[Goober5000]

Last week I emailed Mark Allender at Volition, on the outside chance that he could be grovelled into reprising his role as the Vasudan translator for Silent Threat: Reborn.  Not unsurprisingly, he declined, due to personal reasons.  However, to my great excitement, he talked to Dan Wentz and was able to obtain the original procedure for producing the untranslated Vasudan speech sound!  Here it is:

Here's basically all I did.

First of all Duncan's source was the key. He had the right intonation,
pitch, etc. to make the rest go more easily.

I started by transposing Duncan's original takes down slightly, maybe a
half octave while retaining the same timing. For this I used a
Digidesign's DPP-1 Pitch Processor in Protools. This immediately made
them sound more menacing.

I then ran them through Opcode's Vocode plugin, which was one of the few
vocoder plugins available at the time. For my carrier signal (what gets
articulated by his voice) I choose white noise. I also cut a fair amount
of gain out of the mid range and experimented a bit with the
Emphasis/Depth ratio. This gave them a cool, raspy effect which also
made them sound scarier.

http://news.harmony-central.com/Newp/103AES/Opcode/Vocode.html

That's basically it. Again the key is quality source. Duncan had the
whole language laid out, so I think a lot of the credit goes to him.

Now, can any of you sound engineers reproduce this in Goldwave or Audacity or something?

[Bobboau]

I've been able to make untranslated vasudan speech for years, you just have to make a good source, like he said, and use goldwave's pitch modifier. I needed a way of haveing english that sounded like it was being spoken by a vasudan for Dark Breed all those years ago (sence it was all about a group doing bioligical hybridization experiments to make an ultimate life form) and I figured it out prety quick.

[Goober5000]

I've been able to make untranslated vasudan speech for years, you just have to make a good source, like he said, and use goldwave's pitch modifier. I needed a way of haveing english that sounded like it was being spoken by a vasudan for Dark Breed all those years ago (sence it was all about a group doing bioligical hybridization experiments to make an ultimate life form) and I figured it out prety quick.

Can you attach a sample?  Because I've heard many attempts over the years and none of them were very close IMHO.  It's possible I never heard yours.

[Jbman]

I spent a little time playing around a bit in Audacity,  This is what i have gotten so far
Pre effects : http://rapidshare.com/files/40337718/test1_B.mp3
Post effects: http://rapidshare.com/files/40337763/test_B_ring_mod_octave_eq.mp3
What seems to be working so far:
Use Change Pitch set D down to G#/Ab
Use mda Ringmod effect setting Fine 0.60000
Use Multiband Eq set 880hz to -70

Still not quite there yet.  Maybe some has a idea?

[jr2]

That's basically it. Again the key is quality source. Duncan had the
whole language laid out, so I think a lot of the credit goes to him.

Umm... any chance on getting that language layout?

[Bobboau]

here, what you do is you down pitch it and add some flange.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Goober5000]

That... doesn't really sound like Vasudan speech.  IMHO.

[Snail]

Sounds okay to me actually.

[Vasudan Commander]

Keep in mind that not every vasudan sounds the same. I'm sure that they would sound different, based on age and gender.

[Flipside]

Hmmmm... Well, Vocoders etc I have, I might look into this and see what can be done

[Kaine]

Keep in mind that not every vasudan sounds the same. I'm sure that they would sound different, based on age and gender.

distance from the emperor, alignment of the sun, number of bodily hairs etc.

[Selectah]

I know 'tis a bit late, but I tried the procedure having all the necessary audio tools. Lo! and behold, the results are.., well, vasudan. Ish. I don't have mr McPherson literally on speed dial, so I couldn't ascertain if I succeeded, but by semi-reversing the process I got to hear what the original source sounded like. At least close enough.

My conclusion: basically, you can make do w/ any kinda of foreign language. Foreign to the english nunciation, that is. Pick a random page from, say, the latin or esperanto WikiPedia, record it with an english diction, apply vocoder + EQ. Record original english in a monotonous (perhaps semi-british ) voice. Mix vasudan/human in a 50/50 ratio. Repeat. That's it.

I could relatively easily create the necessary sound files, if ya ST:R guys need em. Just a thought.

Cordially,
~Selectah

[Goober5000]

Hmm.  Well, we already have a sound editor who is creating the Vasudan voice itself, and whose samples sound really good.  But we don't have a translator.  Do you possess a good FS1 translator voice?

[Hellstryker]

microsoft sam? 

[Dark RevenantX]

We need an emo highschool kid to do the translation; "oh my god, we are dying" spoken without emotion really sells the effect.

[redsniper]

Get the lady that did GladOS' voice.

[mnftg64]

I have access to ProTools and said plugins for the process. Hooray for majoring in Sound Design in collage. Of course, it sounds like you guys got it all figured out.

[J.P.]

Check it out. I got my hands on opcode fusion:VOCODER.

FEAR ME

Some buddy I recorded over ooVoo

-J.P.

[Goober5000]

Neato.

Try doing it with some pseudo-Vasudan dialogue.  Here's my (bad) phonetic transcription of the Volition sample:

all geh jer yah fegh

grah fio o'stehr bagh

yul yeah gee gagh

ya hul fee duh gracks la megh

oh soyo harff darks

een jah go fegh

knife feef fohf noff yorgh

all geh yo treh soy ahbo graf fyoss tehr bagh

[J.P.]

I did the last one.

All Geh Yo Treh

-J.P.