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I hooked up a $400 mic to Hey You! Pikachu and I swear the game works better

Turnabout Sisters

Turnabout Sisters

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
2,347
First, I was interested to see how good they hey you pikachu mic was, so I plugged it into one of the preamps on my presonus interface. Here's what I got.

Vocaroo | Online voice recorder

Vocaroo is a quick and easy way to share voice messages over the interwebs.
vocaroo.com vocaroo.com

That's what Pikachu hears, no wonder he's pissed off and shocking people all the time, since he hears the sound of hell when you call him.
Anyway, I'm not sure if my mic is broken or if it is really bad, but it seemed to not be able to pick up any frequencies whatsoever below like 1KHz. I had to talk weird just to get my voice to even be picked up.

I have an Electrovoice RE-20. It's the industry standard broadcast mic, used everywhere. Here's a pic of stevie wonder singing into one.

A-18956-1562506623-7271.jpeg.jpg


I bought an xlr to 1/4inch converter, and plugged it into an 1/4th inch to 1/8th inch converter, then plugged that into the microphone module from the game (I bought a complete copy for like $4 in 2009 or so). I swear, that little bubble that fills up when you talk to Pikachu so perfectly reacted to every little syllable that comes out of your mouth. Every time I said "Hey Pikachu you little fucking asshole come here" or "holy shit you fucking irksome rat, look at me" I swear Pikachu would do whatever I told him to instantly. So if you ever got frustrated at this game, maybe you should have tried a better mic before blaming the devs?
 
Turtleboats

Turtleboats

Member
Nov 13, 2017
1,797
Thats cool you found a way to make the game respond better to your vocal commands. I am sure it would work with a decent mic as well considering the quality of the og mic from your vocaroo.

On another note, why are you mean to your Pikachu? :(
 
DarthButcher

DarthButcher

Member
Oct 30, 2017
302
This is unnecessarily over the top and excessive. I look forward to watching the dozen-plus YouTube videos that steal this idea and profit off of your work.

Ninja Edit: This is not meant to be a dig at you, just a dig at Poketubers who will take credit for your work, OP.
 

Raccoon

Member
May 31, 2019
15,896
holy shit it used the worst microphone of all time all along

megaton investigation OP good work
 
roguesquirrel

roguesquirrel

The Fallen
Oct 29, 2017
5,487
that recording is killing me. this whole time pikachu was hearing the equivalent of the double dribble title screen
 
GrantDaNasty

GrantDaNasty

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,002
Damn, is that a recording of a Ghost?

Pikachu over here just like "I'm doing my best you ghostly-apparition sonnuvabitch! speak better!"
 
OP
OP
Turnabout Sisters

Turnabout Sisters

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
2,347
Saving up for a U87 so that pikachu can hear every detail of my breath. I don't have the gamecube mic but I think I have the seaman mic...
 
anaa

anaa

Unshakable Resolve
Member
Jun 30, 2019
1,555
the quality of the voice here reminds me of the quality of the motion data on the original wiimote ( not IR pointer, but the accelerometers). It was not that usable for gameplay beyond waggling, and developers that tried to do more led to unresponsive, unreliable input. It wasnt until they shelled out for more expensive sensors in the motion plus adapter we got more functional 1:1 motion.
 
GamerJM

GamerJM

Member
Nov 8, 2017
15,640
It was probably because I was really young when I played it, but I don't actually remember the game ever having any trouble understanding my voice. I'm pretty sure I 100%'d or did everything possible in the game and never encountered any serious issues.
 

Deleted member 20892

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
1,958
This is the title of a YouTube video, you just have to make it now. I swear it's trend immediately

DarthButcher said:
This is unnecessarily over the top and excessive. I look forward to watching the dozen-plus YouTube videos that steal this idea and profit off of your work.

Ninja Edit: This is not meant to be a dig at you, just a dig at Poketubers who will take credit for your work, OP.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...
Oh glad it wasn't only my immediate thought lol
 
Sacul64

Sacul64

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 27, 2017
6,769
Maya Fey said:
So if you ever got frustrated at this game, maybe you should have tried a better mic before blaming the devs?
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

But thats the microphone they gave with it... Like were talking about 10 year olds in the 90s was I supposed to ask my parents for a 400$ mic for hey you Pikachu?
 
OP
OP
Turnabout Sisters

Turnabout Sisters

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
2,347
No phantom power though… And just as a warning to anyone who might try this, do not hook up a line level signal (like an output from a computer or interface or something) into the mic module, could blow it. So doing your own preamping for the u87 is not gonna work
 
Pyro

Pyro

God help us the mods are making weekend threads
Member
Jul 30, 2018
14,505
United States
Scientist-Stereotype.jpg


Excellent work OP!

I'll be sure to use that recording to scare my friend next time I'm in party chat too.
 
FinFunnels

FinFunnels

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
5,610
Seattle
Hahaha holy shit at that recording quality

now i feel bad for the devs who got dragged for this game not working. They're probably not the ones who chose to ship it with such an awful mic... lol
 
mutantmagnet

mutantmagnet

Member
Oct 28, 2017
12,401
jetsetnickradio said:
Hahaha holy shit at that recording quality

now i feel bad for the devs who got dragged for this game not working. They're probably not the ones who chose to ship it with such an awful mic... lol
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Usually I would think why qa didn't catch this but it is understandable why someone higher up would decide to cut costs after the game was properly tested. Shame.
 
Stencil

Stencil

Member
Oct 30, 2017
10,378
USA
You should really do a YouTube video of this. Or I suppose wait until, as others have said, someone else takes this idea from this topic and does it themselves.
 
Zutrax

Zutrax

Member
Oct 31, 2017
4,193
That recording quality is so goddamn awful holy shit.

Though I'm wondering now, did they maybe account for how terrible the mic was during development? Like to us, it sounds like a garbled mess, but the game might recognize the garbled mess as "a garbled mess with specific tones it was trained to understand".

Like, if they developed it using the mic that sounded like ass, wouldn't a clear mic sound completely foreign and not work right at all? Frankly, I know nothing about this sort of thing, but that's just my immediate assumption.
 

bloopland33

Member
Mar 4, 2020
2,223
This is amazing. I'm really curious if all the mics sounded like shit or if yours has some particularly bad damage/age to it. Tempted to get mine out to try and get a sample
 
Brunire

Brunire

▲ Legend ▲
Member
Oct 25, 2017
933
Maybe this is why Lifeline on PS2 was such a disappointment. The screaming at the top of my lungs in frustration probably also attributed.
 
Poison Jam

Poison Jam

Member
Nov 6, 2017
2,984
That recording makes me wonder how the fuck they managed to even make the game work in the first place. Maybe it never did.

I need someone to try the Gamecube mic used in Mario Party, for comparison.
 
LunaSerena

LunaSerena

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,525
I still have my N64 and all the stuff for Hey You Pikachu. I'm gonna buy a cheap microphone and try this out - even a cheap microphone this day will sound better than... whatever the audio in the OP's recording is!

Guess I better try to find someway to fix the N64's image output when connecting it to a tv nowadays...
 
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