Retro Sound?
 

I was wondering if anyone knew the best way to make sound, ie voices and sfx, to appear aged. Imagine the old 1950's - 1960's educational videos where the voices seemed to punch out more. Is there a program or perhaps some effect in post? I am working on a mac platform when it comes to editing and sound. Thank you for your time.

This can be achieved with some careful EQ and maybe a little tape hiss (cheesy but it works sometimes). If you're not experienced with EQ it can be tricky. You could try loading up an example of the sound you're talking about in an editing program and studying the frequencies that are emphasized. Then use a good graphic EQ to make your recordings match. If you're using a sound program that can use VSTs I recommend Voxengo SPAN for frequency reading (spectrogram) - free and very good.

Hello
 

Thanks I appreciate the response.

Here I'm only guessing...

Ageing the voice could be obtained by pitch shift effects, but not sure this is looked for. Like I record my voice now and then make it sound as if I were 80yr old. Is it this?

Simulating early years audio (1950, 1960) can be achieved by encoding the end result at very low sampling rate. Output through a 8khz sampling (instead of the typical 44KHz cd-quality) would make it sound as that years' sound because these were the analog equivalent encoders at that time that public would hear on radio/tv/film.

Just some thoughts...

Thanks
 

Great idea. I will definitely experiment with that method thanks for the help. I appreciate your time.

Has the audio been recorded yet? If not, writing and speaking style will go a long ways to achieve the sound you are looking for.

eq and added noise. Think less frequency range. Less highs, less lows et. When I think of old film sound I remember those early 40's films/music recordings where the dialogue/vocals/music have a rather nasty midrange boost (like 2-3K)