The Legend of Xanadu Dub Project - Auditions Wanted

[ParanoiaDragon]

A buddy of mine are going to record tonight all the roles on my equpiment.  My wife & his wife might try out for female & kids roles, but it won't be in time for the deadline.  I told them females are more scanty, so you might be willing to take more of em' after the deadline.

[elmer]

A buddy of mine are going to record tonight all the roles on my equpiment.  My wife & his wife might try out for female & kids roles, but it won't be in time for the deadline.  I told them females are more scanty, so you might be willing to take more of em' after the deadline.

Excellent, thanks! 

Yep, I suspect that you're right about the female and kid roles, especially for the smaller one and two line parts where we'd like to have a new voice, and not just over-use one of the small core of top-tier female applicants that are willing to commit considerable time to the larger roles.

Maybe anearth will be made great again. Xanadu's chance for greatness will likely pass by.

Apparently, Anearth doesn't need a dub. All of the spoken dialog is duplicated in message boxes. Yippee! 

So ... if your genius isn't available for Xanadu, we may all have to wait for the Spriggan Mark 2 dub before we can become your adoring fans! 

[CrackTiger]

Tengai Makyou Fuun Kabuki Den also has all of the extensive voice acting duplicated in the dialogue window.

If the game doesn't use a challenging type of compression, hopefully that will make a translation more attractive to teams in the future. It's one of the most appropriate games to keep the Japanese acting in and one of the best games most epic RPGs in the library.

With that said, you could still take it a step further and dub everything that is spoken once the main characters arrive in London and Zeami casts a spell so that they understand and speak English.

[Gypsy]

Tengai Makyou Fuun Kabuki Den also has all of the extensive voice acting duplicated in the dialogue window.

If the game doesn't use a challenging type of compression, hopefully that will make a translation more attractive to teams in the future. It's one of the most appropriate games to keep the Japanese acting in and one of the best games most epic RPGs in the library.

With that said, you could still take it a step further and dub everything that is spoken once the main characters arrive in London and Zeami casts a spell so that they understand and speak English.

This would excite me. The more fan translations the better.

Fantastic to hear how many submissions have been made on the voice acting...

[elmer]

Tengai Makyou Fuun Kabuki Den also has all of the extensive voice acting duplicated in the dialogue window.

AFAIK, at this point, "Tom" over at romhacking.net is the Tengai Makyou expert, and has already expressed his desire to translate all of the TM games on the PCE ... eventually. It doesn't seem to make much sense (to me) to just do one of the games, so he's the guy to watch.

If you don't hang out over there, you might not know that his TM Zero translation is finally finished and being beta-tested now, thanks to the involvement of a whole bunch of veteran SNES hackers joining forces and deciding to just make-it-happen.

Tom has apparently been slowly working on Ziria for years with EsperKnight, which doesn't exactly lead me to expect that much will happen on that project in the foreseeable future, without a similar kind of "intervention" at some point. But perhaps I'm wrong.

[Gypsy]

Tengai Makyou Fuun Kabuki Den also has all of the extensive voice acting duplicated in the dialogue window.

AFAIK, at this point, "Tom" over at romhacking.net is the Tengai Makyou expert, and has already expressed his desire to translate all of the TM games on the PCE ... eventually. It doesn't seem to make much sense (to me) to just do one of the games, so he's the guy to watch.

If you don't hang out over there, you might not know that his TM Zero translation is finally finished and being beta-tested now, thanks to the involvement of a whole bunch of veteran SNES hackers joining forces and deciding to just make-it-happen.

Tom has apparently been slowly working on Ziria for years with EsperKnight, which doesn't exactly lead me to expect that much will happen on that project in the foreseeable future, without a similar kind of "intervention" at some point. But perhaps I'm wrong.

Unfortunate. Thanks for the information though, because I do not frequent those forums. Too much drama typically, I'll just play the translation when it's released.

[Mathius]

Tengai Makyou Fuun Kabuki Den has one of my favorite intros of any JRPG in existence. It's so atmospheric and funny but the main game is way too full of Kanji for every menu option that it makes it inaccessible for idiots like myself.

But I'm so glad that people like Elmer are spearheading work to get some of these games like Xanadu into western hands finally. Thanks again, my brothers.

[esteban]

Good news

UPDATE: The deadline for initial submissions has passed!

However, we will continue to communicate with auditionees over the coming weeks to ensure that everyone has had a chance to respond to feedback and show us everything that they can do.

We have received over 1,000 individual character auditions from nearly 200 individual people. If you auditioned and are waiting for your first round of detailed feedback, we are deeply sorry for the delay.
While we can't promise responses by any particular time, we are sending out many responses on a daily basis, and we intend to give feedback to everyone before deciding on the cast.

The response exceeded our expectations, and we are delighted to say that this is shaping up to be a very good dub indeed. Thank you very much to all who have auditioned, and to the many others who have helped spread the word about this project.

Again, thank you.

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[LentFilms]

Wow, 200 individuals sent in auditions for the dub!? Congratulations you guys! I don't know the exact numbers but I think only about 30 or 25 actors/actresses auditioned for the Ys IV dub back in 2012. Picking out the cast from so many people is going to be a lot of work but it is amazing the number of auditionees that have sent in their performances!

[elmer]

Wow, 200 individuals sent in auditions for the dub!? Congratulations you guys!

We definitely got lucky! 

195 actors/actresses, sending in 1,300 first-auditions for different characters.

And the updates-based-on-feedback keep on rolling in.

Poor Sam is crushed under an avalanche of audio files!

[Michirin9801]

Glad to know that the auditions went well ^^
I'm SO looking forward to hear this dub!

[esteban]

Glad to know that the auditions went well ^^
I'm SO looking forward to hear this dub!

Well...things could have gone a bit smoother.

The problem is that one individual (nulltard) sent in 300+ auditions, which artificially inflates the audition numbers by 30%.

So, although there were *technically* 1,300+ auditions, it is more honest to say there are 1,000 auditions, since Nulltard used a very distracting Ukranian accent in nearly all of his submissions.

[Dicer]

Guess I'm glad I never got around to submitting, between illness and not having proper gear, I would have certainly been passed over anyway...

Get to work and get sorting, that's a lot of listening.

[Michirin9801]

Glad to know that the auditions went well ^^
I'm SO looking forward to hear this dub!

Well...things could have gone a bit smoother.

The problem is that one individual (Nulltard) sent in 300+ auditions, which artificially inflates the audition numbers by 30%.

So, although there were *technically* 1,300+ auditions, it is more honest to say there are 1,000 auditions, since Nulltard used a very distracting Ukranian accent in nearly all of his submissions.

I understand, but hey, 195 people is still quite a bit huh? ;3
That might be enough to assemble a decent dub ^^

[elmer]

I understand, but hey, 195 people is still quite a bit huh? ;3
That might be enough to assemble a decent dub ^^

Haha ... I think that you may have taken esteban's joke seriously! 

Nope, we didn't get spammed by Nulltard, and there really are 1,300 first-takes, with a couple of hundred re-takes to go through. 

[Michirin9801]

I understand, but hey, 195 people is still quite a bit huh? ;3
That might be enough to assemble a decent dub ^^

Haha ... I think that you may have taken esteban's joke seriously! 

Nope, we didn't get spammed by Nulltard, and there really are 1,300 first-takes, with a couple of hundred re-takes to go through. 

I did >w>
I fell for it...

[LentFilms]

Trying not to be that guy that always asks for updates but is there any news on how the auditions are going?

[incrediblehark]

Wow, this is amazing news! When I was last on here the Xanadu translations were still WIP and now you guys are doing the dub?! The number of submissions for audition really surprised me, its good to see that many people passionate about the PCE. I can't imagine the turnout would have been as many 10 years ago.

Really exciting news and looking forward to finally being able to play these games in English!

[esteban]

Trying not to be that guy that always asks for updates but is there any news on how the auditions are going?

Instead of casting 50 actors for 50 roles, it has been decided to cast three latter-day Mel Blancs to perform the voices of 50+ characters.

Also, the in-game will be bi-lingual, with options for English and Welsh (a big THANK YOU! goes out to Gwalchgwyn for the Welsh translation!)

[elmer]

Instead of casting 50 actors for 50 roles, it has been decided to cast three latter-day Mel Blancs to perform the voices of 50+ characters.

Also, the in-game will be bi-lingual, with options for English and Welsh (a big THANK YOU! goes out to Gwalchgwyn for the Welsh translation!)

Dang ... you weren't supposed to tell people, it was going to be a surprise! 

Now we'll just have to go back to the original plan. 


We do have a couple of nice entries for the gag-reel ... thanks to Paranoia Dragon for your contributions to that! 

And I really loved the one guy who sent in Kermit The Frog reading for Daimos's part. 

The number of submissions for audition really surprised me, its good to see that many people passionate about the PCE.

It would be really nice to believe that, but I suspect that most of the people auditioning don't even have the faintest clue what the PC Engine is.

The mentions on Kotaku and NintendoLife definitely helped us bring in general Falcom-fans and game-fans from other platforms.

And the posts on voice-acting boards brought in a few of the best people.

http://voiceacting.boards.net/
http://www.voiceacting.space/
http://www.castingcall.club/


Once people had somehow got the word, then the excellent web pages that SamIAm and Esteban put together really helped to drag them in further and decide to actually audition.

Honestly, I think that the sales-job that was done to attract people is really what pushed things over the edge.

Trying not to be that guy that always asks for updates but is there any news on how the auditions are going?

They're definitely moving forwards ... slowly. 

We've been concentrating on the large roles first, and they're either all cast, or down to one or two finalists.

I'm afraid that for anyone who sent in auditions for the main characters, then if you haven't already heard from us ... we were lucky-enough to find someone who fit the role better than you. Proper emails of thanks will go out to everyone later on.

If you did apply ... don't feel bad about not being picked, there were some really, really good auditions from people here.

But we were lucky-enough to have a few professional VO-actors who work on anime and games apply, and a lot of other excellent actors with VO and/or stage and commerical experience. Seriously ... those folks just slaughter the competition when they're in the running for a part, and that's without even considering their professional recording equipment or access to a friend's recording studio.

A couple of the pros also sent in links to their websites and demo-reels, and wow, it's amazing to hear the variety of different voices and styles that the top-talent can convincingly pull off.

The secondary and minor characters are still being cast, and we're only a short way into that list ... there are so many of them!!!

I think that there are only going to be one or two roles that we may have to eventually consider running a 2nd casting-call for.

[LentFilms]

Thanks for the update Elmer!

Very excited to hear that you got some professional actors/actresses to play some of the main characters. I actually remember seeing Kira Buckland responding to a question SamIAm had on the Voice Acting Club forums. She was the actress that recently played 2B in Nier Automata and also did some other roles in Trails of Cold Steel. Not sure if she actually auditioned for anything but it was cool to see some recognizable anime/video game performers looking at the project.

Anyway, keep up the awesome word guys!

[elmer]

Kira was the Goddess Ishtar in Sam's old LoX2 dub back before fame-and-fortune beckoned, so she's definitely familiar with the project.

Her recordings from back then are absolutely excellent, as you'd expect, but they can't be used in the current dub, because there have been too many subtle-but-important refinements to the scripts, and to the tone of the Goddess's lines.

[LentFilms]

Oh wow is that right? I heard her lines in that old version of the dub but I had no idea it was Buckland, she was using a screen name at the time. I liked her line reads for the Xanadu Goddess so I actually ended up contacting her on VAA in 2012 and asked her if she would like to audition for the Ys IV dub. She ended up playing one of the Goddesses in that dub too. Crazy that I never made that connection.

[NightWolve]

Wow, I briefly skimmed to catch up, that's overwhelming how much volunteers joined the attempt!

All the best man! It's all very impressive!!

[ParanoiaDragon]

Gag reel, eh?  Makes me wish I kept more of my goofing around!  BTW, I was thinking, by the time I auditioned for the dragon, my voice was trashed, & I know I can do deeper & scarier on it.  Should I bother to do a re-audition?

[elmer]

Gag reel, eh?  Makes me wish I kept more of my goofing around!

I don't think that we'll be sharing it, but the Kermit take really does make me wish that we could do a whole Sesame Street version of one scene! 

BTW, I was thinking, by the time I auditioned for the dragon, my voice was trashed, & I know I can do deeper & scarier on it.  Should I bother to do a re-audition?

Only if you want to do it for pure fun. The role has already been cast, and the actor has confirmed.

[JoshTurboTrollX]

Congrats to the awesome cast you guys have!  It's going to be a stellar event when this is all released for the masses!! 

Thanks to all the hard work you guys have already done!

[elmer]

Gawd ... it's been a really long couple of weeks, but I think that we've nearly got the casting done. 

Then we'll send out messages to the huge crowd of folks that didn't get picked in the end.

Sorry to everyone here that sent in auditions, but didn't actually get a part ... you were up against some absolutely-amazing competition!

[LentFilms]

Awesome news and thank you guys for all your hard work, can't wait to hear the dub. Have you guys started recording anything yet or are you just focused on getting the parts cast at the moment?

[elmer]

We've received preliminary recordings from a couple of people, but we've not had the time to give them the attention that they deserve, yet.

Casting is very nearly done, with a couple of important roles decided yesterday.

Focus is starting to turn to recording, and SamIAm is going to be doing a live internet recording session with one of the professional VO actors today.

Getting his lines "in the can" will be a big jump forward for the dub, and will help set the quality-bar for everyone else.

[LentFilms]

Focus is starting to turn to recording, and SamIAm is going to be doing a live internet recording session with one of the professional VO actors today.

Very cool, I would love to watch that. Where is this going to be available and which character is being recorded? Unless I'm misunderstanding and you mean he is doing a private Skype call and not a live stream for people to watch. 

[elmer]

Very cool, I would love to watch that. Where is this going to be available and which character is being recorded? Unless I'm misunderstanding and you mean he is doing a private Skype call and not a live stream for people to watch. 

Hahaha ... yeah, I think that SamIAm is going to be nervous enough as it is without there being an audience!

I sure-as-heck wouldn't be wanting to do it, the whole idea makes me break out in a cold-sweat.

Nope, it's private ... it's just like a professional version of Skype for broadcast/recording artists.

Unlike Skype (I believe) it can hook directly into recording software for measuring line-durations.

It's something that the actor introduced us to as a way of remote-directing and getting instant feedback so that the recording process is as efficient as possible.

You can google ipDTL or SourceConnect.

[LentFilms]

Okay, that's what I thought. Felt pretty dumb right after posting my comment. Anyway, I hope everything goes well with the recordings. Good luck guys!

[SamIAm]

Well, we did it. That was my first-ever live session. Was it a little nerve-racking at first? Sure, but it was also pretty damned fun. The actor I was working with was incredible, and I found myself grinning like an idiot as he did take after high-quality take of each line. Back when we revived this translation project in...October 2015?...I never imagined that it would lead to me having the privilege of giving direction to professional-level actors.

Although "giving direction" is a grandiloquent way of putting it. I mostly laid back, let him do his thing, and said things like "One more time, a little more slowly."

Anyway, I can't wait to do that again. This dub has been a lot of work - you may not know it, but the past two months have been by far the busiest of the project - but it's also been a pleasure all its own. I think I'm going to be sad when it's over.

[esteban]

This is very good news, indeed.

[spenoza]

How on earth did you get pros interested in this project? Can they provide work for free if they are union labor?

[SamIAm]

Luck and word of mouth, mostly. I think that that website helped a lot.

There are a lot of people who get paid for voice work who aren't members of SAG. It's quite a different world from TV and movies.

[Michirin9801]

I think I'm going to be sad when it's over.

I know I'll be very happy when it's over because I'll get to play it ;3
I'm SOOO Looking forward to that!

[Mathius]

I am too! These are some of those games that I tend to just boot up and admire the intro. In the near future that will all change and I'll finally be able to play Falcom's "sister" series to the Ys franchise. Thank you all so so much!

[blueraven]

CAW for Lykos! 

Two months late but thanks for the bigup.

[Keith Courage]

In anticipation I have made myself a custom 2 disc case for Xanadu II. This way my real copies of both 1 and 2 will have a 2nd CD spot for a translated CD-R once this amazing project is finished

[Mathius]

In anticipation I have made myself a custom 2 disc case for Xanadu II. This way my real copies of both 1 and 2 will have a 2nd CD spot for a translated CD-R once this amazing project is finished

Rockin. Did you use an old PCE case or a new blank? I have had trouble sourcing thick, high-quality blank cases lately.

[esteban]

In anticipation I have made myself a custom 2 disc case for Xanadu II. This way my real copies of both 1 and 2 will have a 2nd CD spot for a translated CD-R once this amazing project is finished

Rockin. Did you use an old PCE case or a new blank? I have had trouble sourcing thick, high-quality blank cases lately.

Mathius, I believe that is actually a QUAD-CASE (salt-n-pepper variant).

It holds up to 4 standard discs.

Or 13 mini-discs.

[seieienbu]

In anticipation I have made myself a custom 2 disc case for Xanadu II. This way my real copies of both 1 and 2 will have a 2nd CD spot for a translated CD-R once this amazing project is finished

I'd actually thought about this particular conundrum.  The First game has the space but the second game hates me and everything I stand for and is only a single disk game! 

I think I like your solution so much that I'll likely do the same myself.

[Keith Courage]

Rockin. Did you use an old PCE case or a new blank? I have had trouble sourcing thick, high-quality blank cases lately.

I found a bunch of completely empty double CD cases at my local goodwill a few years back. All in fantastic shape.

[LentFilms]

I don't have a custom case but I still have my copy of The Legend of Xanadu II that I purchased when I was recording voices for the old dub back in 2011. Maybe I should complete my set and get a copy of Xanadu I before the translation comes out.

[elmer]

I know I'll be very happy when it's over because I'll get to play it ;3
I'm SOOO Looking forward to that!

I am too! These are some of those games that I tend to just boot up and admire the intro. In the near future that will all change and I'll finally be able to play Falcom's "sister" series to the Ys franchise.

Thanks, everyone's support and interest really helps! 

We're really looking forward to these being released, and getting people's feedback about the differences between the two games.

Everyone always loves the beauty of LoX2, and has difficulty battling through LoX1 with just a walkthrough and no idea of what's going on.

I'm curious if LoX1 will get more love when people can actually experience the full story, and the incredible detail that Yoshio Kiya and his team put in there.

I actually find it fun to go around the towns speaking to the NPC characters.

Falcom seemed to have generally put a lot more effort into making the towns interesting in both LoX games, compared to what Hudson did in their ports of the Ys games.

In anticipation I have made myself a custom 2 disc case for Xanadu II. This way my real copies of both 1 and 2 will have a 2nd CD spot for a translated CD-R once this amazing project is finished
...
I found a bunch of completely empty double CD cases at my local goodwill a few years back. All in fantastic shape.

That's really neat! 

I know that I threw away a bunch of spare dual-cases, years ago. I feel like an idiot, now!


Looks like you can still buy the old dual-cases on eBay. You just have to search for "chubby cd case"

There seem to be 21mm thick cases that hold 2 CDs, and 24mm thick cases that hold 4 CDs.


I hope that we're going to be able to do both translated manuals and case-liners like esteban made for Zeroigar.

I know that we'd like to provide a ton of supplemental materials, like level maps and, of course, a copy of that LoX1 map of the 32-levels in the tower.

I wouldn't have had the patience to finish LoX1 if it hadn't been for that map that Falcom provided.

I scanned it, and printed it massively-enlarged, so that I could trace where I'd been, and mark down where all of the connecting doors and passages were.

I don't have a custom case but I still have my copy of The Legend of Xanadu II that I purchased when I was recording voices for the old dub back in 2011. Maybe I should complete my set and get a copy of Xanadu I before the translation comes out.

You'll want LoX1, for the map, if for nothing else!

I suspect that it wouldn't be hard to make enough printable materials to have the translations justify being put in their own cases! 

[seieienbu]

Everyone always loves the beauty of LoX2, and has difficulty battling through LoX1 with just a walkthrough and no idea of what's going on.

I'm curious if LoX1 will get more love when people can actually experience the full story, and the incredible detail that Yoshio Kiya and his team put in there.

A funny thing to me about the first game is that it is so cheap!  It's criminally undervalued; if you have any interest in picking up a physical copy I'd say buy it immediately.  You can buy it off of ebay for less than $15 shipped. 

Unlike most games I can think of for the system, the first Xanadu has gone down in price over time.  I assume what's off putting to people is, of course, the language barrier.  I actually expect it to go up in price after your translation finishes.

I know that we'd like to provide a ton of supplemental materials, like level maps and, of course, a copy of that LoX1 map of the 32-levels in the tower.

I wouldn't have had the patience to finish LoX1 if it hadn't been for that map that Falcom provided.

I scanned it, and printed it massively-enlarged, so that I could trace where I'd been, and mark down where all of the connecting doors and passages were.

Lol, I take it that's what's in the manual pages that are folded backward so you have to open them yourself.  It's been like 20 years and I never did open that.  Every time I look at the book I've been a little bit curious but I've never wanted to actually cut the pages apart.

[LentFilms]

A funny thing to me about the first game is that it is so cheap!  It's criminally undervalued; if you have any interest in picking up a physical copy I'd say buy it immediately.  You can buy it off of ebay for less than $15 shipped. 

Unlike most games I can think of for the system, the first Xanadu has gone down in price over time.  I assume what's off putting to people is, of course, the language barrier.  I actually expect it to go up in price after your translation finishes.

I was thinking the same thing so I purchased a copy the other day for $13. Now I'll be fully prepared for the release of the translation patches

[elmer]

Lol, I take it that's what's in the manual pages that are folded backward so you have to open them yourself.  It's been like 20 years and I never did open that.  Every time I look at the book I've been a little bit curious but I've never wanted to actually cut the pages apart.

Yep, just unfold it carefully ... then get out a very large magnifying glass!

The detail in there is great, and it's a real help.

I just can't imagine people seeing all of the tower, or getting all of the items in it, without using a map. You'd have to have an incredible memory!

Did you actually manage to finish the game without it?