Text to speech has a long history, with champions and critics along the way. With a massive technology breakthrough in 2018, the voice over game has changed. The TTS of today, such as the lifelike voices created by WellSaid Labs, is miles away from what you may have heard before 2018. Synthetic voice is quickly becoming a competitive option for eLearning voice narration.
When you’ve got an eye-dazzling video and a perfectly wordsmithed script, you need only the best for your voice narration, too. We’ve compiled some of the voice industry’s best tips for creating the best possible voice over. From script prep to post-production, these eight hacks get you the results. Ready?
If you’ve used one of the newer text to speech services, you’ve witnessed the huge improvements this industry has seen in the past decade. The voices we have today are much more lifelike than those most people associate with “text to speech.” When you’re working with TTS, you can produce even better quality files when you follow these few simple steps.
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.
One of the biggest fears that eLearning content developers share is the disengaged learner. Modern instructional design models, authoring tools, and storytelling best practices aim to address this concern. At the end of the day, the goal is to help others understand and apply new concepts. Given the advancement of digital experiences, accomplishing that today through a digital medium is a tall order. In the enterprise, this phenomenon was very real. Coined the “Consumerization of IT,” this was the moment when big companies realized user expectation was higher given the services and experiences they enjoyed on similar devices, but in different contexts. eLearning is facing this same reality today.
Voice over production is an arduous, multi-step process. Before you get to the final cut, you have to generate the script, audition and hire a voice actor, and record initial takes and retakes in the studio. Each part of the process offers its own rewards and challenges that affect how long a project will take and, ultimately, influence its quality. In short, the voice over workflow impacts your schedule and your budget.