Is there a software out there that can change a person's voice?

May 3, 2019 11:12 AM

Inspired by an episode of star trek

There is an episode of star trek where this guy tries to move the ship by speaking into a device that makes his voice sound exactly like that of the captain's. My niece and nephew got all into it while we were watching because the device made it sound like a real voice and not robotic like some software they use for video games.

So I thought it'd be fun to get something like that for them, but nothing as fancy as the one on star trek obviously. Maybe just a software or device that makes a girl's voice sound like a guy and vica versa- without distorting speed or pitch so that it sounds human. Not sure if this exists.

posted by fantasticness to Technology (6 answers total)

You want something that will allow you to change formants. If you're a mac user, you have garageband, and you could record their voice into that and use the Voice Transformer effect. You can change pitch and formants, but changing the formant (rather than the pitch) is what will allow you to do what you want.

If you don't have garage band, there are lots of other similar effects plugins out there for various software, but being able to alter formants is the key.
posted by jonathanhughes at 11:48 AM on May 3, 2019

There are dozens of voice changer apps out there. Here's an example article about some for an Android device. They apply generic filters so they won't make one of your children sound like the other, but I'm not sure that's quite what you're looking for?
posted by jacquilynne at 11:58 AM on May 3, 2019 [1 favorite]

There exists very sophisticated prototype called VoCo that was shown by Adobe at a technology preview three years ago (YT link). It could learn someone's voice by listening to samples of that voice and then be used to just about perfectly mimic that voice just by typing in new dialog for it to speak. It has never come to market. Lyrebird makes a vocal avatar creator that can create a very realistic synthetic voice but, perhaps due to deep fake liability concerns has been released in a somewhat crippled form.

I fully expect there to be AI-based synthetic voice creators/changers on the market sometime soon. Professional editors would very much like to have the tools to repair (or outright alter) dialog but, again, the threat of deep fake liability may keep such tools off the market at the high-end.
posted by bz at 12:50 PM on May 3, 2019

>Lyrebird makes a vocal avatar creator that can create a very realistic synthetic voice but, perhaps due to deep fake liability concerns has been released in a somewhat crippled form.

IS that just conjecture or was that ever stated as reason for the softwares quality on release? The skeptic in me wants to think their software just wasn't as good as their public demos would lead you to believe. The paranoid one thinks the software was completed as was demo'd but kept from general sales for several reasons, including reserving the superior tech for governments, companies, or those with the big buxx.
posted by GoblinHoney at 3:08 PM on May 3, 2019

Conjecture but by many knowledgeable people involved in a post-production forum I follow.
posted by bz at 3:26 PM on May 3, 2019

You could try MorphVox. There's a free version if you want to try it out.
posted by zompist at 6:07 PM on May 3, 2019