The voice adventure has concluded. The answers below are all correct and, for better or for worse, represent the actual owners of the voices thus recorded.
There were some real surprises here. Upon listening to the voices for the first time, I found myself inexplicably charmed by voice #4, and to a lesser extent by #14. At some point early on, I even noted that the two were closely related, and that #14 sounded much more mature. On a whim, knowing I was certainly wrong, I attributed the voices to Mort and her mother, Mort’s Mum. Of course, you can imagine my embarrassment when I discovered, after allowing voice #4 to tickle my ears all day, that it actually did belong to the young Mort. Yikes.
MMM’s voice, for some reason, was also easy for me to pick out without help. I can’t explain it, but she sounded like an engineer reading the copy. Instinct? Professional skill? Blind luck? Take your pick.
Sparkle Princess’ voice, a true soprano and extremely crisp and young-sounding, really threw me. Getting that one right was a matter of elimination, but it was also one of my early picks.
One of my earliest and most shameful failures was The Merman, whose voice I failed to identify even after having had dinner with him a bit more than a year ago here in Atlanta. It took three guesses to finally pin his voice down. Sorry, Chris. 🙂
By the rules of the game, which were made up as we went along by Omally and a group of self-appointed proctors, I was only allowed hints after independently getting at least nine voices right, and by late afternoon I managed to do that. After that, a splendid series of hints and gentle nudges (and the odd kick to the cranium) managed to guide me in the right direction.
This has been more fun than I could have ever imagined, and many thanks are in order. To Mort, who actually had the idea that grew into this project, and to Simon who volunteered a great deal of his time and energy to making it happen, I offer my sincerest gratitude. Thanks as well are due to all of the twenty people who took a few minutes to record themselves reading the script and send the resulting recordings to Simon. Finally, to everyone who helped me along with hints and the aforementioned boots to the head, my hat is off to you. You’re a great bunch.
The voices:
| Voice | MP3 | Guess | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| 01 | Voice 01 | Nick the Greek | Male. Tenor. Fast pacing. Scottish-sounding pronunciation of ‘progress.’ |
| 02 | Voice 02 | LordHutton | Male. Baritone. Medium pacing but slightly rushed in places. Accent sounds a bit like the Geico Gecko. |
| 03 | Voice 03 | Katie | Female. Soprano. Medium pacing. Door creak in the background. Sounds young. Is that traffic noise? |
| 04 | Voice 04 | Mort | Female. Alto. Medium to slow pacing. Charming accent. Pleasant tone. I’m hearing a marked similarity between the accent here and the accent of #14, which is admittedly deeper. |
| 05 | Voice 05 | Sparkle Princess | Female. Soprano. Fast pacing. Probably very young. Some slurring of the consonants. Informal delivery. |
| 06 | Voice 06 | Alistair | Male. Baritone. Medium to fast pacing. Mature-sounding. |
| 07 | Voice 07 | SimonG | Male. Tenor. Fast pacing. Distinctive accent (midlands?) and crisp. measured tone. Somewhat staccato. |
| 08 | Voice 08 | Omally | Male. Baritone. Fast pacing, low-key reading. Interesting accent. |
| 09 | Voice 09 | Sarah | Female. Soprano. Medium-slow pacing and very careful enunciation. Slightly noisy recording. Sounds quite young. |
| 10 | Voice 10 | EL10T | Male. Baritone. Slow, careful pacing. Measured tones. Sounds like a professional reading. |
| 11 | Voice 11 | Paul G0TLG | Male. Tenor. Medium-slow pacing. Breathy voice and very clear delivery. |
| 12 | Voice 12 | MMM | Female. Contralto. Slow pacing. Distinctive accent. Clear enunciation but low-key delivery. |
| 13 | Voice 13 | Maddison-Star | Female. Soprano. Slow pacing and a slight stumble. Very young-sounding. |
| 14 | Voice 14 | Mort’s Mum | Female. Contralto. Very formal-sounding accent. Very mature voice. Deep accent. |
| 15 | Voice 15 | Fluffy | Female. Alto. Slow pacing. Interesting pronunciation of “learned.” Charming. Slight stumble on “manuscript.” |
| 16 | Voice 16 | Henry The Thirst | Male. Baritone. Sounds a lot like actor Jonathan Pryce. Smooth, measured tones. Polished accent. |
| 17 | Voice 17 | LoisInTheForest | Male. Baritone. Very slow and somewhat choppy pacing. Noisy recording with slight clipping. |
| 18 | Voice 18 | Sam | Male. Tenor. Extremely slow pacing. Careful enunciation. Sonorous tone to the voice. |
| 19 | Voice 19 | The Merman | Male. Tenor. Very slow pacing. Crisp, clear enunciation with a slightly forceful delivery. |
| 20 | Voice 20 | Stu | Male. Baritone. Medium pacing. Very clear voice with careful enunciation and a distinctive accent. A slight stumble. |
The contributors and my current guesses, if any:
| Nickname | Guess |
|---|---|
| Alistair | 6 |
| el10t | 10 |
| Fluffy | 15 |
| henry the thirst | 16 |
| katie | 3 |
| loisintheforest | 17 |
| lordhutton | 2 |
| maddison-star | 13 |
| MMM | 12 |
| Mort | 4 |
| Mort’s Mom | 14 |
| Nick the Greek | 1 |
| Omally | 8 |
| Paul G0TLG | 11 |
| Sam | 18 |
| Sarah | 9 |
| SimonG | 7 |
| sparkle princess | 5 |
| Stu | 20 |
| The Merman | 19 |
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Splendid wheeze, Scotty: most enjoyable and a great excuse to stay up til the wee hours on a skool-night 🙂
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eff off with yer gecko! It would be different another time;-)
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Thoroughly enjoyed this experiment, and I’m in awe of the listening skills you used to match us all up and figure us all out. I managed to get 12 right, 5 of whom were myself or people I’ve met! It would be great to do more experiments like this, but now it’s done, it can’t really be done again. Unless we all submitted a picture of our elbows and you had to work out who we are from that?
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Great project… had a lot of fun with it. I love your reviews – they certainly show a professional set of ears!
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Sorry I can’t listen to them all until I get home from holibobs in about 10 days’ time. Good idea, Scott!
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I was devastated that you thought Simon was me! However, since we’re separated by only about 15 miles, I guess you’re allowed. And it was clear you’d never listened to an episode of “The Last DJ” otherwise I think you might have got Sam quicker.
Good stuff!
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I had great fun with it Scott. :o)