VoiceDev: Program Lissandra
When creating Program Lissandra, I tried to avoid the cliche âGLaDOSâ style voice in lieu of a more complex tone, more of a HAL 9000 mixed with the filtered Lissandra voice already present within the game.
To create a baseline robotic voice, I imported the raw audio data (after compression and cleansing of course) into Melodyne 4. By flattening the pitch curves and snapping the notes to a pure tone, we get that âGLaDOSâ voice as a nice starting point.
Then, I moved the resulting robotic voice into FL Studio to begin adding more touches. Firstly, to create that empty, hollow feeling I added a plugin called âdelay+â to form a very fast echo effect. This creates that weird, flanging hollowness. Then a basic Limiter is added to remove excess noise and create a smoother sounding effect.
But to really set this voice apart from all the other voices, I created a custom set with a plugin called âdbBlue Glitchâ, which allows you to create all sorts of neat stuttering and pitching effects.
By setting this at a low overall volume, the glitch sounds appear as artifacts in the voice rather than overpowering it. After some tweaks, I added another plugin called âdbBlue TapeStopâ to make that âshut downâ effect you hear on her Ultimate and Death lines.Â
You can see the curves where the pitch effect takes place. Timing is key! And finally, to really nail that robotic voice, I added a vocoder called âVocodexâ to create an underlying emotionless and granular tone.
A few more echo effects and some mastering settings later and voila! Youâve got Program Lissandra!