Zen Pinball Star Wars - Voice sample comparisons

[spoonman]

As I mentioned here, the voice samples in Zen's Star Wars Empire Strikes Back table are not those of the original voice actors, expect for good old C3PO of course, but he speaks with more of a bleep-bloop-bleep..etc..

Anyway, there are still a couple of people who believe they are the original voice cast so I made a few comparisons to debunk that.


Darth Vader Comparison

First you will hear the great and mighty James Earl Jones from the original movie followed by the voice from Zen Pinball's version

Darth Vader Comparison #2

First you will hear the great and mighty James Earl Jones from the original movie followed by the voice from Zen Pinball's version

To be honest, they are not too bad.


Yoda Comparison

First you will hear the original master, Frank Oz, followed by Zen's version

I think their Yoda is the weakest, but his voice is really hard to capture all of the original nuances that made his voice so compelling.

More samples:

More original voice from James Earl Jones' Darth Vader
More original voice from Frank Oz's Yoda
Some fake C3PO voice samples
Some fake Han voice samples
Some fake Han & Luke voice samples

I think many of them are very good, but as any die hard Star Wars fan can tell, there's nothing like having the authentic, original voice talent.
That being said it's still a very fun game.

 

[netizen]

Isn't Yoda using the voice actor, and clips, from the Clone Wars series?

IDK about the Darth Vader voice clips but what they couldn't rip and compress from the latest remastered versions they would need to get recorded. If the OG voice actor wouldn't/couldn't do it then they would obviously need an impersonator or a digital vocaloid.

I don't hear anyone mentioning the Bobba Fett voice swap since Lucas replaced the OG voice actor with the guy who voiced Jango Fett for "continuity"; yet every Clone trooper has a different voice. To me that is as big as Greedo shooting first.

 

[spoonman]

Isn't Yoda using the voice actor, and clips, from the Clone Wars series?

IDK about the Darth Vader voice clips but what they couldn't rip and compress from the latest remastered versions they would need to get recorded. If the OG voice actor wouldn't/couldn't do it then they would obviously need an impersonator or a digital vocaloid.

I don't hear anyone mentioning the Bobba Fett voice swap since Lucas replaced the OG voice actor with the guy who voiced Jango Fett for "continuity"; yet every Clone trooper has a different voice. To me that is as big as Greedo shooting first.

I'm not familiar with the Clone Wars stuff. I was just comparing the Empire Strikes Back table.

Most of the samples, aside from a few "Extra Ball You Have" - Yoda are copying the original movie quotes and could have been easily taken directly from the movie, but
it comes down to licensing fees and I'm sure it's a lot cheaper to record them with voice impersonators.

 

[netizen]

According to Zen they took everything, except original dialogue, straight from the source material(s).

Whether the Treatment in the mastered versions, then the re-compression etc changed the tonal/aural quality that much is really hard to say. To my ears they sound pretty much the same, but that they have been treated, EQ'd and compressed to a very low bit rate. This does tend to alter the sound. Think of listening to a CD and then the same song as a 96 kbps mp3 it sounds different.

If you notice, the Zen sample has the reverb, and the breathing apparatus effect removed. That alone, if they didn't have access to the master tracks, will take a lot out of the vocal dynamics and give it that gritty, sort of choppy flow. Then it gets compressed and other treatments and we're back to the circle of speculation.

I have no way of saying for sure that this is what they have done, I am merely offering my opinion on the mechanics of why and how the sound could change, even if it was taken from source material.

 

[spoonman]

According to Zen they took everything, except original dialogue, straight from the source material(s).

Whether the Treatment in the mastered versions, then the re-compression etc changed the tonal/aural quality that much is really hard to say. To my ears they sound pretty much the same, but that they have been treated, EQ'd and compressed to a very low bit rate. This does tend to alter the sound. Think of listening to a CD and then the same song as a 96 kbps mp3 it sounds different.

If you notice, the Zen sample has the reverb, and the breathing apparatus effect removed. That alone, if they didn't have access to the master tracks, will take a lot out of the vocal dynamics and give it that gritty, sort of choppy flow. Then it gets compressed and other treatments and we're back to the circle of speculation.

I have no way of saying for sure that this is what they have done, I am merely offering my opinion on the mechanics of why and how the sound could change, even if it was taken from source material.

Do you have a link where Zen claims to have used original voice recordings?
Because If they are claiming their Yoda is Frank Oz, Vader is James Earl Jones, Han is Harrison Ford, C3PO is Anthony Daniels, and Luke is Mark Hamill than they are flat out lying to us!!

This isn't a case is audio remastering as much as it is a case of different vocal chords at work.

There are quite a few reviews of the game that also mention the voice actors sounding quite a bit different than the original actors.

 

[netizen]

Do you have a link where Zen claims to have used original voice recordings?

https://forum.zenstudios.com/showthread.php?5246-Star-Wars-Pinball&p=39608&viewfull=1#post39608

 

[spoonman]

https://forum.zenstudios.com/showthread.php?5246-Star-Wars-Pinball&p=39608&viewfull=1#post39608

Originally Posted by ALH2012
Perfect!

What about sound effects?Will there be some authentic original sound effects?Will there be voice samples from the films?

The voice work/effects are a mix of original movie stuff and our own.



So yeah, this just means they used authentic sound effects (which they totally did).

George Lucas almost always gives full access to the Skwalker Sound collection of Lucas Film sound library.
This is for light saber, r2d2, Vader breathing. Etc..
For games they always hire stand ins to mimic the voicesmm.

Not a big deal, but I just wanted to show they used sound-a-likes and not sampled voices directly from the movies is all/

 

[netizen]

It seems that the hype in the pre release videos was definitely more hype than facts. I only ever saw that Zen forum blurb, and this pre-release video interview, But I didn't read the Games Radar print release until today; mostly cause I didn't care and I never looked for it, but mostly I didn't, and still don't care.
This is the confirmation you were looking for, right here.

the sound design plays a huge part in the nostalgic resonance of the tables, for better or for worse. LucasArts gave Zen full access to the original score, dialogue, and likenesses from the series, but the voice clips are done by sound-alikes who are hit-and-miss. Quotes from Yoda and the faux Han Solo sound pretty spot on, but there’s a subtle displeasure to hearing lines from a not-quite-right Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader impersonator. It’s never totally off-putting, but you might find yourself wincing at sketchy readings as often as you’re thrilled by the spot-on sound effects.

bold added by me
http://www.gamesradar.com/star-wars-pinball-review/

 

[Fungi]

It’s never totally off-putting, but you might find yourself wincing at sketchy readings as often as you’re thrilled by the spot-on sound effects.

Now that's not true... There's no "might" about it. I find myself wincing at every line reading.

 

[spoonman]

It seems that the hype in the pre release videos was definitely more hype than facts. I only ever saw that Zen forum blurb, and this pre-release video interview, But I didn't read the Games Radar print release until today; mostly cause I didn't care and I never looked for it, but mostly I didn't, and still don't care.
This is the confirmation you were looking for, right here.

bold added by me
http://www.gamesradar.com/star-wars-pinball-review/

Thanks for the link, though my ears gave me all the confirmation I needed to know they were not authentic voices.

 

[superballs]

I wonder if they got the guys who did Chad Vader: Day Shift Manager.

Their Darth Vader was not quite on but good enough that even Lucas Arts hired them to do his voice for SW: Empire at War

Anyone who hasn't seen this amazing Youtube series (which i even bought on DVD):

 

[dirtyvu]

it was obvious from the beginning that there were a lot of rerecordings with soundalikes. I'm a big SW fan and I would say at least 40% of the clips (at least for the Empire table) are rerecordings with soundalikes. There's no way that is Harrison Ford's voice.

and Polygon fished out the info:
http://www.polygon.com/2013/2/9/3971774/star-wars-pinball-hands-on-pinball-fx2-zen-pinball
"The Empire Strikes Back uses a mix of audio and voice work pulled from the film when possible, but resorts to Lucasfilm-approved soundalikes when necessary."

 

[Butterkins]

Good work on the comparisons.

I'm not sure how anyone could have been confused.

(But I always wear headphones when gaming, and the differences are very obvious to me.)

These sound-alikes don't sound very much alike. Some are not even close.

Darth Vader sounds nothing like the original. The intonation is wrong, the mechanical breathing noise is missing, the echo effects are missing.

Above all, they need to have an option to disable fake-Yoda's lame fortune cookie sayings and other bad voice-overs.