Rick and Morty Voice Changer: Get the Mad Scientist Sound
A Rick and Morty voice changer is one of the most requested character voice setups among Discord users, streamers, and roleplay communities — and for good reason. Rick Sanchez’s slurred, burp-interrupted scientist drawl is immediately recognizable, and getting even a rough approximation live in Discord or a game lobby generates instant reactions. This guide covers the audio science behind both voices, what changed when Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden took over in Season 7, and exactly how to configure real-time voice software to nail the effect.
TL;DR
- Rick’s voice needs: -2 semitones pitch, slight formant drop, mild reverb, drunk-slur processing.
- Morty’s voice needs: +2 to +3 semitones, nasal boost at 2–4 kHz, light tremolo for nervous energy.
- Justin Roiland voiced both through Season 6; Ian Cardoni (Rick) and Harry Belden (Morty) took over in Season 7 (2023) and continue in 2026.
- The burp-speech effect is a performance technique — practice inserting voiced grunts mid-word; software can only approximate it.
- A real-time voice changer beats Audacity for Discord and gaming because it outputs to a virtual microphone your apps can select live.
- VoxBooster works without a kernel driver — safe for anti-cheat games like Valorant and Fortnite.
What Makes Rick Sanchez’s Voice Distinctive
Rick’s voice is not just “low and gravelly.” There are several specific acoustic features that make it recognizable:
Pitch and register: Rick sits in a low-baritone range with a slightly nasal quality when he gets excited or condescending. His resting pitch is lower than most male voices in animated TV, but he frequently jumps into a higher, more manic register mid-rant.
The drunk-slur cadence: Almost every long sentence has at least one slurred vowel transition — syllables that run together or drop consonants. This is a conscious performance choice that implies both Rick’s perpetual intoxication and his general contempt for precise communication.
Burp-speech: Rick’s most iconic vocal tic. Mid-sentence, mid-word, he inserts a voiced, throaty grunt — somewhere between a suppressed belch and a low-frequency vocal fry. It happens on stressed syllables, typically on the first consonant-vowel transition of a multi-syllable word. “Morty, I brrp need you to go inside the brrp — portal gun is burrrrp — forget it.”
Stutter pattern: Rick also stutters at the start of sentences — “M-m-morty I need you to” — which conveys urgency and scattered thought simultaneously.
Lab echo: In the show, Rick is usually in a garage lab or spaceship interior, and there is a slight ambient reverb on his voice. This is subtle but contributes to the “scientist in an echoing space” quality.
What Changed in Season 7: Ian Cardoni and Harry Belden
Justin Roiland co-created Rick and Morty and voiced both title characters from the pilot in 2013 through Season 6. Following his departure from Adult Swim in early 2023, Adult Swim announced that Ian Cardoni would take over as Rick and Harry Belden would voice Morty starting with Season 7.
If you want to nail the current (2024–2026) version of these voices, here is what changed:
Ian Cardoni’s Rick vs. Justin Roiland’s Rick
| Feature | Roiland Era (S1–S6) | Cardoni Era (S7+) |
|---|---|---|
| Overall pitch | Lower baritone, gravelly | Slightly brighter, less raspy |
| Burp frequency | Very frequent, exaggerated | Present but slightly more restrained |
| Slur intensity | Heavy, almost constant | More controlled, cleaner diction |
| Manic peaks | Wild, unpredictable | More measured when elevated |
| Vocal texture | More breathiness/grit | Cleaner tone, slightly less nasal |
For voice changer purposes, Cardoni’s Rick is slightly easier to approximate because it has less extreme vocal fry and breathiness. Roiland’s version requires more distortion and low-frequency roughness.
Harry Belden’s Morty vs. Justin Roiland’s Morty
| Feature | Roiland Era (S1–S6) | Belden Era (S7+) |
|---|---|---|
| Pitch | Mid-range teen male | Slightly higher, more consistent |
| Stutter/anxiety | Frequent, overlapping | More deliberate, timed nervousness |
| Whine quality | Prominent nasal whine | More rounded, less exaggerated |
| Emotional range | Rapid swings | Similar range, more controlled |
Belden’s Morty is marginally easier to hit with pitch-shift tools because there is less erratic pitch modulation.
The Burp-Speech Technique: What You Can and Cannot Do with Software
This is the first thing everyone asks: “Can a voice changer do the Rick burp automatically?”
The honest answer is no — not convincingly. The burp-speech tic is a performance element, not a fixed audio effect you can layer on. It requires:
- Deciding which syllable gets the burp (context-dependent)
- Physically producing the low-frequency grunt at the right moment
- Blending it with the surrounding speech (Roiland’s version is particularly seamless — the burp is voiced, meaning it carries through the syllable)
What software can do:
- Low-frequency saturation/distortion: Adding controlled low-end distortion or tube-saturation gives your voice a rougher texture that sounds more like it could burp at any moment.
- Vocal fry processing: Some voice changers let you blend in artificial vocal fry, which creates a raspy, gravelly baseline similar to Rick’s resting tone.
- Transient gate effect: A brief reverb tail triggered by loud transients can approximate the “resonant chest” quality of a suppressed belch, though this is subtle.
The realistic approach is to practice the vocal performance while using the voice changer to handle the pitch, formant, and texture components. The burp itself is better done manually.
Setting Up a Rick Voice Changer in Real Time
This section covers real-time configuration using VoxBooster or equivalent tools. For Discord, gaming, or streaming, you need a voice changer that registers as a virtual microphone — not just an audio file editor.
The signal chain is:
Physical mic → Voice changer software → Virtual microphone output → Discord / game / streaming software
Step 1: Install and Route Your Virtual Microphone
In VoxBooster or any real-time voice changer, open the app and verify it creates a virtual input device visible in Windows Sound settings. In Discord, go to User Settings → Voice & Video → Input Device and select the VoxBooster virtual mic (or whichever software you use). In games, do the same in the in-game voice settings.
Step 2: Dial In Rick’s Core Pitch
Start with pitch shift set to -2 semitones. This brings most male voices slightly lower without creating obvious artifacts. If your natural voice is already in the baritone range, try -1 semitone instead — Rick is not excessively deep, just gruff.
Avoid going lower than -3 to -4 semitones without also adjusting formants, or the voice will sound more like Darth Vader than a drunk scientist.
Step 3: Formant Adjustment
If your voice changer supports independent formant shifting, drop the formant control by 1 to 2 points (on most tools: a small negative value on a -10 to +10 scale). This thickens the vocal character without just making everything lower.
Do not drop formants too much — Rick does not have the extremely deep vocal resonance of, say, a generic villain voice. The formant drop should be subtle, just enough to suggest a larger chest cavity.
Step 4: Add Texture and Grit
Options depending on your tool:
- Tube saturation / warmth: Set drive to 15–25%. This roughens the high-frequency edges of consonants and simulates the breathiness of a voice that has been yelling while drunk.
- Light distortion: Very low settings (5–10% wet) of an overdrive-style effect can simulate vocal fry without sounding robotic.
- Low-shelf EQ boost: +2 to +3 dB at 80–120 Hz adds chest weight. Combine with a gentle cut at 3–5 kHz to reduce the “bright” quality that contradicts the grizzled character.
Step 5: The Lab Echo
Rick is almost always in an echoing environment. Add a short room reverb:
- Pre-delay: 15–25ms
- Decay: 0.4–0.6 seconds
- Wet/dry: 10–15%
Longer reverb makes it sound like a spaceship interior. Shorter sounds like the garage lab. Either works — just keep wet level low enough that speech stays intelligible.
Step 6: Reference Check
Play a few seconds of Rick’s voice from a YouTube clip and switch between that and your processed voice. The comparison is more useful than any number setting. Listen specifically for:
- Pitch (is yours too high or too low?)
- The low roughness texture (is it gritty but not metallic?)
- The reverb tail (is it subtle or obvious?)
- Intelligibility (can someone who does not know you understand every word?)
Setting Up a Morty Voice Changer
Morty requires a different approach. His voice is higher, more anxious, and more nasal than Rick’s.
Pitch and Formants for Morty
Set pitch to +2 to +3 semitones. Morty is not extremely high-pitched — he sounds like a teenage boy whose voice is not quite settled, not a child or chipmunk. The shift should be subtle.
Formants: raise slightly +1 point from neutral to reinforce the youthful, smaller vocal tract quality.
Nasal Boost
Morty’s voice has a pronounced nasal quality, especially when he whines or protests. In your EQ:
- Boost 2–4 kHz by +3 to +4 dB (nasal presence range)
- Slight cut at 200–400 Hz (reduces chest weight that conflicts with his lighter sound)
- Keep a gentle boost around 500 Hz for the mid-range warmth that makes his voice sound “kid-adjacent” rather than metallic
Tremolo / Wobble for Anxiety
Morty frequently speaks with a slight pitch wobble — the acoustic marker of anxiety and near-tears. If your voice changer has a vibrato or tremolo effect:
- Rate: slow (2–4 Hz)
- Depth: shallow (just enough to hear)
- This makes your voice sound emotionally unstable in the right way
Alternatively, practice a slight natural tremor in your delivery. The software tremolo is a crutch; the performance approach sounds more natural.
Morty’s Stutter
Like Rick, Morty stutters — but his stutter is at the start of sentences and reflects overwhelm, not impatience. “I-I-I don’t think this is a good idea, Rick.” Practice the consonant repetition manually rather than relying on any software glitch effect.
Comparison: Rick and Morty Voice Changer Tools in 2026
| Tool | Real-Time | Virtual Mic | Formant Control | Kernel Driver | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VoxBooster | Yes | Yes (WASAPI) | Yes | No | Free trial, paid |
| Voicemod | Yes | Yes | Limited | Yes (on some installs) | Free tier + paid |
| MorphVOX Pro | Yes | Yes | Basic | No | Paid |
| Clownfish Voice Changer | Yes | Yes | No | No | Free |
| Voice.ai | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Free tier + paid |
| RVC WebUI (manual) | No (post only) | No | Yes (excellent) | No | Free, self-hosted |
Notes:
- Kernel driver installs (used by some Voicemod versions) can conflict with anti-cheat software in competitive games.
- RVC WebUI produces the most accurate voice conversion but requires running a local Python server and cannot process live mic input.
- VoxBooster’s advantage for this use case is the combination of formant control, no kernel driver, and the ability to save character presets — so you can switch between a Rick preset and a Morty preset mid-session.
For a broader look at options, see our cartoon voice changer comparison which covers several animated character voice setups. If you specifically want to use these voices in Discord, our voice changer Discord setup guide covers the routing step-by-step.
Rick Voice Changer for Discord Meme RP
The Rick and Morty fandom has a strong Discord RP community, ranging from casual servers that do character voices occasionally to dedicated RP servers where staying in character is expected. Here is how to make your setup work specifically for Discord:
Noise Gate First
Discord’s own noise suppression is aggressive and can mangle voice effects. Recommendations:
- Turn off Discord’s noise suppression when using a voice changer (Settings → Voice & Video → Noise Suppression → None)
- Use the noise gate in your voice changer software instead
- Run a clean mic signal into the voice changer, not a pre-processed one
Push-to-Talk vs. Voice Activity
For character voices with processing, push-to-talk is generally cleaner. It prevents the processed voice from leaking whenever you make a sound, which can be disorienting in a group voice chat.
If you prefer voice activity, set the detection threshold slightly higher than your ambient room noise so that incidental sounds do not trigger the mic while in character.
Preset Switching for Multi-Character Sessions
If your server does full Rick and Morty RP, you will likely want to switch between voices. Most real-time voice changers let you save named presets:
- Rick preset: -2 semitones, formant -1, reverb 12%, low-saturation texture
- Morty preset: +2 semitones, formant +1, nasal EQ, tremolo light
- Neutral preset: No processing, for OOC (out-of-character) chat
Binding preset switches to hotkeys (if your software supports it) means you can change characters without anyone hearing you fiddle with settings. VoxBooster supports hotkey-triggered preset switching.
The Rick Rant: Practice Script
Try this for live Discord use:
“Morty, I-I need you to listen — brrp — I know, I know it sounds insane, but you’ve got to squeeze yourself into that tube, Morty. The — brrrp — I’m not gonna lie, there are some mild reality-dissolving side effects, but nothing you can’t walk off.”
Note the: sentence-start stutter, mid-word burp placement, the trailing volume drop on “walk off” (Rick frequently trails off when dismissing danger). Practice these separately before combining them with the voice changer.
Using Rick-Style Voices for Content Creation
Beyond Discord RP, Rick and Morty voice effects have genuine content creation use cases:
YouTube commentary: A processed mad-scientist voice over gameplay commentary or reaction videos. Even a rough approximation signals the reference immediately.
Podcast character segments: Some tech and science podcasts do satirical segments with a “drunk genius explains the universe” framing. A Rick-esque voice adds production value without requiring a professional voice actor.
Meme clips and TikTok: Short-form clips with the Rick voice filter are consistently popular in fan communities. The bar for accuracy is lower here — a recognizable approximation is enough.
Streaming persona: Some streamers build around cartoon character personas for sustained content. For an overview of how voice personas work in streaming contexts, see our voice changer roleplay guide which covers maintaining character consistency over long sessions.
For celebrity and character voice references generally, the Morgan Freeman voice changer guide and hacker voice changer guide cover the same technical approach — pitch, formant, EQ, texture — applied to very different source characters.
Technical: Why AI Voice Conversion Beats Pitch Shifting for Character Voices
Pitch shifting alone (the approach tools like Clownfish and the basic Voicemod free tier use) has a fundamental ceiling. When you lower pitch by -2 semitones, you move the fundamental frequency down but the formants — the resonant peaks that encode “who this voice sounds like” — stay in roughly the original positions. At small shifts this is fine; at larger shifts you hear the mismatch as an unnatural, “shifted recording” quality.
AI voice conversion goes further: it models the timbre, formant envelope, and spectral shape of a target voice and maps your input onto that shape in real time. The result is a voice that sounds like the target speaker, not like you with your pitch lowered.
For Rick and Morty specifically, this means:
- The burp-speech texture comes from the model, not from manually adding distortion
- The formant signature of Rick’s vocal tract is preserved even as your pitch and cadence vary
- The result is more convincing at normal conversation pace, not just when you are consciously performing
The limitation is that AI voice conversion requires more CPU and a small amount of latency (typically 20–60ms depending on model and hardware). For Discord voice chat, 40ms is barely perceptible. For live streaming, it is not a problem. For competitive gaming where sub-10ms voice latency matters, stick with the pitch-shift preset approach.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best Rick and Morty voice changer for Discord?
A real-time voice changer with pitch shift, formant control, and a drunk-slur effect is your best bet for Discord. VoxBooster registers as a standard virtual microphone so you can select it directly in Discord’s input settings — no extra routing required. Set pitch to -2 semitones, lower formants slightly, and add mild reverb for the lab-echo effect.
Who voices Rick Sanchez in 2024 and 2026?
Justin Roiland voiced Rick Sanchez from 2013 through Season 6. Starting with Season 7 (2023), Ian Cardoni took over as Rick. Harry Belden replaced Roiland as Morty at the same time. Both voice actors continue in their roles through 2026.
How do I do the Rick burp-speech effect?
Rick’s signature mid-sentence burp is a voiced, low-frequency grunt inserted between syllables — typically on the first stressed vowel of a long word. Record yourself practicing “Wuuburp-bububu-burt” style stutters. In real-time software, a short transient reverb on a low-frequency gate can approximate the effect, though manual performance is always more convincing.
Can I use a Rick voice changer without a kernel driver?
Yes. VoxBooster uses WASAPI (Windows Audio Session API) and presents a standard virtual microphone without installing any kernel-level audio driver. This means it works in anti-cheat-protected games and does not require administrator access for driver installation.
Does a Rick voice changer work in games like Fortnite or Valorant?
It depends on the tool. Kernel-driver voice changers (some competitors use these) can conflict with anti-cheat software like EasyAntiCheat or Vanguard. VoxBooster avoids this because it operates at the user-space WASAPI level, not the kernel level. The virtual mic shows up as a normal microphone and passes anti-cheat checks.
What settings give the best Morty voice changer result?
Morty’s voice is higher than average male pitch with a nasal, anxious quality. Try +2 to +3 semitones pitch shift, a slight formant raise (+1 to +2 on a 0–10 scale), and add a touch of tremolo or wobble for his characteristic nervous stutter. Boost 2–4 kHz in EQ to reinforce the nasal edge.
Is there a free Rick and Morty voice changer?
Several free options exist (Voicemod free tier, Clownfish Voice Changer, Voice.ai free plan), though they vary widely in real-time quality and available effects. VoxBooster offers a free 3-day trial with full features including AI voice effects, which is enough time to dial in a convincing Rick or Morty preset.
Conclusion
Getting a convincing Rick and Morty voice changer setup is a mix of audio science and performance practice. The software handles pitch, formant, texture, and reverb — but the burp-speech, the stutter cadence, and the manic vocal shifts require some time with a practice script before they feel natural in live use. Ian Cardoni’s current version of Rick is slightly more approachable for voice matching than Roiland’s original, and Harry Belden’s Morty follows a similar pattern.
The technical baseline: -2 semitones and light reverb for Rick, +2 semitones and nasal EQ for Morty, no kernel driver required for either. For Discord specifically, turn off Discord’s noise suppression and use push-to-talk to keep the processed signal clean.
If you want to test this live before committing to any paid software, VoxBooster has a free 3-day trial that covers the full feature set — AI voice effects, preset switching, hotkey bindings, and the virtual mic integration that makes Discord routing a one-setting change. The Rick and Morty presets are worth building before your next server session.
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