Mesk Voice Demo 9

[IskatuMesk]

A collection of lines from dialogue I voice acted for project Apex, a Starcraft 2 campaign I was working on in early 2012. Since my non-edited dialogue is my weakest, I targeted practice towards making my speech better. Until Apex, Black Sun was the most significant project requiring non-edited dialogue. A similar, longer demo of unused content was released for Black Sun a time back. The prose for the voice work of Alkhazir is very different from the Anahn in Black Sun, however, showing an alternative style of acting I am capable of.

Since Apex is dead, the dialogue will now rot in the distant abyss of my hard drives. I figured I'd show a bit of what I did for comparison to my older work.

The new demo -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyFUbJv6saw&feature=youtu.be

The old Black Sun demo -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWyUWb5wpPE&list=PLE3E4ED417B8F5643&index=14&feature=plpp_video

[GnaReffotsirk]

Is voice acting and the recording process difficult Mesk?

[mark_009_vn]

Is Vazera a transsexual Mesk? He sounds smexy...

[IskatuMesk]

I am, of course, a furry transexual. The more you know.

Gna > No. Not for me. A lot of people have difficulty acting, if the industry or average fan campaign is anything to base by. But for me it's natural, because acting has always been a part of my life. For me, the problem is making unique and authentic voices that are different from each other, expanding my pitches naturally, etc.

Recording is trivial. For many years I was using a cheap radioshack mic and more yet a crappy usb mac mic (On a PC!). Even then I was still producing voices and quality superior to many of today's triple A titles. This isn't even being modest; voice acting and editing are truly easy tasks compared to graphics or programming. The sole requirement is passion.

There are basic concepts you need to have when entering acting and editing. If you can grasp these concepts and mechanisms down early, the rest will come rather easily. Just ask Laconius.

[Pr0nogo]

Funny, I felt that a good amount of Laconius' voices were lacking in delivery or emotion. They're what made his characters feel more artificial and less real, at least for me.

[IskatuMesk]

I think Laconius needs to work on his variety a bit, but given that he went from never having voiced to what you see now in very little time, that was quite impressive. And not outside the ability of anyone else to do if they want to enter voice acting.

Emotion is something that will require a great deal of practice to figure out how to convey best. There's no emotion, and then there's overacting.

[Pr0nogo]

Yeah, he definitely went from zip to present day way faster than I did. Did he have you as a tutor?

His stuff is good, just not the best I've heard when it comes to UCC - and even with the best, I can usually spot things that could have been improved. The same goes when I listen to my own VA.

[IskatuMesk]

I tutored him a bit and I think lav and someone else was helping him too.

I have yet to hear an amateur voice actor reach "best" status; I've heard close, but very rarely. The thing is, extremely few paid actors are even as good as we are as a whole. When you go from games like Tera to World of Warcraft to Diablo 3 to Conan, and almost all "lesser" publisher titles, their acting tends to be horrible. This problem lays in that most people, companies especially, simply don't take audio as a whole seriously, much less voice acting.

Hiring an actor is one thing, but even professional, good actors can be put in bad spots or not have the information necessary to make a good recording. The best example on hand is the male actor who did Colonel Tai from BSG - he did some of the localization for Tera, but they timestamped all the lines to the Korean timings and such, and it came out horrible.

When in the case of having someone doing acting for you, or doing acting for someone, that connection and personal level of attachment with the character and context is paramount to a quality deliverance. For people voice acting their own character, it becomes critical to "become" the character. This isn't anything new or revolutionary to hear I'm sure, but you'll probably find that it is one of the biggest problems people have with acting regardless.

You aren't trying to sound like a character. You're being the character. You are the character. Or you aren't genuine.

[mark_009_vn]

I am, of course, a furry transexual. The more you know.

I'm not asking if YOU are gay, I'm asking if HE is gay... Because that would means Apex is the first Starcraft campaign in existence to have homosexual psionic aliens as the main cast... !

---

Anyway, I still can't really voice act right even after practicing my voice for 8 years or so (Unfortunately, without a mic)... I never able to get the results I wanted even when I has been so close sometimes...

I have problems with speaking on the microphone... I just felt really nervous when I'm picking up a mic, and that really ruins my ability to speak clearly, left alone adding emotions or variety... I could speak "ok" normally still... How could I make my self more comfortable with the mic? Do I have to do some sort of crazy mental training or something?

Also, few question. When uttering a word, should you try to force the air out of your lungs or should you just let it flows slowly? I found that forcing the air out helps the clarity a bit. But after saying a few lines, I lost the feelings in my throats and could not control the air flow correctly anymore... Is there a better way to do this?

Also, does breathing affects the voice? I heard that it does, but I'm having no luck trying to improve my voice by improving my breathing...

About recording equipment, I have a 8-10 years old Sony F-V310 microphone, from my mom, it's a specialized recording mic she was issued with in her time working in the radio broadcasting business. She said it was a "top of the line" professional microphone back then... all I know is that it's friken old... Should I change?



One last question, how do you judge what your voice sounds like without a mic? I could make some really epic, deep voices, with correct diction and everything... But when I actually record it with a mic, it turns out to be retarded blubber non sense... nothing like before...

[IskatuMesk]

On experience - I had about 7-8 years experience before I started massive digital recording in around 2000-2001. I've been acting all my life, all to myself, because I'm a transsexual furry.

I don't force air out of my lungs, but sometimes I find forcing myself to speak a bit more slowly is effective for some voices, particularly those who need editing with reverb. Slower voices prevents the tails from reverb from clashing into each other. Otherwise, as far as talking is concerned, it should feel natural. If it doesn't feel natural, it probably won't sound natural. This will probably take practice.

I think that practicing breathing techniques can be very helpful. Before I started casting I could have problems where I would just run out of breath. I still run into this sometimes. It's because I am not accustomed to taking deeper breaths before speaking. I don't talk to people IRL, only vent, and I haven't had prolonged physical contact with people on a speaking level for over a decade now. I keep myself good company through the constant chanting about penises and the american dream, so I keep myself constantly practicing.

I have a lot of severe, debilitating anxiety problems. As far as talking to the mic was concerned, I think I defeated that very early on by just allowing my innate anger take over and send me into rants. Talking to people in person, though, is infinitely harder and there's utterly no way I could do stand-up or public speak.

As for the mic, a quick google yields that it's a dynamic which might making voicing more difficult depending on your environment and positioning (dynamics tend to have very narrow pickup regions), but it should be fine until you reach a point where you feel the mic is really holding you back. If you don't feel that now, it's probably not a big deal.

Also, because of some wacky cockadooky about your ears and talking, your voice will always sound differently to you than it does to others. Mics also have different ranges of frequencies they are effective with.

[mark_009_vn]

transsexual furry.

I didn't know dragons are classified as furries?

I don't force air out of my lungs, but sometimes I find forcing myself to speak a bit more slowly is effective for some voices, particularly those who need editing with reverb. Slower voices prevents the tails from reverb from clashing into each other. Otherwise, as far as talking is concerned, it should feel natural. If it doesn't feel natural, it probably won't sound natural. This will probably take practice.

When I first tries to voice act with a mic, I discovered that I have serious problems with the clarity of my voice. Basically you could say I sounds like Ricky in the grand scheme of things... After years of trying to fix it, I found out that forcing more air out of my lungs to vibrate my vocal cord better could increase the clarity... Of course since I'm very inexperienced with voice training (Most of the trainings I did years ago was to improve the emotional flow/variety of my voice), I can't really control that vibration as well as I should have...

Also I agrees with talking slower, helps with the diction...

I think that practicing breathing techniques can be very helpful. Before I started casting I could have problems where I would just run out of breath. I still run into this sometimes. It's because I am not accustomed to taking deeper breaths before speaking. I don't talk to people IRL, only vent, and I haven't had prolonged physical contact with people on a speaking level for over a decade now. I keep myself good company through the constant chanting about penises and the american dream, so I keep myself constantly practicing.

Well... I'll just have to find a good balance then...

I have a lot of severe, debilitating anxiety problems. As far as talking to the mic was concerned, I think I defeated that very early on by just allowing my innate anger take over and send me into rants. Talking to people in person, though, is infinitely harder and there's utterly no way I could do stand-up or public speak.

So... Ya mean I should rant about penises more often?

As for the mic, a quick google yields that it's a dynamic which might making voicing more difficult depending on your environment and positioning (dynamics tend to have very narrow pickup regions), but it should be fine until you reach a point where you feel the mic is really holding you back. If you don't feel that now, it's probably not a big deal.

Good to know... I was afraid that mic wasn't up to the task...

Also, because of some wacky cockadooky about your ears and talking, your voice will always sound differently to you than it does to others. Mics also have different ranges of frequencies they are effective with.

Yeah... I overheard you said that somewhere before... I was just wondering if there is a way to practice voice acting without the mic...

[IskatuMesk]

You're Vietnamise, right? Are you trying to voice act with your secondary language? Or is English your primary? If it's your secondary I can definitely see that being a lot tougher. I ask because, obviously, Ricky's primary language isn't English so that's why he sounds like he's permanently stoned off his balls all the time. Amusingly enough, Ricky has done some VA work to very comedic effect in the past (his like-named character in the 2042 AoW2 mod is something to behold).

In either the case, getting comfortable with talking in general is the first step. Then understanding the nuances that drive emotion in how words and sentences are conveyed. Ranting about penises definitely helps! I'm semi-tutoring a guy who is not a native English speaker and he's practicing casting and stuff before he actually starts casting, and he's largely doing it just yelling offensive words and such during his other work. The English language offers many ways to incite butthurt and political incorrectness, either through text or deployment, and these are the most important things to learn first!

[mark_009_vn]

You're Vietnamise, right? Are you trying to voice act with your secondary language? Or is English your primary? If it's your secondary I can definitely see that being a lot tougher. I ask because, obviously, Ricky's primary language isn't English so that's why he sounds like he's permanently stoned off his balls all the time. Amusingly enough, Ricky has done some VA work to very comedic effect in the past (his like-named character in the 2042 AoW2 mod is something to behold).

Yes... I'm Vietnamese... I'll try to post some of my practice voices when I'm free at weekends....

In either the case, getting comfortable with talking in general is the first step. Then understanding the nuances that drive emotion in how words and sentences are conveyed. Ranting about penises definitely helps! I'm semi-tutoring a guy who is not a native English speaker and he's practicing casting and stuff before he actually starts casting, and he's largely doing it just yelling offensive words and such during his other work. The English language offers many ways to incite butthurt and political incorrectness, either through text or deployment, and these are the most important things to learn first!

Ok... If it's penises I can concur....