[Feedback] GLaDOS voice

Avatar
hamsteralliance
159 Posts
Posted Nov 06, 2007
Replied 2 days later
I think I have pretty good GLaDOS voice down. I'm not using text to speech but actually recording the dialog myself and processing it with Melodyne and Soundforge.

UPDATE 1: Here's a newer example - I think it sounds better: 02_useless_button.mp3 ( I'm certain that button doesn't do anything, it's just there for decoration.)


Here's an example:
01_best.mp3 (Whoever said the best things in life are free, never had an Aperture Science Hand-Held Portal Device.)

There's a bit of plosive noise from that recording as I didn't have the pop-filter placed correctly but that has been corrected since.

I'll be making more tests tonight - so if you have any feedback for me on how to improve my GLaDOS-style, let me know. :biggrin:

My current questions:
1. Am I headed in the right direction?
2. Does it sound better than the text-to-speech attempts?
3. Should I talk in a higher pitch/inflection?

Advertisement
Registered users don’t see ads! Register now!
Avatar
Hober
1,180 Posts
Posted Nov 06, 2007
Replied 1 hour later
Sounds good, but the inflection isn't quite right. I'm not sure exactly how.

But the sound itself is really close. Maybe a tad to "tinny"

Avatar
hamsteralliance
159 Posts
Posted Nov 06, 2007
Replied 16 minutes later
Thanks for the feedback, Hober. :biggrin:

Another try, trying to add more roundness (femininity/cuteness?) and emotion to my voice. Kind of sounds like a turret. :razz:

04_look_over_there.mp3 (Hey, look over there! It's your best friend the companion cube. Oh, nevermind, it was just a picture of a companion cube. Not your companion cube...You incinerated that one. )

Avatar
Player1
212 Posts
Posted Nov 06, 2007
Replied 1 hour later
It's fairly good, although a bit too tinny and a bit like coming through a telephone.

To me it sounds like your formants have been raised too high. It sounds more like the turrets than GLaDOS.

Avatar
NocturnalGhost
200 Posts
Posted Nov 06, 2007
Replied 13 minutes later
I think your first one sounds closest. Your technique seems very good, but you need to work on your pronunciation.

Listen, for example, to how you say the word "Portal" compared to how GLaDOS says it. You need to sound more British. Pronounce your T's more, etc.

This is one of the closest i've heard so far though. Nice work.

Avatar
Lorithad
240 Posts
Posted Nov 06, 2007
Replied 5 hours later
Wow. Just Wow.

Espen, You're a moderator. Show some more brains, and don't talk about pirating software on the board. If you're going to do anything that shouldn't be discussed, do it on instant messengers, or even PMs. I don't want to see this board shut down because people are idiots.

Putting something behind a spoiler tag doesn't stop anybody from realising what you're doing.

Avatar
Hober
1,180 Posts
Posted Nov 06, 2007
Replied 16 minutes later

Lorithad wrote:
Show some more brains, and don't talk about pirating software on the board.

Actually, I've discussed this with msleeper. As long as it's not uploaded to the download database or directly linked to, he doesn't care. As of right now, discussing software piracy is not itself illegal.

Avatar
hamsteralliance
159 Posts
Posted Nov 06, 2007
Replied 1 hour later

NocturnalGhost wrote:
I think your first one sounds closest. Your technique seems very good, but you need to work on your pronunciation.

Listen, for example, to how you say the word "Portal" compared to how GLaDOS says it. You need to sound more British. Pronounce your T's more, etc.

This is one of the closest i've heard so far though. Nice work.

Thanks, I'll try a more deliberate and British sound tonight. :smile:

What I'm also going to do is listen to her commentary tracks to see how she sounds normally and try to imitate her that way.

Avatar
msleeper
4,136 Posts
Admin
Posted Nov 06, 2007
Replied 1 hour later

Lorithad wrote:
Wow. Just Wow.

Espen, You're a moderator. Show some more brains, and don't talk about pirating software on the board. If you're going to do anything that shouldn't be discussed, do it on instant messengers, or even PMs. I don't want to see this board shut down because people are idiots.

Putting something behind a spoiler tag doesn't stop anybody from realising what you're doing.

The Rules wrote:
Don't post links to illegal files (warez, etc.). We aren't a piracy forum, so we won't for stand it. If you are looking to acquire some software, take it to PM please.

Don't ask where to find illegal files. If you don't know how to get your hands on something, you shouldn't be asking for it in the first place.

I don't see any broken forum rules, do you?

EDIT What Hober said sums it up pretty good too, discussing pirated software isn't illegal and my host won't shut me down for it. Uploading it here, or giving links to some site that does have it is illegal however, and will be dealt with. But since nobody has done that, we're all cool like Fonzy right now.

Avatar
espen180
307 Posts
Posted Nov 06, 2007
Replied 6 minutes later
No. :neutral:
Avatar
TEZT
3 Posts
Posted Nov 12, 2007
Replied 5 days later
I've been following the tutorial for Melodyne posted earlier, but I still can't quite get it. People said it takes them less than 5 minutes, but I still haven't gotten to the part where it sounds like a female GLaDOS. Maybe a male one :\ Perhaps that's the issue. Whenever I up the pitch to sound more feminine, it starts to sound not so great.
Avatar
hamsteralliance
159 Posts
Posted Nov 13, 2007
Replied 12 hours later

TEZT wrote:
I've been following the tutorial for Melodyne posted earlier, but I still can't quite get it. People said it takes them less than 5 minutes, but I still haven't gotten to the part where it sounds like a female GLaDOS. Maybe a male one :\ Perhaps that's the issue. Whenever I up the pitch to sound more feminine, it starts to sound not so great.

Try changing the formant instead of pitch - it's the true deciding factor in whether your voice sounds like a man, a girl or a chipmunk.

Avatar
glaDOSv2
1 Posts
Posted Nov 13, 2007
Replied 16 hours later
Hey hey new member, can't belive this username isnt taken, hehehe...

Anyway heres my attempt at a glaDOS style voice.. allbeit with a male...

Hello and welcome too...
BBC News?

Enjoy.

Avatar
Duffers
474 Posts
Posted Nov 22, 2007
Replied 8 days later
What you COULD do...

Record yourself talking normally, or a girl or w/e and make the first two words really high pitched, make a glitch sound, then switch to a low pitch. That'll sound really broken.

Avatar
Rigby
1 Posts
Posted Nov 22, 2007
Replied 36 minutes later
I got a great result with meoldyne on my mac. Thanks to this thread I now have the most kickass voicemail greeting on the planet.

Also, if you bump the Formant up to about 300 it starts to sound more like the turrets.

Avatar
chris_24
28 Posts
Posted Nov 22, 2007
Replied 1 hour later
I got: welcome to the apperture science cluck cluck cluck .... map .... fuckety fuck
Avatar
Wroth
135 Posts
Posted Nov 22, 2007
Replied 2 hours later
At last, an on-topic post!
Avatar
Kingpin
34 Posts
Posted Jan 24, 2008
Replied 2 months later
Are you serious? Read the forum rules. No warez, illegal software, etc. Come on, use your fucking brain. --msleeper
Avatar
JLipimpski
42 Posts
Posted Jan 25, 2008
Replied 2 hours later

Kingpin wrote:
Are you serious? Read the forum rules. No warez, illegal software, etc. Come on, use your fucking brain. --msleeper

[bad joke] more like: are you serious? did you just stuff that aperture science we dont know what it does thing into an aperture science emergency intelligence incinerator? that has got to be the dumbest thing i have ever whoa whoa whoaaa.... [/bad joke]

i tried making some GLaDOS sounds for a map series that i'm planning out right now, but i never did get it right, and because i cant get any of my friends that are girls to try it, i'm kind of stuck right now. oh well. but there are some sounds in this thread taht are getting closer

Advertisement
Registered users don’t see ads! Register now!
Avatar
Ricotez
738 Posts
Posted Jan 25, 2008
Replied 10 hours later
There's nothing against a male GLaDOS voice, after all she IS a computer, so she should be capable of producing a wide array of different voices. The biggest issue with the examples so far is that they are all like spoken by a human being, with certain syllables not getting too much stress. If you listen to GLaDOS, you can hear she sometimes put stress on... unusual syllables, or speeds up the wrong parts of words. Don't drive it as far as the GMan, but do it a little more than a standard human.

GLaDOS also tries to equally clearly pronounce most letters of a word, something which most humans in most languages do neither.