Consider the following clip:

Pay attention to the voices and vocal effects of Ultra Magnus, Springer and Arcee. In my opinion this is the right way to do TF vocal effects. A soft but distinctly metallic reverb. Just right, not overdone.

However, no TF media since the end of G1 has managed to achieve the same effect.

Beast Wars of course didn't have much of this. Optimal Optimus does have a distinct metallic tone to his voice (see next clip), and while it sounds decent to me, in my opinion it simply is not as good as the G1 vocal effect.

RID I think was still ok, more of a subtle effect in the background:

However, Armada was way overdone:

Optimus sounds like he's speaking into an empty metal biscuit tin, while Megatron sounds like they layered his voice 5 times.

Jumping forwards, the WFC series has simply awful vocal effects.

They all sound like chain smokers with sore throats, speaking through a web call on 56k dial-up. It sounds like 25% actual voice plus 75% effects. I find it really distracting.

Why is it so hard to replicate something that was perfected in 1984?

 

I don't really see this as an issue at all or necessary, but I personally like RID/UT's are the best out of all of these.

G1 I could barely tell they were doing vocal effects except for the characters with really distinct voices, and even then I thought it was just them trying to mix up the voices of some characters.

 

I hate robotic vocal effects, period. It never sounded good. Ultra Magnus' I find to be near insufferable. Armada was definitely overdone.

I much prefer normal sounding voices, like Animated, TFP, and the Bayverse.

But, to each and their own.

 

Honestly one of the best vocal effects were the 2007 movie ones. The robots sounded huge and robotic, but not in a generic vocoded way. They had this slight tinny echo that really made it sound like the voices were reverberating inside these massive machines on their way out.

Animated and TFP had a vocal effects on every single robot character.

Though one could argue they were done well enough that you didn't notice, and didn't distort the performances of the actors.

 

Animated also did it better than most of the shows these days, it's such a small detail yet even the movies forgot about it after the first movie. :/

I prefer when they have it because I tend to be of the opinion that robots that lack vocal chords probably won't sound exactly like a human would, but that's just me. Not heavy or thick enough to make them unintelligible, but just enough to remind those watching that the person speaking isn't made of meat.  

 

Wait, really?!

Okay, I like them like that.

 

I really like all the vocal effects that they’ve had. The lack of effects in newer shows has always annoyed me since they’re supposed to be robots.

 

Bumblebee's were decent.

 

I don't know if the effect was used on most of Cyberverse. I think it's only been really apparent on Shockwave and Soundwave. Shockwave is passable; nothing bad, but I did notice it's presence. Soundwave in Cyberverse is a whole other animal altogether. Soundwave is, dare I say it; sassy and adorable. He chews scenery like microchips for breakfast. His audio effect matches his sass. Brilliant.

 

I think that's less to do with the vocal processing and more just allowing him to have a personality, like him always playing music and just generally have a wry wit to his actions.

 

True.

 

True, although I didn't include TFA in my post I do think Animated did the voice effects quite well. Still not as good as G1 though IMO.

Yeah the effects there were ok. A bit tinny in places but not bad overall.

I've never watched Cyberverse but I looked up some clips and I have to admit I really do like Soundwave's voice.

 

I actually kinda like Armada because it's so noticeable.

 

They actually did it in 07 movie and it was pretty good

 

I prefer the non metallic voices. I feel like the non metallic voices gives them more personality, charm, and it just sounds better. If you compared Kaye’s voice from UT Megs to BW Megs, BW Megs not only sounds better, but the non metallic voice gives him charm. Kaye as UT Megs sounds like he’a bored most of the time even though his performance is still good.

 

That could also be down to the diffference between recording in a group for a show that is to be animated (which is how BW voices were done) vs. importing a show that has already been animated and recording the dubbed voices alone in a booth (which is how the UT was done).