Girl ex machina

“Emma, can you sound abnormal?”

As a conversation opener, it’s an eyebrow-raiser.

The caller elaborated. “I mean, can you sound not quite human?”

“It’s how I sound most of the time,” I quipped drolly.

“I know that. But I want you to sound like an actual robot. Like you’re a machine. Can you do that?”

Reader, the RoboGirl voice is one of my favourite EVER voices. (That and the independent local newsreader voice. To have a listen to that, click here.”

“God, yeah!” I gushed. “Send me your script.”

It was for a SatNav spoof thing for a competition on Smooth Radio. My eyes gleamed as I read the words.

I really can’t stress enough how much I love doing this voice.

The challenge is to sound human enough to be friendly, yet robotic enough to sound…well, like a robot.  It’s cool cos you have to change the pitch and pace of your voice so it sounds choppy and processed. You slow down certain syllables and speed others up. You have to say certain words in a minor note. I bloody love it.

Anyway. Here’s the finished thing. Give it a listen.