Creating your own voices for voiceover on Mac or iOS

By Tim Ruckhaber, 19 April, 2017

Forum
App Development and Programming

Hello. A family member had this idea that had been stuck in my mind for over three years and it would be neat to know if there's any way on how I can use someones real recorded voice such as friends with permission usage first on the voice over app and have that particular voice read/write words, emails etc. In other words, Whatever information I read or write, that particular recorded voice would say what I type on a computer or other devices. Even though the voices I use so far on mac and iOs are amazing, it would still be neat to have the option to put additional recorded voices and have those particular voice read/write what I've written. Any ideas on how this can be developed? Thanks.

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Comments

By Joseph on Sunday, April 23, 2017 - 02:20

I don't think this is possible. yOu'd have to have software to make the samples of the person's voice usable as a TTS voice in some way, and that would not be cheep to either develop or purchace if it existed for mac/iOS. Plus, it would take a hell of a long time just to make a voice, not including the time you'd need to make it sound more natural. Call it a few months a least, I'd say.

By Simon on Friday, June 23, 2017 - 02:20

https://www.modeltalker.org lets you create a TTS voice - mostly for voice banking purposes. Doing so is free and you get your own voice for free at the end of the process. They're working on an iOS recording app and there is a web based creation solution, though I've only used the Windows software myself (not really sure it's all that accessible currently)

The voices are pretty good and definitely different, though it's quite an onerous process (at least if you have a British or non-US accent). I'm about half way through banking my voice - the process involves reading a number of phrases (they are also played back first as sound) which are checked on the fly for level and recognition accuracy.

The model talker speech engine requires app developers to support it - there's some free desktop software using it but not many mobile apps and it's not usable by VoiceOver currently. For standalone text reader apps etc it might suit your needs...