UnNews Audio: Finnish and Dutch accents needed. Computer voice welcomed.

[reddragdiva]

Uncyclopedia UnNews has been doing lots of audio versions. There's also plans for a regular podcast.

I'd like to do an audio version of voice chat. I need someone with a Finnish accent to play the Nokia engineer and I need someone with a Dutch accent to play the Philips marketer. There are several Dutch readers of this journal (please volunteer below), but is there anyone who's Finnish or knows someone who is who could do the voice? Finnish-speaking ideal, Finland-Swedish nearly ideal. Your help is welcomed. I might try getting a computer voice (Festival or similar) for the txt spk user.

I'll probably nick redcountess's new Bluetooth headset for my recording — that's about the best microphone to hand. (arkady will get an SM-58 some time, but not that soon.) For the other people's recordings, WAV files are fine, WAV files over a phone are fine. Crappy recording quality can easily be beaten into sounding like a phone.

Comments

O/T

[gothbabe.livejournal.com]

I say, do you smoke Sampoerna cloves?

[reddragdiva]

I don't smoke anything any more since my loved ones got to see me in hospital with an oxygen line up my nose. *sob* And it wasn't even smoking-related! Dammit! Otherwise, yes, I would ;-D

[gothbabe.livejournal.com]

Aw! Yes, I remember Liz posting about you going to hospital. Glad you are ok now. One of my friends smokes Sampoernas so I am trying to find out where to get some for her in this country.

Cheers!

[reddragdiva]

As far as I know, the only cloves you can buy easily in the UK are Djarums. I got my Gudangs mail order from http://mykretek.com/ , who seem pretty good. And I didn't get hit by Customs either.

[shamus9999.livejournal.com]

http://www.rokokzone.com sells Sampoernas. I don't know how difficult things are about shipping them to England but here in the United States of Bush I've had no problems at all.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

Well, if you have any cloves going spare you want taking out of the way of temptation... *grin*

Seriously mate, you take care of yourself!

[vatine]

Finnish accent is quite easy. Always pronounce every single letter, if you're reading from a page. If not, remember that all "b" sounds like "p" and all "r" should be noticeable. Also try to speak in a staccato manner.

It will NOT fool a Finn, but it'll probably be good enough for anyone else.

[reddragdiva]

If only I knew Linus Torvalds well enough! Ideally, per the article, I want someone whose English is very good but is clearly Finnish. But I might get you to do it and claim it's a really western dialect of Finland-Swedish ;-)

[vatine]

Linus cheats, he's Swedish-native, they usually do MUCH better English than the Finnish-native, for some reason. Thjough if you can get recording gear and head off to the right pub tonight you might, just might, snag jma and have him do the recording for you (details should be in your mailbox, damnit).

[vatine]

Specifically, the easiest way of telling "this person is finnish-native" vs. "this person is swedish-natiev from Finland" when they speak Swedish is to trick them into talking DIY and determine if they drill walls ("borra") or pr0n them ("porra").

[reddragdiva]

Oh, that'd be perfect! Now all I need is, uh, a recording device ... I'll see what my laptop can do.

[reddragdiva]

I've discovered Liz's Zire 72 does usable telephone-quality voice memos, as long as you like. I'll see about connecting Liz's headset to the laptop, but I'll probably show with the Zire.

[siani-hedgehog.livejournal.com]

i bet

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i bet <ljuser=edwardscissors> would be happy to record you a computer voice of some sort if you email him. he's obsessed with ancient speech synthesis.

[reddragdiva]

Ooooooooooooooooooo!

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I may be able to get you a Nokia engineer, but he's English. Otherwise try cassiealone, but she's a bit giggly.

[bramsmits.livejournal.com]

(southern) Dutch, but with a fairly American accent.

[reddragdiva]

Just make your Dutch accent more extreme? If you could please email me decent recordings of the Dutch marketer's words in the article — a few takes of each — I would be most grateful. We offer no money whatsoever and a credit.

[bramsmits.livejournal.com]

OK, will do. I will try to get a round tuit tomorrow evening. Let's see how good powerbook microphones really are, otherwise I'll cludge something up with a semi-decent real mic.

[reddragdiva]

Thank you!

The session with jma was fun :-D

[bramsmits.livejournal.com]

They're sending to your gmail account as I'm typing this. I'm afraid (on listening back) that my Dutch accent isn't as pronounced anymore as I hoped (in this particular case) it'd be. Check it over, I'll give it another couple of tries if this isn't usable.

[sannse.livejournal.com]

What about Cimon or Avar? (I think it's Avar that drinks with Cimon in Finland... could be muddled there).

[reddragdiva]

Cimon's Finnish (I don't know if he speaks Swedish or Finnish), Ævar is Icelandic.

Anyway, I got jma, one of the BOFHs, to do a few takes this evening down the pub. Bad music in the background and all (hopefully not identifiable). Should sound like an engineer calling from the pub ;-)