How to emulate whispering?
 

Is it possible to take normal speech and make it sound like a whisper?

I really, really doubt it.

Normal speech and whispering are created in completely different ways in the mouth. One is created by the larynx, and the other is created by airflow in the mouth.

Like Nate says, the two sounds emanate from different sources.

One thought that came to my mind is for you to do your own ADR of the spoken lines in a whisper since individual vocal qualities are much more disquised when whispering.

-gb-

Whispering is almost noise (white/pink...) - you could play around with the frequenices sometime but I'd doubt it would sound natural.
I haven't as yet had chance to play around with Soundtrack pro, otherwise I'd give this a go.
Speaking softly is almost a combination of the two (mouth and as Nate says Larynx - try it).
What do you need to do it for? You could crossfade normal speech with a whisper (synced with the original vocal)...but that's for a specific effect.

This is for a film. I recorded the scene in normal speech to clear the noise floor, with the intention of converting it to whispering if needed.

You might try white noise into a vocoder with the voice track as the control signal. Mix the result with the original. Also, you can EQ the fundamentals out of the original. The findamentals should be in the 300 Hz neighborhood.

It sounds like you recorded the vocals after the video. If you are doing this in a controlled circumstance, just reduce the room noise as much as possible and put the mic right next to the talent's mouth. Whispering is very loud if it is right in the mic. A pop filter will be necessary. Try putting the mic right next to the mouth, but not directly in the windstream created by speach. You can feel the wind with your hand as you speak. Just put the mic right to the side of that puff of air. Also, try cupping your hands around the mic to keep the whisper in and ambient noise out.

no.

Ty Ford

Ty,

I laughed out loud and snorted my coffee at your post. WHen I opened this thread, my first thought was 'no'.

As most have implied, you can modifiy the already recorded track in a number of ways to make what you have sound 'different', but it won't sound natural. The best suggestion is to loop it with whispering in ADR. But part of the effect is context. Without knowing what the scene suggests, or what the SHOT includes, it may or may not work.

OF course, you could always utilize the Boris FX , or After Effects 'Reshoot' filter... but it's pricey.

Richard,

I try to keep it on the light side. :)
Yes, I agree. The reshoot filter (and I had to stop and clean the coffee off the monitor the first time I saw someone refer to that.)

Regards,

Ty