Creating insect-like voices for talking flies

[PLacidBasilisk]

I've been asked by a friend to help create some convincing and comical voices for talking flies in a stop motion short.

After thinking about how to do this the best I could come up with was to pitch up normal speech a few semitones and then put a vocoder on the track channeling an external recording of flies buzzing about. But this isn't exactly giving me the desired result.

Does anyone have suggestions of how to make convincing insect voices?

[tw1nstates]

Ring modulator ftw

[plantaginate]

just thinking out aloud here..
maybe pitch up as you said, then time stretch bit (slower),
maybe layer afew on top of each other detuned by a few cents,
perhaps a slight chorus
if that high pitched cartoon voice is what your'e going for

[slirak]

Ring modulator ftw

^^^^
What he said. Ableton's Frequency Shifter has a few presets to get you started.

And then you could add something to make it buzz, like the Simple Delay set to 10 - 15 ms, 70 - 80% feedback, 100 % wet.
And maybe pitch shifting to that, with the pitch LFO modulated perhaps?
Which leads me to a question - I can't seem to find a pitch shifter in Live, am I just blind or isn't there any? Could anyone recommend a good one for Mac, preferably free...? Not that I'm gonna do any insect sounds, but pitch shifters are fun!

Are the voices gonna say intelligible lines? Then maybe you should opt for more subtle tweaks. Actually, I don't think there's any "insect effects" at all on the voices in stuff like A Bugs Life, Antz, Bee movie etc.

[Saxer]

tuning up is a duty...
maybe make a second track full of fly humming and close it by a noize gate, triggered by the "fly talk"-track.
so always when talking there´s the humming noize beside. could work...

[NPC]

+1 for the freq shifter!

[Schnauzer]

Do not underestimate comedy. it is hard.
Freq shifter for the squeeky voice idd.
Although I would use autopan after that. (you can use it as a volume vibrato.
Or you could start by shouting through a ventilator and record that.
Just a few thoughts.
These things always get me going.