VO Rework (Original Content!)

[Sonador]

Good Morning Cyberiad!

I've come to you today with a conundrum. I subjectively dislike the recorded VO for station announcements and such. Huge problem, I know. I realize the announcements were likely generated through a Text-To-Speech system because voice work ain't free (usually) and there's a lot of it to replace. So, I come to you today to take your temperature on something I'd like to do for you: Do some original voicework as a drop-in replacement for the voiceover announcement system, and see if you all prefer it over the old ones.

As it stands now, I've prototyped three types of announcements to see if this is even something you'd be interested in me doing (or not opposed outright.) Here's the idea:

Type 1 is a fully worked, filtered, and edited clip with microphone/signal foley and public address effects.

VO1 Level7 Outbreak Take1.wav

Type 2 is a Type 1 recording, without mic foley, just public address effects.

VO2 Meteors T1.wav

And Type 3 is just a straight filtered recording without public address effects.

VO3 Xenos T1.wav

 

All of this is recorded directly by me and if there's interest, I'll produce a full drop-in replacement kit and bundle it into a pull request (or whatever/however github works.) If the Paradise Station staff like these takes enough, I'm more than willing to make this more involved, including doing multiple takes, fiddling with the filtering, and possibly adding more lines, such as narration for security levels changing, contingency records for events, and if this is really liked, a rework of the full VOX library.

All samples will be provided with no rights reserved beyond origination, anyone can take and do as they please with it, including Paradise assuming the license of lines produced for the codebase under whatever theirs is.

What I'd like to hear from both staff, especially maintainers and lore folks, as well as players that would have to hear my voice all the time is, do you like these samples? Which type do you prefer? Do you have any criticisms? Let me know, and I'll see what I can whip up in response.

Thanks!

[Sirryan2002]

That's some good voice work. 

I feel as though this doesn't fit the general atmosphere of the station very well. The tone is very serious and very professional and for generic announcements it's kind of overbearing whereas the AI voice we have now is like a background noise and its not terribly great at grabbing peoples attention(which is good). It's almost like you're walking through the grocery store and you hear this deep voice come on and announce that there is a spill on aisle 5 and it just increases peoples anxiety unnecessarily.

However, your voiceovers remind me a lot of SCP: Secret Laboratory's VOs(which are sick) and I think your VOs would still have a place in some circumstances for the Cyberiad. There isn't a VO for gamma/delta/red alerts and a more serious tone for those kinds of announcements might better articulate the seriousness of such a situation. If you were to continue working on these, focus on your sound being less crisp and more smooth; Announcements should flow with a legato style so focus on speaking relaxed and slowly.

Otherwise, thank you for contributing your talents to the server :D it's super cool to see people give back to the community.

[MattTheFicus]

Im in agreement with @Sirryan2002, this "style" of announcement would fit MUCH better in the "oh shit" moments of Code Red/Gamma/Delta/Epsilon. It sounds much more like someone from CC's military wing giving a warning or something SolGov Marines-esque. I think having the normal announcements having the AI-like VO is much better for the standard announcements, but something like this WOULD be nice for the scarier "oh shit CC needs to send an ERT" moments.

[Sonador]

I understand! I definitely was trying to work the "Trurl Communications Guy" angle with these. I might try something a little different later on.

In terms of new VO for the more serious announcements, I'd definitely be willing to try something like that. For the security levels, I'd like to avoid attaching VO lines to them save for Epsilon given how often they're called. I feel like people would get tired of my voice quick. I like your idea of that "Oh fuck" kind of direct CC intervention flavor. I actually did this up in regards to an event I was working on for Paradise, but gave up the ghost on some years ago now:

(There was a lot more planning that went into this than just "eliminate the crew," I promise, it's just that in the end I decided not to suggest it as I wasn't happy with how the end result looked. Maybe I'll post the flowchart in here sometime, if I can find it) That said, here's some sample lines I did for Epsilon and the ERT announcements. Let me know what you think.

Epsilon Security Level

NVO Epsilon T1.wav

ERT Amber

NVO AmberERT T2.wav

ERT Red

NVO RedERT T1.wav

ERT Gamma

NVO GammaERT T1.wav

 

 

[Carthusia]

Big fan of the contingency audio, basically a "NT is gone, command and security, burn the evidence of anything we were doing that in anyway could be linked back to us, do so and you won't be burned along with it"

 

Always loved the idea that the reason NT sends deathsquads was to hide all the illegal stuff they've been doing to make sure SolGov doesn't get any kind of legal justification to just nationalise the company.

 

NT may be strong, but they should fear SolGov above all else.

 

Your recording style remind me a lot of TheVolgun in the SCP community

Edited December 13, 2020 by BlackDog

[Sonador]

Just a small bump as I promised I'd upload the old flowchart for the event if I found it.

[marginalorb]

I'm loving this VO work! And not gonna lie I've got some interest in the Contingency event as well