2013-05-22 04:56:52 (edited by musicalman 2013-05-22 04:58:11)

Hi all,
so I just started thinking, has anyone watched a movie where a speech synth was used at some point? I know Wallee used one (I probably didnt' speel it right, which just shows I am not a fan of the movie). The spaceship computer uses a few Mac voices I do believe, and though it's been a while since I've seen it, i do remember those being my favorite parts of the movie, aside from the very weird sound effects, and how boring the movie was without having constant description of what was going on, which is irritating... anyway that was a bit of a shock to me since I thought speech synthesis, at least really synthetic sounding ones,  were only used by people who needed them.
I remember hearing Eloquence in some film, I forget which. But one of the characters was blind and was making a phone call, and he had to check something, and loud and clear, you heard Eloquence speaking. I forget what it said or what the movie was, but I really did not expect Eloquence to pop up in a film, of all speech synths they could've picked from.
And in the movie Number 5, I believe some mac voices was used for the robots, though I am not sure. It's a 90s movie so the synth had to be something like that.
Currently I was just wondering about movies, since a lot of songs use synths, most of which are hard to trace and some of which are just fancy effects and not synthesizers. It's fairly obvious when a speech synth is in a movie, well at least obvious to people like us who have heard many synths. So do you guys know of any time you heard a speech synth in a movie? What was the movie and what was the synth used for?

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2013-05-22 05:03:04

Hi.

I think I heard mac alex in some Icarlie show.
My sister was watching it and I overheard it and it sounded a lot like Alex. NOt sure what it was used for, I think a prank they were playing or something.
Then I heard I think Mac fred in a Family Guy episode. It was the voice of Brian's teacher, the guy in the wheelchair who had to use a computer to talk. Not sure if it was Fred, could have been dectalk.
It's interesting that this topic is brought up. It makes me think.
Also this is slightly off-topic, but some weather broadcast services use Scansoft Tom.

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2013-05-22 05:39:03

Yep they do. I know the emergency weather alert thing in the states does. i'm always worried that other people won't be able to understand it. The quality of those alert broadcasts isn't great to begin with, and last I heard, they weren't using the best version of that voice. I bet if they used premium, it would sound better. But it's an emergency alert... they just need to get the message out, that's all that's important in that situation.
Anyway I'll have to look at those references. The guy in a wheelchair could very well be Steven Hawking. As many people probably know, he is a famous physicist who can only talk by using facial gestures to type words on a computer, which reads them with a synth. he used Dectalk for quite a long time, now i think he uses Neospeech Paul.

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2013-05-22 06:05:24

Stephen Hawking does not use Neo-Speech, so I heard in the 2012 London Paralympics. He uses an old version of DECtalk though, set to Paul.
Yes, I heard of speech synthesisers, not just in movies, but on the telephone, on the emergency alert and weather forecast services, you name it. I even managed to crash Eloqunece on he NFB Newsline hot line.
I do not watch movies, unless there is a good reason, such as documentaries about history or concepts.

Ulysses, KJ7ERC
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Reedsy

2013-05-22 09:23:59

The voice mister Hawking is using is the same as one in the synth Prose-2000 from Speech Plus Ink.
I'd love to get my paws on that synth! smile

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2013-05-22 15:36:37

Maybe you can google it? I old like to have that for my synthesiser.

Ulysses, KJ7ERC
She/they
Reedsy

2013-05-22 16:46:29

Let's see, how about the second back to the future movie? I clearly remember hear the decktalk synth somewhere in that movie. LOL.

All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost; The old that is strong does not wither, Deep roots are not reached by the frost. From the ashes a fire shall be woken, A light from the shadows shall spring; Renewed shall be blade that was broken, The crownless again shall be king.
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2013-05-23 00:58:49

As for Wall-E he was actually voiced by a real person. They just really messed with his voice to make it sound mechanical. The same with is girlfriend. And You're right about Back to the Future 2. They used one or two Dectalk voices for the computer that greets one of the McFlies whenever they come home. I remember it referred to Marty as King of the Castle and Lord of the Manor. Then for his wife it just said Welcome home Jennifer. I think it was either Harry or Dennis.

But wait, what's that? A transport! Saved am I! Hark, over here! Hey nonny non, please help!

2013-10-30 16:48:27

Sorry for bringing this up again but this is the closest topic I found where we talked about Stephen's hardware synthesizer. The name of it according to research thanks to Klat's recordings is called CallText 5010. It works with his Windows Seven SSD Intel computer I forgot what kind, but it is powered by his wheelchair. He uses a programme called EZ Keys, made by Words Plus. It uses switches and he can use an on-screen key-scrolling layout to put in text.

Ulysses, KJ7ERC
She/they
Reedsy

2013-11-02 21:20:57

You're forgetting one very famous occurrence. That is, Hal in "2001: A Space Odyssey," voiced I think by Softvoice. Never watched the movie, just remember hearing a bit about it from various people including my former roommate.

2013-11-04 14:47:49 (edited by aaron 2013-11-04 14:49:07)

In Wall-e, a synth voiced the computer character by the name of Auto. I believe it was either dectalk, or one of the mac synths.
Also, Wall-e is actually available audio described. Trust me, it's much better this way and very much enjoyable if you like robot stuff. The first ten or so minutes especially as there's not really any talking at all.

2013-11-04 20:04:51

apple's fred and bruce made regular appearances on friends. They voiced the answering machines.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

2013-12-31 07:00:44

mac fred was used in several episodes of family guy as the voice of steven hawking. that same character appeared in an episode of the simpsons where he was voiced by one of the truevoice voices. mac alex appeared on impractical jokers, junior appeared in family guy (the scene where stewy is messing with the tts on his macintosh) and the cast of whtever happened to robot jones (a short-lived cartoon series) consisted largely of mac voices.

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https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dkm … DkWZ8/edit
-id software, 1995

2014-10-10 10:10:03 (edited by Green Gables Fan 2014-10-10 10:10:59)

Hi again, well, strangely enough I was watching a version of Hansel and Gretel--the witch hunters, which I downloaded from the Blind Mice site. At about eighty minutes and seventeen seconds into the movie, I can clearly hear an eloquence voice say, something any day... Must be something as soon as possible. Less is on. It was speaking at a pretty fast rate,a nd it sounded like the pitch was set to fifty or something, and it had little inflection. This is actually the first time I heard a movie with a speech synthesiser in it.

Ulysses, KJ7ERC
She/they
Reedsy

2014-10-10 17:42:43

If anyone remembers the 80's film war games, one of the winfvision synths was used there for the voice of the computer Joshua. That was quite cool actually, sinse Joshua was this sentient computer program who  was designed to win at any game, and who the film's main character accidently initiated a game of geo thermal neuclear war with meaning Joshua nearly launched all America's Nukes at the then Ussr.

I always remember the final conclusion where the main character convinced Joshua that nuclear war was like tick tactk toe, ie, totally unwinnablek, and Joshua finished with the line into dead silence just after aborting the launche of the first missile "Geo thermal neuclear war is not possible to win. Would you like a game of chess?"

I don't know which synth was used sinse I have not seen the film for a very long time, and even when i did see it it was a good few years after it's first release on tv, but I remember being amused by the synth.

I will say however, that there are occasions when human robot voices have been so good it is difficult to tell.

if you don't believe me, go and find some clips of the original Cybermen from the 1960's Doctor who. I'm pretty sure in the 60's, speaking computers were as much science fiction as people with fully cybernetic boddies, however the realization of how their voices was done is almost ierrie, even though it was a number of actors speaking through some complex analogue sound production gear in certain blends of monotone, it's a combination of the effects use and the really creepy delivery, but it really does sound like a very early generation of synth.

While the Dalek voices will always be most famous, and of course sound just as emotional and frantic as they do robotic, I think the 60's Cybermen are some of the best bits of literal prediction of sound.

A shame they changed them in the 70's to basically boom through a slight bit of distortion like over dramatic villains in a commic, which sounded actually far less like creatures who  had removed all emotions. There was supposedly an explanation for this, that the Cybermen had found that mimicking emotional responses was good for intimidating people they planned on converting, but I always found the very synthetic sounding voices much more creepy and in character.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2014-11-07 13:31:40

hey. the move that used elequents was sevin pounds with will smith i do believe.

Blindness isn't a disability, but a diffrent way of seeing things

2014-11-07 14:40:12

in one episode of 16 bit high, the mac voice "trinoids" was the voice of dr. whiry's cancer curing robot that is destroyed by mega kid.

be a hero and stop Coppa now!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dkm … DkWZ8/edit
-id software, 1995

2018-11-11 14:48:03

@#10.

The movie 2001 is from 1968 or so, and SoftVoice absolutely didn't exist at that time. Hal was actualy voiced by a real person, but I can't remember WHO.

2018-11-11 17:35:53

Mac Alex appears in the U.S Being Human TV series in season 4 episode 11.

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2018-11-11 18:17:26

Mac fred is in one of the new x men movies I think.

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2018-11-11 19:00:03

JUst gonna jump in and say the NOAA weather radio uses a synthetic voice, and the EAS and NWS changed their voices a few months ago. I came across an old clip that sounded suspiciously like old school MS Sam (yeah I stole that joke from TechQUickie). Regading quality, remember it's designed for radio broadcast and immediate dispersion, so......quantity over quality. THat being said the new voices are a slight improvement.

Also, what. Nobody mentioned HAL? C'mon. I'm sory Jace, I can't let you not say that....

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2018-11-11 19:07:27

Okay, found sources on 2001.

HAL's voice was put through a synth, yes. So does it technucally count? THe actor in question was Douglas Rain by the way, a veteran Canadian actor.

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2018-11-11 22:37:06

in 1 episode of wierd video games (the one about medamokister, to be specific), cepstral laurence made an appearance saying "a chick in a tankk".

be a hero and stop Coppa now!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dkm … DkWZ8/edit
-id software, 1995

2018-11-14 04:45:15

in the short lived science fiction detective series the Wiz kids, rolf was played by a votrax chip, according to producer Philop De Gears.

be a hero and stop Coppa now!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Dkm … DkWZ8/edit
-id software, 1995

2018-11-15 04:01:30

The movie Wall.E have a tts voice for the autopilot computer on the ship.

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