Geeky Cat Miusings

Ever wonder how you would look like as a blond, or as the opposite gender, or what you would look like as you age (though I was really put off by that thought when I watched Honey We’re Killing the Kids - they show how kids get fat and ugly supposedly because of the way the parents are raising the kids. Ever wonder why the kids looked so much uglier than their parents when they were aged?). Perhaps you wonder how you would sound if you were the opposite sex or maybe you just want to hear your voice at a different pitch: a sexy deep voice or as a youth. Well, you can and it is free. Listen to this:

Yes, that is me reading my blog and no, I did not have a sex change.

Here’s how to do the same. Audacity is open source recording and sound editing software that is really neat to use. Installation is simple. If you want create an mp3 you will need to download the LAME MP3 encoder: after downloading, just unzip the file and place the lame_enc.dll some where on your computer. I find it easiest to save it in my Audacity folder (C:\Program Files\Audacity 1.3 Beta) so that I can easily find it at any time.

Open Audacity and set the project rate to 11025 Hz at the lower left corner. Plug in your microphone into your computer and test your sound levels. You need to plug your microphone into the microphone-in or line-in socket on your sound card. With your mic plugged in, you now need to do some tests to make sure you get a good audio level. To do this you will need to check your volume and gain settings for the mic/line-in jack and make some simple recordings. To record in Audacity, just press the red record button and speak into the microphone. Hit the yellow stop button and then press the green play button to play the recording back. You may need to adjust the volume settings for your operating system and tweak them to raise or decrease the volume. What you want is a good level with little or no distortion.

When your are satisfied with the settings create a new project in Audacity (Ctrl + n) and hit the red recording button. Wait a few seconds and speak into the microphone. Hit the stop button when you are finished speaking. You can see the waveform of your recording in the main track area.

Play it back. Do you like it? You can edit the recording to remove any unwanted noise and mistakes by playing the audio until you reach the part you wish to edit and then use your mouse to select the unwanted sound and cut it (Ctrl + x).

Once you are finished editing make sure you have saved the project (File > Save Project As) so that you do not lose your work. Now let’s change the pitch. Select the part you want to change. In my case it was the whole track so to select all go to Edit > Select > All. Then select Effect > Change Pitch… and the Change Pitch dialogue box will give you an estimate of the current pitch in the from pull down menu (my pitch was A). I wanted to lower my pitch so I clicked on the down radio button and then selected A#/Bb from the to pull down menu. Click OK and Audacity will do its magic. Audacity does have a preview button but I found it to be slower than just processing the whole effect - it is easy enough to undo what you have just done. Click the play button to hear your sexy deep voice. If you like what you hear you can save your recording as a mp3 File > Export As > MP3. If this is the first time you are saving as an mp3 you may need to indicate where the lame_enc.dll is.

And that is it. Now go ahead and try to lower or raise the pitch of your voice with Audacity and please share your transgendered voice with me.