Talk:Bard/@comment-5426111-20150226191043/@comment-4348008-20150227012909

When asked if we should expect more champions with a non-traditional VO following Bard and Rek'Sai, Meddler commented:

"Bard will be the last champ without a voice for a little while at least. Something we identified last year was that there was some cool stuff we could do with non verbal champions. Original plan was to space Rek'Sai and Bard out a bit so they weren't back to back, in part because of the lack of voice lines, these release times ended up being better for other reasons though."

In a reddit thread discussing Bard's voiceover, Riot Utora chimed in: 

"this is really awesome to hear - and thank you! We thought that traditional voice would just not fit Bard at all. Fun tip: Bard has a unique VO system that plays certain kinds of lines based on how many meeps you currently have spawned at your side. There are specific lines for "i have zero meeps", "i have one, two, and three meeps". Bard's VO is controlled entirely by the cyclical meep ammo system."

When asked if a bassoon or tuba was used to create Bard's voiceover, Riot Utora replied:

"In the final version there is no bassoon or tuba. However bassoon and contra bassoon are two instruments that I was very adamant on using in the beginning. Bard's early VO prototypes used bassoon, contrabassoon, and bass clarinet. It sounded cool - but wasn't hitting the mark - i think the disconnect was the reeds. I'm a huge bass clarinet and contra bassoon fan, i love their timbre and texture but sadly wasn't right for Bard. The final version of his VO has 4 parts: alpenhorn, middle eastern flutes,verbed out piano tone clusters, and a synthesizer patch that was programmed to cycle through the harmonic series, or overtone series. The overtone series is really what gives Bard it's other wordliness, We wrote the synth lines first and then took the other instruments and composed around the synth."

As for how difficult it was to create Bard's voiceover, Utora noted:

"More difficult in the sense that we haven't done something like this before. Recording traditional VO has a very specific and involved pipeline that involves a ton of people (writers, audio designers, voice actors, recording studios editors, localization, etc, ect.) Bard was just myself and one of our composers (Sebastien) sitting in a room together and writing every single note together. So while yes there are less people involved, it by no means it was easier. To a writer Bard was very easy in terms of VO, if Bard spoke English mine and Sebastien's lifes would have been a hell of alot easier. Also one thing people don't think about alot - Bard will sound EXACTLY the same on every continent. It's a very rare occasion where this can happen. No localization can sometimes be amazing for a global game"