Text-to-speech is an arm of Artificial Intelligence that uses speech synthesis to convert text input into speech to create an output. All of us remember the buzz Siri created back in October 2011. The world was intrigued to witness the virtual voice assistance technology. Similarly, we are at a point where AI voice generators are headed toward revolutionizing the voiceover industry.
From creating content to enhancing user experience to customer support, an AI voice generator is a perfect tool that can help you reach diverse audiences cost-effectively and quickly while being inclusive to the disabled audience. Analyzing the text fed to the system and converting it into phonetically accurate speech using speech synthesis is exactly what text-to-speech technology is. Text-to-speech technology is also known as read-aloud technology.
What is Text-To-Speech?
Text-to-speech is an assistive technology that reads digital text aloud using artificial intelligence. This technology is AI-driven, and with the help of speech synthesis, deep learning, and algorithms, tts software can now generate human-like voices that are phonetically accurate down to a point where accents and dialects can also be imitated. One of the main components of a text-to-speech generator is speech synthesis which uses a technique of interconnecting (technically known as concatenating) pieces of pre-recorded speech in the database to generate a voice that represents the text fed in the editor. Creating an AI voiceover is no rocket science for users now.
Tools like Listen2it have made AI voice generation available at the click of a button. All you need to do to create an AI voiceover with Listen2It is,
- In the editor, enter the text that you want to convert to speech
- Choose the language and voices for the range of voices available with Listen2It
- Edit the voiceover by adding pauses, adjusting the pitch, and more
- Preview the voiceover and download it
Text-to-speech is a versatile tool used by businesses, freelancers, adults, and even kids. The use of tts on digital devices like computers, tablets, and smartphones through apps and several websites makes the technology extremely compatible. While one aspect of text-to-speech is creating voiceovers or listening to your text aloud. The other facets of tts can be creating other forms of content like audio articles and podcasts using text-to-speech.
A Brief History of Text-To-Speech
Back in 1968, in an Electrotechnical Laboratory in Japan, Norika Umeda invented English text-to-speech. But before the invention of text-to-speech technology in the 1950s the first speech synthesis system was developed, a process that generates spoken language using written input with the machine. The video game world was adapted speech synthesis in the 1980s; Milton, an electronic game, was the first game to have a human voice using speech synthesis.
The robotic nature of the voiceover from a text-to-speech generator was now starting to be replaced by more sophisticated human-like voices in the 90s. With Ann Syrdal at AT&T, Bell Laboratories developed a female speech synthesizer voice close to natural. At the end of the 90s decade, Microsoft launched Narrator, a screen reader solution that is now included in every copy of Microsoft Windows.
Fast forward to the 2010s with much more research figuring out the proper pronunciation of phonemes, tones, patterns, and playback engineers and researchers developed a much more sophisticated version of text-to-speech voices that have nailed the voices down to dilates and accents. This gave birth to Siri and Alexa electronic speech synthesizers that were not just TTS but also fun and interactive AI voices that now everyone knew about. TTS has come a long way from robotic voices to human-like AI voices that are now easily accessible.
How Does Text-To-Speech Work?
Now that we have an idea of text-to-speech, let’s break down the working mechanism of text-to-speech software.
There are two major components of the text-to-speech mechanism, the front end that a user can access, and the back end, which is managed by artificial intelligence.
The Front End,
To generate audio with text-to-speech, all that is needed is to input the text into the text-to-speech converter, choose a language and convert it into audio. Additionally, APIs and plugins can automate the AI audio generation process to create audio content for websites and podcasts.
The Back End,
This is where the gears are churning, well, not literally, and artificial intelligence is doing its job. While generating text-to-speech at the backend can sound tedious, it all happened in a click. And here is how it happens,
- The text is processed by the Preprocessor that breaks the words and understands the text’s pitch and energy.
- The Encoder inputs linguistic features and transfers the embedded text to the decoder.
- The Decoder uses the latent feature and converts the embedded text into the acoustic feature.
- And lastly, the Vocoder converts it into Waveform, the speech you hear once you click generate.
Characteristics You Should Look For In A Text-To-Speech Software
As technology advances and improvements are a regular part of any technology, multiple text-to-speech tools are currently available. But it is crucial to choose the correct one that suits your needs and assists you in creating realistic AI voiceovers. Hence here are a few features a text-to-speech software should have,
1. Options of Languages and Dialects
Whether you are looking to create an everyday experience or create multilingual content or your goal is as simple as creating content in a non-mainstream language(regional language). A text-to-speech software should always have multiple voices in different languages. This will allow you to create a unique and realistic voice.
2. Audio Composer with Editing options
A composer is a great feature in your text-to-speech software as it will allow you to edit the voices further to create an ultra-realistic voiceover using an AI voice generator. Listen2It is a perfect solution to create a realistic voiceover because of these features,
- Adding Pauses
- Change the voice Style
- Adjust Pitch and Speed
- Emphasis, Pronunciation, and Say as
- Adding and editing background music
This feature is great for adding a dramatic effect and canceling the monotonous nature of a voiceover. The recommended pauses range from 0.2s to 2s; you can add custom pauses.
Choose from a range of voice styles like chatty, friendly, angry, excited, and more to alter the style of the voice.
Adjust the pitch and speed of the voice to create a graph for the voiceover.
Edit individual words by emphasizing a particular word or phrase and changing the word’s pronunciation. Additionally, with Say as a feature of Listen2It, you can choose a particular word and say it as a fraction, digit, spell out, and more.
Now with Listen2It’s editor, you can add background music and edit it by using fade in fade out to the voiceover to create a professional voiceover.
3. Saving voice profile
You can also save the voice profile and go back to it whenever required; this will help you create consistency in your voiceover and save time.
4. Automatic Backup
While editing the voiceover with Listen2It’s TTS software, all the changes get automatically saved will editing. This allows you to revisit your audio anytime, and making changes becomes easy. You can also create multiple files for different audio and save in on the Listen2It dashboard.
5. Plugins and APIs
Listen2It provides great integration options crucial in text-to-speech software, such as creating AI voices for your blogs, and the website gets easy with simple integrations like API and plugins.
Benefits Of Text-To-Speech
Like every new revolution, text-to-speech technology also comes with major benefits that are driving the success of the AI voice generator.
Leverage The Power Of Audio With Listen2It Text-To-Speech Now!
From businesses to students, text-to-speech’s revolutionary technology is a globally trusted product that assists users in any way. It can create a voiceover for social media content, explainer videos, product demos, e-learning courses, IVR, podcasts, and more. And these voiceovers, with the current technology, can be perfect to the point that they can sound like humans. Hence, with advanced speech synthesis technology, text-to-speech tools are the perfect solution for all your audio needs.
