FX for making a voice like a lion

[waldie wave]

I just got a call from a parent asking me what fx program to use for a theatrical performance. The child is a 10 year old girl who is playing the part of the lion in a production of the Lion, the Witch & the Wardobe. She needs to sound like a lion. Some of the dialogue can be pre-recorded. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated?

[sh80action]

use a vocoder and take some lion roar (or something similar) as the carrier and modulate it with her voice.

[waldie wave]

Thank you for your suggestion. It would never have occurred to me to use a vocoder as I have never used one before. I believe I have a vocoder program on my Eventide H8000FW. I will try to figure out how to use it. If I am correct I think the lion roar would go into one input and the vocal in another. I guess if the dialogue is long the lion roar will need to be looped so the length matches the length of the dialogue?

[Jfriah]

Yes, try vocoder or plugins like vocalign to take lion growls/roars (or other low-freq information if you wish--even severe pitch changes) and line them up/spit them out at the same time as the voice.

Jeff

[mikevarela]

yes, Vocoding is like FM (freq modulation)

1 channel is carrier (synth, roar, some sound) and the other channel is the modulator (voice, drums, keys)

Orange Vocoder might still be around and I think Logic has a built in one as well - poo poo on PT for not including one on there new PT 8 release

[waldie wave]

I can see how the changes in pitch would be cool too - to help create a growl - and the importance of lining the starts of the audio tracks with a program like vocal align, which I once had on PTs. It all sounds very fascinating.

[ezahp]

Vocoder won't work - at best you'll end up with some early 80s electro sounds (no bad thing in itself...remember this YouTube - Cybotron- Clear) - you'd probably have as much success convolving a lion plosive with the girl's speech (never tried that - might be interesting). In theory a 100% perfect vocoder would do the trick but no-one's ever made one.

Have you ever seen a film with a talking lion - I mean a lion really talking? Correct me if I'm wrong but there aren't any. I think there's lots of reasons why but the main one is lions don't speak......so you can't construct speech from their roars, growls etc. - human speech is far more complex.

Remember the Golden Compass with its talking polar bear? - from what I could judge that was done with a bit of pitch/formant lowering and a few well placed growls (and some subwoofer!). Unless you've got access to a Kyma and could do a bit of morphing in and out IMO that's probably the way to go......

[sonnykeyes]

If we're talking about a school play, then really what you're looking for is basic pitch-shifting, down a half-octave or so. A ten-year-old girl whose voice sounds that low will effectively be a lion for a school play. She'll kind of sound like Aslan, the talking lion in that movie of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe!

Sonny Keyes
Ricochet Audio
Toronto

[Big Andy]

I demo'd the new Kontact a while shoals from what I remember, there is a additive audio feature in it. You can take a voice, add a elephant rumble and get a crazy demon voice. It is more than just mixing signals together. It looks at the characteristics of both files to create something new and different.

You can download the demo for free and try it out. I got some pretty stellar results.

Meaning Audio A + Audio B = Audio C.

[Big Andy]

^Stupid iPhone auto correct.

*shoals = "ago and"

[Andrew Mottl]

A while back, someone here on GS recommended using tubes for vocalising monsters, lion roars, dogs etc. Plastic or cardboard tubes, llike "empty" kitchen paper towels, maybe a hoover (vacuum cleaner for the US) tube, worth trying several lengths and diameters.

What this should do is simulate the longer throat/snout (vocal tract) of these creatures. The resonance might add size and convey the idea of a lion. You might be able to pre-produce roars through these, or might be able to recreate the resonance through filters and tight reverb algorithms, or maybe even by sweeping your own impulse response for use with a convolution reverb, in order to use them live on stage.

Might be worth a try, and could sound more natural than other approaches.
I just thought that having sampled roars to trigger might add to the effect. You could have growls and roars written into the script, that either the girl could mouth first, and you add a second roar to her "mute" performance, or leave out her versions alltogether and have scripted roars for her to mime. To go even further, a wireless receiver and a small flat speaker in the costume might make it even more "fun".

Just a few thoughts here though.

[soundfx]

Yeah, I don't see the benefit or feasibility of mimicking the throaty growly lion sound throughout the whole vocal aside from embellishing the beginning and ending of certain lines and phrases with growls blending in...mainly the vowel-sounds of course, where blends could be seamless. Pitch shifting and blending would be a good start. I'd skip trying to totally "lionize" the whole vocal.

[Jfriah]

Originally Posted by Andrew Mottl

A while back, someone here on GS recommended using tubes for vocalising monsters, lion roars, dogs etc. Plastic or cardboard tubes, llike "empty" kitchen paper towels, maybe a hoover (vacuum cleaner for the US) tube, worth trying several lengths and diameters.

Good one--I often do this for certain effects in my fx editing. If you have time, play around. Could be a useful layer. Won't be 'lion growls', but you can always pitch the resultant tube-recording as well.

Jeff

[Johnny Paez]

buy a sound library with a lion.

better connect discovery website to your preamp and track it hahaha

[Scoopicman]

Originally Posted by soundfx

I'd skip trying to totally "lionize" the whole vocal.

I agree. Have the character use a gruff voice, with some pitch shifting. Then, add in some real lion growls and purrs, in between the talking.

THE ISLAND OF DOCTOR MOREAU (Val Kilmer, Marlon Brando) used this technique pretty well - gruff voices and real animal sounds.