A Basic Guide to Text-to-Speech


Today’s text-to-speech empowers content creators to bring their words to life. Where once authors hired voice actors or went without voice altogether, text to speech (TTS) allows them to narrate on their own schedules.

If you use voice narration, have thought about it, or you’re simply curious about text to speech, this guide is for you. You’ll learn the essentials of TTS, from its benefits to its potential applications. The technology behind these high-quality AI voices is remarkable, and the results are worlds apart from the TTS of even a decade ago. Even though this technology is cutting-edge, it’s also incredibly affordable. As a result, creatives take back control of their own content, empowered to create stunning, natural voice narration without microphones or studio time. 

High Quality 

Today, text to speech apps create amazingly life-like voices. These voices are a far cry from the computerized, monotonous ones that most people associate with the phrase “text to speech.” When people hear new, high-quality TTS voices for the first time, they react with amazement at how beautiful and human the voices sound. No longer robotic, these digital voices accurately recreate the acoustic properties of human speech. 

These voices sound human because they are built on real human voices. As a result, it is very hard to tell the difference between a voice built using artificial intelligence (AI) and a real human voice recording.

High-Tech 

The technology behind these impressive AI voices is cutting edge. Deep learning researchers train a dataset of voice recordings from real life voice actors to create a neural network. Then, that neural network generates audio clips from text input by users.

This improved technique creates impressively believable audio files that are immediately usable. Researchers make new discoveries in this field every day, so these already-lifelike voices will continue to improve. 

Affordable 

Remarkably, this stunning technology is budget friendly. What’s more, it’s a fraction of the cost of studio recorded narration. TTS can help companies provide voice for their presentations and videos while helping them save time and money.

This is especially true when they face last-minute script changes. Text to speech editors let you quickly enter text changes and generate new audio files. When texts are prone to frequent changes, text to speech saves businesses the added costs of studio retakes. They keep to their budgets and make their deadlines, too. 

Empowering

Best of all, text to speech gives authors complete control over their content. Authors get access to professional audio files without having to hire voice actors.

On their own terms, according to their own schedules, content creators can bring their scripts to life when they use a high-quality TTS editor. Between Amazon Polly, WaveNet, WellSaid Studio, and several other text to speech services, creatives now have access to any voice imaginable. Male, female, and androgynous voices, as well as voices in a host of languages and dialects, can be used made available through the power of text-to-speech. With such a flexible tool in their creative toolkit, authors can confidently bring voice to their projects.

Unlimited Applications 

Because quality has improved so dramatically and the technology is affordable, text to speech applications are endless. In eLearning and instructional design, course designers personalize their modules with voice to keep student engagement high and ensure employees retain the essential learnings.

Digital voices are similarly appropriate for narrating corporate presentations, corporate trainings, and other internal communications. Social marketing campaigns and other commercial applications draw attention to their products and services with strategically developed voice-overs. Any time information needs to be clearly, effectively, and memorably presented, digital voice narration comes to the rescue.

Effortless

A high-quality text to speech editor makes content creation quick and easy. Simply type or copy and paste your script into the text box, make your voice selection, and click to render. Within moments, listen as your exact words are read aloud to you, with natural pausing and human intonation.

Depending on the service, the editor may have other features as well. WellSaid Studio, for instance, provides you with a library of voices to choose from. When you download a file from Studio, it’s delivered as a readily-usable WAV file. 

Credits

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash
Music by purple-planet


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