AV Voice Changer Software Diamond Edition Review

AV Voice Changer sports preset nickvoices and facilitates audio tweaking. It basically offers a way to pull pranks on friends, protect voice identity by turning it into something else, and create voice-overs for YouTube clips and other video.

Setting up Voice Changer takes little time and minimum effort. The trial edition runs for 14 days and has some downsides, such as limited recording time and disabled “Parody Maker.” The full version can be purchased for $69.97 / €51.19 (discounted from $99.95 / €73).

The main application window resembles the look of a smartphone and it is split into two panels. Morphing voices can be done in three ways: by recording the voice and applying tweaks in real time, recording and tweaking on playback, or by uploading an existing file and morphing on playback. Voice Changer offers support for some popular audio formats such as WAV, MP3, OGG and WMA.

They can be accompanied by various background effects like applauds, street voices, nature sounds, or aircraft. Apart from voice effects, there are some animal sounds available, like the one of a bear, bird, lion or wolf.

An equalizer can be enabled and configured at will (includes presets), just like in a regular audio player. As far as sound quality is concerned, the attack and release can be adjusted, along with noise reduction and threshold.

Voice equalization may be tuned in terms of high and low stretch, low shift, and smoothing. When attempting to create a robot voice, the frequency and balance can be adjusted. "Vowel Enhancer" handles harmonic voice changes without affecting timbre and pitch.

Voice effects can be applied in real time while chatting with friends on Skype or Yahoo!, and the program explains the exact steps needed to be taken in order to make this happen. The voice recorder handles sound from the microphone, streaming audio (e.g. Skype, Yahoo!) or all sources. Recorded files are grouped into tasks to be resumed at a later time.

The utility features “Parody Mixer,” a function that mixes up to four different voices together to obtain a unique output called parody. It has four presets and allows new voice recordings. The parody can be saved to PVC format.

As the name implies, “Voice Comparator” facilitates the comparison of two voices. Once again, there are a few ready profiles, and it is possible to record or point out existing voices to be applied as base. Basically, the user has to repeat the words spoken in the base track to identify similarities in tone, timbre and intonation. It is recommended to use a voice as close to the base as possible to get best results. The new voice can be saved to file (NVC format).

“Voice Analyzer” shows advanced users a graphical representation of the harmony, brightness, pitch, and score.

Moreover, Video Changer facilitates file and music morphing, provided that you have installed AV Audio Morpher and AV Media Player Morpher, respectively. They are both freebies.

Program settings

It is possible to toggle between hook and virtual driver mode for processing audio streams.

The first method captures all streaming audio and morphs it in real-time, while the second one applies to each application, thus helping Voice Changer focus on a specific source.

The main frame can be set to stay on top of other windows, and the program to run at Windows boot and to minimize to the system tray. By default, it checks for updates automatically.

Additionally, the source for the audio device and application can be picked, an ignore filter can be enabled for capture/playback streams and utilities, while keyboard shortcuts can be remapped. Nickvoice rules with user-defined sample rates, modes (DirectX or waveform), channel and capture/playback modes may be activated as well.

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The Good

The program is compatible with Windows from XP to 8, in both 32-bit and 64-bit modes. Although not officially stated by the developer yet, our tests have shown that it works fine on Windows 8.1 too.

The quality of the morphed voices is pretty good. Extraordinary results are not to be expected, since the recorded voice should be similar to the nickvoice for maximum efficiency. Many other preset nickvoices can be downloaded for free from the developer's website.

It supports keyboard shortcuts and includes help documentation.

The Bad

The advertisement cannot be permanently hidden from the main frame, as it reappears after a while when closed. On top of that, when it pops up or changes content, the primary window automatically overlaps the preferences dialog and any other open application.

Voice Changer was tested on Windows 7 Professional 64-bit and Windows 8.1 Pro during our evaluation, and we have experienced some major issues in both cases. Surprisingly enough, it had more problems with Windows 7 than with 8.1. It crashed out of the blue on numerous occasions, and the audio quality gradually decreased on each new task (Windows 7).

We failed in our attempt to use the parody mixer (Windows 7 and 8.1); no changes were made to the voice.

The Truth

Although some experience is preferred for working with Voice Changer, novices are prone to lose themselves in the fun environment provided by the application. It needs some general improvements concerning stability, though.