Voice Actor/Announcer Application

[GreyMind]

Name: Greg "Grey Mind" Katerman
Location: Pennsylvania, United States
Age: 19
Position desired: Voice Actor / Announcer

Relevant skills: Amateur-level voice acting experience from making and acting in self-produced videos and fan projects for various games and animated series'. I primarily do a North Eastern American Accent (specified to avoid confusion by the generic description of 'American accent' which can be misconstrued for a stereotypical southern/Texan accent) although I've also practiced at a somewhat posh English accent. Specialize in deep voiced or gruff characters due to my naturally low voice. Good post processing and vocal editing skills, as well as high quality recording equipment and a soundproofed recording booth.

Other development-related skills: Very sociable and good in teams. Respond well to criticism and feedback. Very good on meeting deadlines and ensuring work is turned in in a timely fashion/with enough time for redos, rewrites, etc. Also possess moderate video production and editing skills.

Previous mod experience: Currently none.

Examples of work / portfolio:
Lambda Wars Announcer Samples
Resistance Announcer & More Resistance Announcer Lines - Conceptualized as a typical and spirited soldier for the Resistance.

Combine Announcer - Conceptualized as a part human, part Synth character or creature that exists purely to act as a vocal aid and assistant to the mute Combine Commander/Adviser. Meant to sound very formal and emotionally detached.
(The Adviser title for the Combine player is inspired by this creature from the main games.)

Combine Announcer Redo - New filter applied to be more similar to the Civil Protection units and Combine Soldiers.

My Youtube Channel - Contains the videos I've produced, often containing and/or featuring my voice talent. (Most notably the Dark Souls 2 Soul Searching series and the Shovel Knight Voiced! series.)

Why do you want to work on Lambda Wars?: I've been following this mod since it was just an Alien Swarm mod and, as an avid fan of the RTS genre, I was interested from the start. Not to mention it was putting the Half-Life universe in a genre I'd never expected to see it in, an idea that I just think is incredibly cool and interesting both from a casual and gameplay perspective. I just want to help the mod in any way I can, especially if that means I can have some fun doing voice work for it at the same time!

Contact Details:
Email: crabnek@gmail.com

[Ennui]

I like your voice. The Resistance stuff is good - could you record a variety of phrases along the lines of:

- "Our forces are under attack!"
- "We're under attack."
- "Capturing objective point."
- "Securing objective point."
- "Taking objective point!"
- "Objective point under attack!"
- "They're taking our objective point!"
- "Our base is under attack!"
- "Moving to objective."
- "On my way."
- "Yessir."
- "Ab-so-lutely."
- "Let's get that point."
- "We're losing an objective."
- "Objective point lost."
- "We're taking an objective."

And so forth. Thanks!

Regarding Combine: sounds good, but too Starcraft Protoss and not enough Combine Overwatch. Could you try a more radio / static based approach (like the Overwatch comms - not the female announcer but the soldier comms - in HL2) and show us that? Radio static, voice compression etc, less reverb.

Great stuff though.

[GreyMind]

I'll have those lines posted for the Resistance Announcer tomorrow or the day after in this thread!

And I can definitely get that static-y radio effect for the Combine rather than the one above. I've been experimenting with trying to reach that effect for the last day or two and think I've managed to get a good sound.

If it's alright I'll use those same lines (I have the original recording of all the Combine lines with no effects or anything) and apply the radio / static effect I've worked out for easy comparison, unless you'd prefer I redo them with a different approach.

[Ennui]

That's fine, just try your Combine FX on the existing lines and we'll see how that goes before providing dialogue. It should sound reminiscent of the Overwatch FX in HL2 without being too hard to understand. Thanks for your time

[GreyMind]

Here's those lines (and other ones inspired by them) for the Rebel Announcer.
(Apologies that some of these have some echo on them. Shifting the sound proofing panels in my recording area currently so there was a bit of echo off the walls.)

And here's the Combine Announcer redone.

Hopefully this is close to what you're looking for. I can/likely will either redo some of these lines for the Combine Announcer or, if further lines are posted, I'll perform those with a more authoritarian and aggressive approach to be closer to the Civil Protection and Combine Soldier voices. The delivery on these lines is too relaxed/flat for the new filter and needs a new approach to fit it, I think.

[Seòras]

You got quite a nice smooth sound to your Combine announcer, I think its pretty slick =)

[GreyMind]

Alright, the above post has been updated with the link to the specific Rebel Announcer lines.

And thanks Seòras! I listened to your Combine Test in your thread and really liked it as well! The 'direct, in the field' approach you went for was very cool and had a powerful, commanding tone that I really enjoyed.

[Seòras]

And thanks to you too for your kind comments . I didn't even realise that you were the same GreyMind who subscribed to my little corner on Youtube until literally like half hour ago

I actually expanded on that Combine test a bit, added a few more lines to it since I posted it up =)

[Ennui]

Here's those lines (and other ones inspired by them) for the Rebel Announcer.
(Apologies that some of these have some echo on them. Shifting the sound proofing panels in my recording area currently so there was a bit of echo off the walls.)

And here's the Combine Announcer redone.

Hopefully this is close to what you're looking for. I can/likely will either redo some of these lines for the Combine Announcer or, if further lines are posted, I'll perform those with a more authoritarian and aggressive approach to be closer to the Civil Protection and Combine Soldier voices. The delivery on these lines is too relaxed/flat for the new filter and needs a new approach to fit it, I think.

I really, really like the Rebel announcer / soldier lines. I think you did a great job on the new ones finding the comfortable space between the stoic "announcer" tone and the more urgent soldier on the ground feeling that the Rebel announcer needs without sounding cheesy.

Listening to them several more times I actually like the first Combine SFX better - it sounds a lot like the Terran cyber drone assistant in the original Starcraft (which is a good thing!) and has a kind of androgynous inhuman quality to it that I think is great. The more recent take on the voice effects is too deep and somewhat difficult to hear (considering it will be going on with lots of other noises in the background and foreground) although I like aspects of it too.

I'd like to get back to you once I prepare a list of lines we need. In the meantime feel free to experiment further with the voice fx and announcer styles and post it here for feedback!

[GreyMind]

That's fantastic news! I'm really glad you liked the Rebel announcer lines and the first Combine test.

I'll likely continue experimenting chiefly with figuring out a right proper Civil Protection/Overwatch-type filter that doesn't garble dialogue too much. Seòras's go at it sounded quite good.

I'll be sure to post anything else I try out here, and if you have any recommendations for things you'd like me to test out or go for let me know!

I can't wait to hear from you once you have the list of lines!

[ProgSys]

I added some voice lines for rebel cp point capture/lost/under attack into our dev build.

[Mr. Darkness]

I added some voice lines for rebel cp point capture/lost/under attack into our dev build.

Wait, wait. So that was your voice?

Either way, well done, GreyMind! I really liked those!

[ProgSys]

Wait, wait. So that was your voice?

Ye, my english is horrible.
I meant, I added GreyMind's voice lines.

The rebel voice sound a bit neutral to me, but other then that, I really, really like them.

[sants1]

Wait, wait. So that was your voice?

Ye, my english is horrible.
I meant, I added GreyMind's voice lines.

The rebel voice sound a bit neutral to me, but other then that, I really, really like them.

Thank you.

[ProgSys]

We should probably ask to be sure, are we allowed to use your recordings?