anyone know of a simple audio filter tool? i''m doing the acting for my game and would like to filter so it sounds roughly like talking over a voice communicator/walkie talkie. i''m currently using goldwave but cant seem to tweak the filters correctly.

I got that sound by accident once, I was just trying to figure out what was in a specific frequency range, I think I was using a multiband compressor, I was just listening to one band, muting the others.

I know there are plenty of dx and vst plugins that will do it, not sure if goldwave supports them. You might be able to get the same effect by using an eq or filter, only one that actually removes frequencies rather than just reducing them.

basically you dont want any frequencies below (Im guessing) about 1Khz and nothing above about 5Khz, to give it that nasal quality then add a bit of soft distortion, or a really harsh compressor to reduce the quality, make it sound like they are spitting into the mike.

could try a distortion plugin or even a guitar pedal, or try resampling at with 8bits at 8Khz! dont forget to add white noise occasionally for that bit of static.

Or if you cant be arsed with all that technical stuff just record a real walkie talkie!!!

recording thru a phone extention is a good method

the ''official'' phone freqs are 300Hz to 3kHz there''d prolly be some compression using a walkie talkie if you don''t generate it overdriving a cheap mic?

I''ve not used Goldwave for ages, but I just had a quick play around and got good results.

The two things I did were distort the original voice and then run it through a bandpass to narrow the frequency range.

I couldn''t see a distort function in Goldwave, so I just saturated the signal (effects->volume->change->500%). Depending on the level of your source you may want to do this less, or more (i.e. again). You could also try resampling to 8 kHz to introduce further background noise.

For the bandpass (effects->filter->bandpass/stop) I set the frequency range from 1 kHz to 6 kHz.

You can play about with the settings to get the effect you are after. Try throwing in a little bit of the mechanise effect, to make it sound like the signal is breaking up (mmm, Star Wars). Or maybe mix it with a pitched up, preserved length version for a weird ghost signal effect...

Cool Edit 2000 has what you''re looking for (Maybe try the demo, or warez it, or just buy it)- seee Transform>Filters>FFT Filter>Get off the Phone.

Or experiment with that and the Transform>Special>Distortion effects.

Distortion is the way to go for this. Small amount with a little analog hiss if that program has it. It might be called tape noise or something to that effect. I actually have a mic with a suction cup on the end (radio shack) that gives the perfect sound for that. Maybe check out a local store and see if they have one.