by gdrileyx » April 29th, 2012, 12:43 pm
I use audacity, but can hear the pitch-change feature doesn't do that much for me. I have an odd voice. I have a huge range, that I have expanded through doing storytelling. It's a deep man's voice to begin with, but I can speak as a female well enough to pass, and work as a woman. But on the phone, even with my best female voice, most people think the voice is male, even though I am hitting the right pitch to be in the female range. I liken it to an oboe playing the same note as a violin. It's the same pitch, and the same note, but the oboe is distinctly deeper in timbre, and sounds masculine. My chest is broader, my throat is wider, my mouth is bigger, and the sound-board of my skull is shaped differently. All these unchangeable factors give me a distinctly masculine timbre, no matter what actual pitch I speak or sing in.
So I make files with my raw female voice, and then also with Audacity changing the pitch about 8% higher. It's not a big difference, but it improves the sound the most. Higher than that, it sounds like a child speaking. I have noticed, that changing the speed changes the pitch/timbre. Slowing it down, counteracts raising the pitch, even though the program tries to compensate, and mitigates the effect. So speeding it up and deepening it might raise the pitch better than raising the pitch. I just am so busy making files that are good enough, I don't have time to play around.