As the title suggests I'm looking for a voice synthesizer program. I'd like to see how changing my voice sounds and if it's good enough start voicing other characters for SOTE. My problem however is that I can't find any good ones. They are all either a trial version or they restrict key functions unless I open up my wallet. I'm wondering does anyone in the community have such a program they use? If so please direct me to that program or send me a link.

Sadly, all I can say is just fool with the effects on Audacity, you'll get some strange-yet-sometimes-satisfactory results.

Another option besides Audacity is Goldwave (http://goldwave.ca/).

It also has a trial period. It also has several filters and effects such as Mechanize, Low/Highpass, Echo, and you can even change the speed the recordings with altering the pitch. (Of course, you can alter the pitch of your voice as well.)

In addition to Goldwave, you could always fool around with the free site of AT&T Laboratories. Go the AT&T Natural Voices® Text-to-Speech Demo (http://www2.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php) page and enter the text you'll need. There are several voices to choose from. You'll have to record several files in a row - there's a limit to how much text is translated to speech at a time but you can record over and over again. In addition, you can always fool around with either Audacity or Goldwave to alter the results even further.

If you're looking to create a sound file so a character sounds like they are talking with a helmet on - like Canderous, for example - I'd suggest this page (http://www.massassi.net/tutorials/filtering/filtering.htm) at Massassi Temple for a decent walk-through.

Good luck!

The best tts (text to speech) seems to be "Ivona" but the free stuff is limited to a few voices. Another one I use is called oddcast something or other (google "oddcast tts") and is actually what I used for the Naboo protocol droid.

I'll have to play with it when I get a chance.