Sonic the Hedgehog but Junichi Kanemaru voices the English Dub (AI)
Due to a special interest in dubbing and audio files, I decided to compare Sonic's voices between the English and Japanese games. I would've done this with Mega Man, but the franchise is extremely inconsistent with dubbing and voice overs. Something interesting with Kanemaru is that he's fluent and English and was an English teacher (many of his solos are in English as well). Some of his "emotes" (expressions such as "OUCH" or "YES!" are mostly in English). Considering he has played the role of Sonic in the Japanese dub since 1998, I thought it would be cool to use AI to dub the English translations in his voice.
I used a variety of games across the series to show a "what if" scenario if there was one VA consistent with the entire series (similar to Charles Martinet from 1996 - 2023). Games ranging from Sonic Adventure 1 to Sonic Generations are used.
For Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, I tried to replicate the compression effect that was used for all voice clips and sound effects. Additional audio mixing was used. Each cutscene had to be parsed through a vocal remover to get the exact outputs. Other AI dubbing might come out wrong as some individuals will insert the entire unedited clip with music and other voices and receive broken output. Some English clips are used from the Japanese dubs and are not AI-generated.
Some issues I've encountered were any voice lines with "th" or "ng" at the end. ElevenLabs still struggles with these sounds. Certain emoting such as "WOAH" in the unedited clip or short lines with enthusiasm ("AND RUN!") break. I wanted to do a part with Sonic Color's "NO COPYRIGHT CAN STOP ME", but each time, Elevenlabs couldn't properly generate the line. Maybe I might make a second video if this does well.
Clips past 11:33 are the raw files generated from ElevenLabs AI Voice Generator and are in 48khz 128kbps quality. Not every clip was used, so be sure to check that out!
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Sonic Adventure
4:20 Sonic Adventure 2
6:53 Sonic the Hedgehog (2006)
10:42 Sonic Generations
11:33 Raw Generations
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