aware of the phenomenon, and that's exactly what I want to avoid. It's a very western style of approaching audio.
I like to have my audio be incredibly impactful, but only for a moment. Every syllable should carry its own weight, but afterwards, it should disappear entirely, allowing room for other bits of audio to take up space so the player's ears don't get crowded. That's why my echoes are more subtle, and my filters are less common, so that the voice acting doesn't take up too much space and frees up more real estate for the many sounds of battle (or whatever's going on in your cinematic). Basically, anything that needlessly consumes audio space should be avoided, so you don't wind up operating in loudness war territory.
I'll have a new demo up in a few days. Enjoying the conversation here, thanks for the feedback!
As my compatriot Church and I continue working on our first SC2 campaign, I plan on releasing small voice demos that showcase a myriad of speakers. As the cast of this campaign is solely comprised of protoss characters, it will challenge my acting and editing capabilities, as I am currently the only voice actor on file for the project (and until we are closer to releasing it, that will not change). If you have any feedback, positive or negative, please make it known.
For easy access, you can find all demos on YouTube and SoundCloud. Additionally, as I feel that the compression those sites places on audio is rather destructive to the quality, I will also be providing direct download links to the raw, unprocessed waveforms, so that you can hear it in a higher quality if you desire.
Thanks again for taking a listen, and I hope you like what you hear!
-
Demo 01 - protoss mission primer
The first sample I'm providing is a scene that takes place very early on in the campaign. The scene depicted in this sample is the mission primer, showcasing the instigator of a conflict and the overall battle plan that the player's faction devises.
Vanguard Leader - the officer in charge of the Conclave's warband
Dragoon - an allied dragoon
Ambassador - a protagonist, and leader of the player's faction
Executor - a deutoragonist, and officer in charge of the player's military
-
Demo 02 - multi-race mission briefing
The second sample is removed from the first, dealing with a much different story that involves members of all three races forming a bitter alliance of convenience. The scene depicted is a mission briefing, taking place before the start of the actual mission's gameplay.
Archon - an executor, representing the protoss faction
Admiral - an officer, representing the terran faction
Cerebrate - a brood leader, representing the zerg faction
-
Demo 03 - deity
The third demo holds only one speaker. The focus of this demo is not to provide a believable setup for a StarCraft campaign, but instead to experiment with the audio representation of a powerful yet enigmatic entity. Think Amon, but with less edge and more purpose.
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Curse PremiumEDIT: Conflict resolved.
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Curse PremiumYou also have to understand that effects work differently with different voices. I've never had positive effects with multiple filters/layers that I couldn't make better by using less. Less is more for my voice. I can't really tell what's acting and what's editing with your files, which is a huge detraction for me, because I can't tell if your acting is good or if it's being carried by your editing and vice versa. I also don't believe that you should advise people on what to do based on what paying clientele ask for because when you're being paid for your work, it's not yours to do with as you fit - instead, you must adhere to what other people think is good, and what other people want, and their opinions likely run counter to your own design philosophies.
Another big factor in my decision making is the quality of whatever it is I'm trying to emulate. For SC:BW, which generally has far superior audio quality to SC2 in its edits, certain voices sound decent or iconic but fail to suit the personality of the unit or hero. For example, the dragoon's voice acting makes no sense when you consider the lore of the unit: it's hanging on for dear life, having suffered a mortal wound years and years ago. To exist as a dragoon is to be under some form of stress. I would expect the acting to represent that with strained intonation and perhaps even stuttered or pained pauses, but instead we get a high-pitched robot speaking to us from a very light filter. I sought to show the player a bit more substance in the acting, while improving the editing technique to better amplify the acting.
If I were editing someone else's voice, there's a good chance I'd have to modify my editing procedure just on the basis of their voice being different. That's not a knock on my editing technique, because edits aren't one voice fits all. You have to adapt to how someone sounds, especially with post-processing once the core edits have been completed. What's ideal for you probably isn't ideal for me, and I have used your filter specifications in your videos in the past and they produced poor results - again, not a detraction from your technique. It just doesn't work as well for my voice as it does for yours.
In any case, I've got two more demos to add to the showcase. The first is a triumvirate of diverse speakers - a protoss archon, a zerg cerebrate, and a terran admiral. I'm still looking for optimal effects for the archon and the cerebrate, but unfortunately, the original edits in BW are very lackluster - the archon's just makes things unintelligible, and the cerebrate's is very minimalist. The latter isn't necessarily a problem, but when I attempt to mimic it, it doesn't quite sound 'zerg' enough. I'll keep iterating on that and see where it leads.
The second is meant to be a deity, or some other extremely powerful entity. Think Amon with less edge. I'm still iterating on this as well but I'm generally happy with how it sounds.
Both files are available for your listening pleasure in the first post of the thread.
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Curse PremiumUnfortunately, your files suffer from Vile Egression syndrome, where the audio edits you're placing on them are swallowing up the fidelity of the voice acting. I use more minimalist filters to prevent as much quality loss as I can from the raw recording, while still giving it the protoss feel. Compare my voice acting here to Brood War voice acting, and then compare yours to SC2's. SC2 has genuinely intolerable edits for most of its protoss and hybrid dialogue - even the "Dark Voice" (cringe) has a problem with its original delivery being demolished by the filters that Blizzard's audio team ran it through.
Ideally, your setup when it comes to editing voice acting shouldn't require more than one flange filter, if it requires one at all, and making multiple copies of the file (or using the 'delay' effect as it does a similar thing) should be avoided. Echoes are also incredibly destructive when they're allowed to extend forever past their origin point before they fall off, as evidenced by Narud's voice acting in . Listen to how much nonsense, particularly repeated 's' sounds, are echoing for multiple seconds after their origin point. That's insane! It's hard to tell in a cinematic, but in-game, when there are sounds of battle and carnage, unit responses, etc, practises like that inevitably lead to a very clunky and unintelligible mess of audio. This is referred to as the 'loudness war' by most people who are aware of the phenomenon, and that's exactly what I want to avoid. It's a very western style of approaching audio.
I like to have my audio be incredibly impactful, but only for a moment. Every syllable should carry its own weight, but afterwards, it should disappear entirely, allowing room for other bits of audio to take up space so the player's ears don't get crowded. That's why my echoes are more subtle, and my filters are less common, so that the voice acting doesn't take up too much space and frees up more real estate for the many sounds of battle (or whatever's going on in your cinematic). Basically, anything that needlessly consumes audio space should be avoided, so you don't wind up operating in loudness war territory.
I'll have a new demo up in a few days. Enjoying the conversation here, thanks for the feedback!
My YouTube | My SoundCloud | My Twitter
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View User Profile
-
View Posts
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Send Message
Curse PremiumAs my compatriot Church and I continue working on our first SC2 campaign, I plan on releasing small voice demos that showcase a myriad of speakers. As the cast of this campaign is solely comprised of protoss characters, it will challenge my acting and editing capabilities, as I am currently the only voice actor on file for the project (and until we are closer to releasing it, that will not change). If you have any feedback, positive or negative, please make it known.
For easy access, you can find all demos on YouTube and SoundCloud. Additionally, as I feel that the compression those sites places on audio is rather destructive to the quality, I will also be providing direct download links to the raw, unprocessed waveforms, so that you can hear it in a higher quality if you desire.
Thanks again for taking a listen, and I hope you like what you hear!
-Demo 01 - protoss mission primer
The first sample I'm providing is a scene that takes place very early on in the campaign. The scene depicted in this sample is the mission primer, showcasing the instigator of a conflict and the overall battle plan that the player's faction devises.
Listen: , SoundCloud link
Download: MEGA link
Speakers (in order of appearance):
-Demo 02 - multi-race mission briefing
The second sample is removed from the first, dealing with a much different story that involves members of all three races forming a bitter alliance of convenience. The scene depicted is a mission briefing, taking place before the start of the actual mission's gameplay.
Listen: SoundCloud link
Download: MEGA link
Speakers (in order of appearance):
-Demo 03 - deity
The third demo holds only one speaker. The focus of this demo is not to provide a believable setup for a StarCraft campaign, but instead to experiment with the audio representation of a powerful yet enigmatic entity. Think Amon, but with less edge and more purpose.
Listen: SoundCloud link
Download: [https://mega.nz/#!BUsliZCJ!ocaizan6bdHuCXxgRySZlL4iMXWSXHIYwGPlWyOReD8]MEGA link[/url]
Speaker:
My YouTube | My SoundCloud | My Twitter