Day #388: My Digital Voice
I have something amazing to show you today.
Before I do, I want to say a huge thank you to everyone who donated to our fundraising campaign. Last week, it hit its target. This is down to the heartwarming generosity of hundreds of people - many of whom know us well - but many we’ve never even met before. Thank you so much to everyone who donated.
Right, on to the amazing stuff.
One of the things that Motor Neurone Disease robs from people is the ability to talk. I was initially quite cheery about the fact that only 80% of people with MND experience problems with their voice.
After all, 20% is damn-good odds for anything involved with this disease.
Then, after asking around a bit, I realised it wasn't quite what I'd assumed.
Let’s just say that most of the remaining 20% have little need for such facility, being too busy sitting on clouds and plucking harps all day.
But there is one thing I can do to preserve my dulcet tones - I can clone them.
Cloning creates a digital replica of your voice which can then be used to communicate with people. You type some text into a computer (using just your eyes if necessary) and it then spits out the speech.
It's similar to Stephen Hawking’s iconic synthesised voice but these are designed to actually sound more like you.
There are several great companies out there who offer voice cloning services. Being the obsessive-perfectionist type, I of course signed up to all of them.
It turns out not all voice clones are created equal.
Firstly, My Real Voice
To help you judge how good these things are, you're gonna have to know what I sound like in real life.
To help train the voice cloning services, I made some recordings of my son's favourite bedtime stories. Can you guess which story this sample comes from? :-)
And now - on to the digitally cloned replicas of my voice...
iPhone Personal Voice (iOS)
URL: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/104993
Cost: Free with iOS 17 or later
The latest version of Apple’s operating system includes something called Personal Voice, which can be set-up and unused on iPhones, iPads and (I presume) MacBooks. It’s free, with no extra hardware or apps to download (well, “free” once you’ve remortgaged your house to buy an iPhone).
You record 50 short sentences into your phone and - voila - it can then turn any text you write back into your voice. It's a pretty good clone too!
SpeakUnique (I Will Always Be Me)
URL: https://www.speakunique.co.uk/ or https://www.iwillalwaysbeme.com/
Cost: Free (funded by the MND Association)
This is a popular cloning service for people with MND, as it's easy to setup. Both these websites use the same underlying software to generate your voice clone.
If you have MND and are considering voice banking, I wouldn't recommend using "I Will Always Be Me" as the story it uses to capture your voice is heart-wrenching to read out loud!
The team at SpeakUnique recently upgraded thieir voice creation software, and the end result now is quite impressive:
Acapela
URL: https://mov.acapela-group.com/
Cost: $99 USD a year (potentially funded by the MND Association if you opt for this one)
Acapela is a bit less user friendly to setup, but I thought the likeness and un-robotness of the voice was better:
ElevenLabs
URL: https://elevenlabs.io/app/voice-lab
Cost: $22 USD per month (professional version)
This is an American company using AI to create something... quite amazing. Just take a listen:
Though likeness isn't the only factor that's important when choosing a voice cloning service (others include portability, availability off-line, integration with text formation software etc.), I am really encouraged by how good these clones are getting.
What do you reckon? Do you know of any others getting good results?
And what exactly is the soup of the day today, anyway?