Editing Cyberman (section)

=== Voice ===
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Early Cybermen had an unsettling, sing-song voice, provided by [[Roy Skelton]], constructed by placing the [[inflection]]s of words on the wrong [[syllable]]s. In their first appearance, the effect of this was augmented by having a Cyberman abruptly open his mouth wide and keep it open, without moving his tongue or lips, while the separately recorded voice would be playing, and then shut it quickly when the line was finished. Although the cloth-like masks of the first Cybermen were soon replaced by a full helmet, a similar physical effect involving the mouth "hatch" opening and then shutting when the line was finished was used until ''[[The Wheel in Space]]'' (1968).

Later, the production team used [[special effect]]s from its [[BBC Radiophonic Workshop|Radiophonic Workshop]] by adding first a [[mechanical larynx]] used by [[Peter Hawkins]],<ref>{{cite web |url=https://pocketmags.com/doctor-who-magazine/516/articles/198343/original-voices-peter-hawkins |access-date=28 March 2024 |title=Original Voices: Peter Hawkins }}</ref> then a [[vocoder]], to modify speech to make it sound more artificial. In later stories of the original series and in the audio plays, two copies of the voice track were sampled and pitch-shifted downwards by differing amounts and layered to produce the effect, sometimes with the addition of a small amount of [[flanging]]. From ''Revenge of the Cybermen'' to ''[[Silver Nemesis]]'' (1988) the actors provided the voices themselves, using microphones and transmitters in the chest units.

The voices for the 2006 return of the Cybermen are similar to the buzzing electronic monotone voices of the Cybermen used in ''The Invasion''. They were provided by [[Nicholas Briggs]]. As shown in the second series of ''[[Doctor Who Confidential]]'', the timbre was created by processing Briggs' voice through a Moog [[moogerfooger]] ring modulator. Unusually, in "The Age of Steel", the Cyber-Controller (John Lumic, played by [[Roger Lloyd-Pack]]) retains his voice after being upgraded, but it is still electronic. In "Doomsday", a Cyberman which contains the brain of [[Torchwood Institute]] director Yvonne Hartman retains a female-sounding though still electronic voice, as does the partially converted [[List of Torchwood minor characters#Lisa Hallett|Lisa Hallett]] in "Cyberwoman" when her Cyberman personality is dominant. In an effect reminiscent of the earliest Cybermen's mouths snapping open while speaking, the new Cybermen have a blue light in their "mouths" (or "teeth") which illuminates in synchronisation with their speech.

Since "The Next Doctor" in 2008, the Cybermen have had nasally-sounding electronic voices; this continued all the way until "Closing Time" in 2011. Between the 2013 episode "Nightmare in Silver" and 2017 episode "The Doctor Falls", the Cybermen (continuing to be voiced by Briggs) now have deep, almost growl-like voices. Their mouths retain a blue light-up effect but flicker luminously instead of staying lit as opposed to the 2006 design.

The Patients in "World Enough and Time" (Pre Mondasian Cybermen) communicated through speech synthesis keyboards, similar to those used in hospitals for people unable to talk normally or use their vocal cords. These voices were disturbing in that they almost 'replicated' actual human speech, but with stilted delivery