Hello!
You have no idea who I am in most likelihood but in either event I will, despite the ancient date of this thread, offer some thoughts on at least the last provided samples. You wanted critique, so I will dip into all of the aspects I feel are of note. The fact you are using audition right off the bat is a boon to you.
http://sclegacy.com/_staff/gradius/darktemplar3.mp3 <---
I have seen many amateur voice actors go for a DT first and to me they always seem to make the same mistakes. I'll dissect this and kind of explain why.
The echo stands out the most. It is distracting and sounds very un-protoss-like. I believe a shorter reverb would suit this sample and make it 2x as good as it currently is. Avoid using echoes until you are very comfortable with reverbs, because echoey sounds often do not suit protoss voices very well, and it's very easy to make them sound "off". Likewise, there is no pre-reverb for the "psionic" effect, but I suspect this is intentional.
Following the echo mentality, the voice sounds somewhat metallic, mechanical. I could have a use of a voice that is like this - but not for a protoss, rather a gundam, let's say. The mechanical effect seems to come from a variety of natural reverb (your recording environment) and the echo.
Following this, it sounds like you altered the pitch of your voice. Pitch alterations, especially deepening your voice, results in a very flat sound. This is not as bad as many voices (like the immortal in sc2) for "flatness", but you may want to investigate using either a compressor (dynamics processing), wave hammer (directX plugin) or EQ to kind of try to restore some fidelity to the upper regions.
Personally, I use a DirectX plugin called Elastique Timestretch. I find it to be far more capable of producing good, believable pitch alterations than the stock stretch filter. Additionally, I've also begun to experiment with Autotune to this end, but I find it cannot give me a deep voice very convincingly (at least with my very limited experience). My common scheme for altering pitches and deepening them is usually like this;
Record
Clean
Apply Elastique Timestretch with a max of -3 unless it's a heavily edited voice
Dynamics Processing for a outspoken character or Wave Hammer for a close-up, moderated spoken character.
Wave Hammer functions a little differently than the stock compressor and has less options than it, but can produce some interesting effects.
Lastly, I think you need to put some more emotion into the acting itself. It sounds like you're reading from a script. The first few lines, especially the formalities, followed by the dialogue, seem static and lack conscious thinking on the character's behalf.
To summarize, the things I think you could improve with this sample;
- Lighten the echo, focus on a smooth reverb that is shorter. Experiment with pre-reverbs to add that Dark Templar whispy sound. Tight echoes with specific settings, especially emphasis on higher frequencies, can work too. Check out Delay as well.
- Try to centralize your voice and avoid the "distant mechanical" kind of sound, this could be related to your environment, your distance from your mic, your mic itself, and the effects you're using.
- Consider experimenting with compression or EQ to prevent deepening your voice from sounding flat. Check out DirectX effects and you might find something cool.
- Practice your acting! You can never practice acting too much. Just ask my neighbors. They love my constant screaming and swearing.
http://sclegacy.com/_staff/gradius/artanis3.2.mp3 <---
Speaking independently of replicating Artanis' voice (Or Legion's which I feel is overprocessed);
I feel the recording quality of this is greatly superior to the second one, likely to the lack of a huge pitch shift. However, the trailing echo sounds very out of place for a Protoss - it reminds me somewhat of my Undead and Xul`Amon effects. To me, this is a much more solid sample overall than the second one. You should consider trying to tighten it or, again, attempting to use a reverb in its place.
I do not think you need to force yourself to speak so slowly in the beginning half. It sounds forced to me, out of character, if you will. This is more of a nitpick, but it's something I've been working on a lot myself - pacing. Entaro Tassadar also sounds a little "rehearsed", so to speak - it lacks the kind of empathy behind the words that I would expect from them.
Anyways, hopefully I don't come off as too much of a dick. I'm not so good with words. I know these are old, but I wanted to eventually get to them. I'm glad to see new people attempting voice acting and I will gladly see to any additional samples you wish to provide time permitting.
/edit
I made a very quick and dirty dry run on some random lines to show some of my simple reverbs.
http://www.gameproc.com/meskstuff/deept ... xample.mp3