female voice through technology?

[allison_in_love]

i thought this warranted a new thread, forgive me if I am wrong.

but I keep getting people emailing me wanting to know this, and as I don't know myself, I thought I would ask: is there reasonably good technology that allows one to change their voice as it is reproduced, over the phone for instance, so that it sounds more female? if i could post a link to something about this, it would save me answering a lot of email. i know such technology exists, I just dont' know if it is good enough to bother with, or how people should get started, etc.

thanks

allisoninlove.multiply.com

[Foxgirl]

MorphVox

I was playing with my b/f, got him to sound like a mature woman, and me to sound like a teen guy :p

[homerj1620]

but I keep getting people emailing me wanting to know this, and as I don't know myself, I thought I would ask: is there reasonably good technology that allows one to change their voice as it is reproduced, over the phone for instance, so that it sounds more female? if i could post a link to something about this, it would save me answering a lot of email. i know such technology exists, I just dont' know if it is good enough to bother with, or how people should get started, etc.

For a recording GarageBand can do it. In GarageBand '08, for example, go to the track effects and add "Vocal Transformer" and then select "Male to Female".

[JHoffman]

There is also pitch options in some programs such as, say, Audacity, I believe. By altering the soundwaves by a couple of semitones up, you can get a female voice pretty easily. And it's sometimes VERY believable. No lag or choppiness either.

[debbieposton]

I think she means permament. For me, just talking show and soft makes me sound female.

[mindphuk]

I played with certain technologic solution such as morphvox and similar but never yet found a thing that can instantly turn a male voice into believeable female. (As I have never found TTS-Systems that sound really human.)

The pitch is not so much the trick because there are females that have deeper pitch than some males still sounding female. There is more that makes a voice sound female than the pitch. If you just rise the pitch you rather get a chipmunk than a woman.

There is also the resonance thats important. Women got a thinner throat so they got less resonance. Normaly this shouldnt be hard because the program only had to remove some resonance from the spectrum thing to make it sound female (morphvox and similar do this as far as I know).

But still, even with the right formant a male voice dosn't really sound female. There is the hard part: Women articulate different. Some say, they speak "softer". And this is what transgender practice. Once they got the trick, they could even use their male pitch they will sound still more feminine than "normal" men.
Unfortunately that is something a program can not do for you...

[Winterdream]

I investigated this subject very intensively this year. There is an american treatment standard, for teaching transsexuals (or sissy girls who have the same goal) to get a permanent female voice. It takes a lot of practice, there is a manual for that. Also, you need a microphone and a special voice analysis program (freeware) that helps you getting instant feedback if you speak out correctly. To my knowledge there are also courses and teachers in the US. But it can be achieved at home with a DVD course. I know a transsexual who achieved a perfect (permanent) female voice within 9-12 months of training. She also told me that surgery is the worst thing one can do to get a perfect voice. It helps a bit, but training is the best way. Hope that helps.

Links?

[Synphonie]

I use Logic but that's rather expensive.