I'm Captain Intrigue, in todays episode i'll be showing you how to build a high-powered
voice changer.
SO i've built a few voice changers for some of my older suits but they all suffered from
two serious problems.
The first problem was excessive feedback.
Feedback occurs whenever you have a microphone driving a high gain amplifier, and the louder
the amplifier the more feedback you tend to get, so it's a serious problem when building
a voice changer so that was one of the criteria i looked at when choosing how i was actually
going to design and build this next voice changer.
The other problem that most of the voice changers suffer from, is that they sound terrible,
the quality is poor, and it's very distorted, and it's hard to understand what the person
is saying, and that pretty much defeats the purpose.
So the voice changer that i ended up settling on is one from TC Helicon called the perform
V and this is pretty much the best all around choice for my suit.
A couple of reasons, it has some good benefits, number 1, it has an anti-feedback setting
and what that does is it allows the device to sense when feedback starts to occur and
it kills the gain very quickly to stop the feedback and it's not even noticeable in the
output sound.
The other good feature it has, it has an input gain amplifier.
What that is, sometimes you have different microphones that you connect to these and
maybe some of the microphones might not be as loud as others, and that effects the output
of the device.
So to correct that they have an input gain amplifier you can adjust for each individual
microphone in order to still get the full gain out of it.
The other good thing about that is it allows you to hook up condenser microphones which
require 48 volts.
SO you can use a dynamic microphone or a condenser microphones and that's a serious problem that
a lot of the other voice changers didn't have any easy way to get around.
So the parts i'm going to be using in the voice changer, this is a stereo 35 watt amplifier,
it runs on 12 volts.
We're going to have 2 of these driving 4 speakers.
Here are 2 of the speakers, they're pretty small speakers, and these are actually 12
watt speakers but i don't believe most of the manufacturers specs on a lot of these
things and in my experience double the wattage on the amplifier and the speakers will handle
it without a problem, so we'll see.
And then just a connecting cable, and then i'm going to use a headset condenser microphone
for the voice changer.
SO it's actually really simple, i'm just going to connect all these things together and 3d
print an enclosure for everything, and then we'll see how it sounds.
I don't have a lot of places left on the suit to mount the speakers and the amplifiers so
i ended up deciding to mount them on the shins of the boots.
That will give me enough area to incorporate everything on there, and i'm actually going
to use the MOLLE leg drop platforms and then i have to design some kind of 3d printed housing
that will allow it to attach to it and mount the speakers and mount the amplifier.
So let's take a look at some CAD.
Okay, here's the 3d model design that i've come up with.
This is the enclosure, which will be the housing for the 35 watt amplifier inside there.
Underneath here are the clips that are going to help attach it to the MOLLE webbing.
There's 3 of them, and that will make it so the whole thing stays securely in place and
then those other holes here are for the actual speakers, 2 of them.
So that's it, let's start printing the parts.
Okay here are all the parts ready to be assembled for the voice changer amplifier.
This is the MOLLE leg drop platform, these are the 3d printed parts for the enclosure,
2 speakers, and the amplifier, and assorted hardware and screws to assemble it.
Okay so that's assembled onto the MOLLE leg drop platform.
These are connectors i made for connecting the speakers to the amplifier.
The speakers are mounted and now i need to cut this heatsink in half since it's too big
to fit inside the enclosure.
Since the amplifier only works at it's peak when i'm actually speaking into the voice
changer that means having a smaller heatsink should be more than enough to dissipate the
heat coming off the amplifier.
I cut down the heatsink and filed down the edges so now i'll re-attach it.
Now i need to wire up the amplifier.
OKay that's it, the amplifier and speakers are mounted.
It's going to go like this on the leg, and this will be the volume control, the power
wires, and there's the audio input.
Alright so we just plug in, this is the input to the amplifier, this is the output jack.
This is the microphone input, it's a little bit big and i don't like this but i haven't
found a connector that's smaller yet so i'm just going to have to deal with it.
And then i've just got a headset, a headset mic here.
I was going to use a throat microphone and i just haven't been able to get one that works
good.
Most of them have a very muffled sound and not the best quality.
So i'm going to put this on, and i'm going to power this up and show you how it sounds.
Okay everything is powered up, right now just to give you an idea how loud this thing is,
i'm at 50% volume and this thing is super loud and that's only with the one amplifier,
so as far as amplification ability, this thing is unbelievable.
And i'm not getting any feedback at all, even at this level and the microphone is only a
few feet from the speakers, so that's pretty impressive with the anti-feedback feature.
And the voice that your hearing right now is my normal voice.
I'm bypassing the voice modification features, so i'll show you now what it sounds like with
the voice enhancement.
I'm Captain Intrigue, one shall stand, one shall fall.
Okay everything works so the next thing i'm going to do, i want to give you a demonstration
of what this is capable of as far as the different voices go and then after that i'll get it
installed into the suit and we'll do a final test.
Okay i'm going to show you a demonstration of the Perform V by TC Helicon.
These are 3 distinct voices that i've programmed into it.
Going to show you what it's capable of.
The first one is Batman from Batman vs Superman.
"Tell me...do you bleed?
You will!"
Okay the next voice is going to be Optimus Prime from Transformers.
"I'm Optimus Prime, Autobots transform and roll out.
Megatron must be stopped no matter the cost.
One shall stand, one shall fall."
Okay the next one is going to be Kylo Ren from Star Wars.
"Forgive me, i feel it again, the call to the light, supreme leader senses it, show
me again the power of the darkness and i will let nothing stand in our way.
Show me grandfather, and i will finish what you started".
Okay so that gives you an idea of what this is capable of.
For the suit i'm actually going to use another voice which i've already selected.
Okay so now i've got the voice changer installed in the suit and i've also wired up a push
to talk button on my leg so when i push the button it powers up the amplifier.
That way the amplifier is only on when i'm speaking.
I'm wearing the amplifier on my shin but i had a problem with my 3d printer so i wasn't
able to print the amplifier parts for the other leg so i'll finish it once i get the
printer working again but even with this one amplifier installed, this thing is super loud
and no feedback at all so i'll give you a demonstration.
I always wondered why nobody has done it yet.
I mean all those comic books, movies, tv shows, you'd think that at least one eccentric loner
would have made his own suit.
At some point in our lives, we've all wanted to be, a superhero.
I am Captain Intrigue!
Police are continuing the search for a missing 22 year old girl, Chandler Lambros, who reportedly
disappeared overnight from her bedroom two weeks ago.
Chandler is a 5' 6" white female with brown eyes and blonde hair, and was last seen wearing
a white t-shirt.
Police have received a number of tips from local residents claiming to have spotted the
girl briefly around town, although she has yet to be found.
Hello?
Scream!
Several witnesses have also come forward with sightings of a strange figure dressed in blue
in the woods surrounding the Lambros house.
Police are asking anyone with information to please contact the local authorities.
I will find you Chandler...I promise.
Scream!