Voice fixing (30/4/2014)

* Today I decided to re-listen to my voices from yesterday, since I realised afterwards that I never recorded them, only listened to them by ear which I was reminded was a bad thing since we all hear our own voices differently. Thus when hearing the same voices from yesterday out loud, I confirmed that I they were good, but most weren't good for a sci-fi setting.

However, if push comes to shove I could do my 'high crazy' voice since that stands out and could perhaps have some sort of filter over it. The same goes for the 'David Bowie' voice since it also stands out, but because I make his voice similar to a musical jingle, I would have to figure out from the lines where to do my pauses and where to go higher.

I also decided during today to look over other well known voices from both my voice acting book and media and see if I could match or alter one into my own as seen below. Some even being examples mentioned in the book to practice with.   

• Squidward: Managed to come out slightly more nasily than my 'high crazy' voice but, during the higher lines reverted to that one.
• Patrick Warburton: When trying to do his unique deep voice by going higher rather than just super deep with my bass, I found that it made a commercial esk voice almost similar to the heroic voice, only more controllable.
• Jock/cool kid: A very simple voice that, although sounds fine recorded, seems somewhat forced to me and maybe not right for sci-fi. But, I will continue to play around with it none the less.
• Beatles voice: An odd result to say the least, when doing short sentences with this voice it's fine. But, when doing extended ones it comes across as a Beatles' voice mixed with a slight Asian accent (despite not even intending this). Thus clearly being one I need to work on.
• Nerd: A voice that I have always wanted to pull off as my friends can, but I can't. It ended up like the Squidward one, only it was both nasily and similar to my 'high crazy' voice.
• Old man: A voice you would mess around with alongside your friends, not for a real performance. It just sadly came across as too raspy and not nearly clear enough. 
• Captain Barbossa: Although I can often do this voice in my role play sessions, today it came out Scottish which was a surprise to me since I am poor at accents. But at least I now know I can do Scottish, in a way...
• Surfer dude: Very 'Bill and Ted', it's as simple and effective as it gets.
• Mickey Mouse: I am rather pleased with this impersonation, since you have to make your voice high to do so, and then keep that with any sentence you say. 
• Stewie Griffin: Somehow I managed to completely butcher this characters voice as, although it is meant to be incredibly British, it came across as forced, though I wasn't expecting to do a good job since I have always been terrible with this voice.  
• Shawn Connery: Not the worse interpretation in the world but, the Scottish parts come out deeper.
• Arnold Schwarzenegger: What's the voice you tend to hear when people are impersonating / mocking Arnold? Yea, pretty much the same, if not weaker than most.
• Christopher Walken / William Shatner : Despite how hard I try, I always end up mixing these two voices together. Thus, it wouldn't work as the voice would be so disjointed that the audience wouldn't know what to think of it.

As I had mixed results with some of my recordings (most likely due to recording so many in one go), I decided to give myself a break and come back to the weaker ones. 
Doing so I still couldn't get the Beatles' voice right and the nerd seemed to get worse, instead sounding more like a chipmunk. However, my old man voice came out clearer and Captain Barbossa was less Scottish, but still not quite right. 

Looking at the results it would appear that either my attempt at Patrick Warburton's voice or my 'high crazy' voice could be included as both are distinct and different to the existing two that we have chosen. If need be the Patrick Warburton impersonation could be used for the narrator as its deep, but not the same as the characters more relaxed and in control voice. Whereas, despite my initial thoughts on the 'high crazy' one not being right for the genre, I now feel that it could be used for the ship as, on higher lines it sounds more like a easily panicked character.  

Granted, I need to go over these thoughts with my partner tomorrow so as to make sure he is ok with them and find out how we can edit our voices for the better.