Can someone recommend some good Text to Speech software please?

[TomTrepreneur]

I'm looking for some text to speech software, so that I can create my own short audiobooks of pieces extracted from the stuff I read.

A while back I was using a free iphone app called Natural Reader, the only problem is that it takes way too long to convert as it needs an internet connection (which goes off every few minutes) and you must reload it. There is a Natural Reader available for purchase for the laptop, but the only drawback is that it only comes with a tiny selection of the voices available on the free iphone app.

Does anyone know of any other software like this that is desktop/laptop based and has a good selection of voices? If I don't come across a better one I'm going to buy Natural Reader, but I said I'd check first. I did look and I came across some others, but they too were very limited in the number of voices and the quality was very much the same.

Maybe there's something I missed.

Thanks

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[rblitz]

Edit: sorry didn't read your post carefully enough.

 

[HappyFighter]

I dunno but if I would be listening to an audio book I like it to be spoken by a real person. Why? Because a real person has a personality. You can sense how he or she is feels while reading the book.

Even though a good text-to-speech program sounds like a real-human it's still not a real human that I can relate to.

 

[IAmTheJeff]

I think Fiverr has some good VoiceOver people that could potentially get you much better results and add that extra needed personality to give your audiobook a better feel.

I know "free" seems to be a good option on a budget, but I think it's worth it to spend the money for a better end product overall.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[TomTrepreneur]

I dunno but if I would be listening to an audio book I like it to be spoken by a real person. Why? Because a real person has a personality. You can sense how he or she is feels while reading the book.

Even though a good text-to-speech program sounds like a real-human it's still not a real human that I can relate to.

I know what you mean, but it's not a means to avoid reading books, it's just to put small little key sentences in so that I can have them repeat as I'm walking. I listen to normal audiobooks a lot, but it would be handy to keep focused on one particular thing at a time. I have a lot of books available in both formats, (just wish every book was available in both formats) maybe someday!

Since there are important things I'd like to remember all I need are the words to be drilled into my head. Not too bothered about the emotion as I already understand it from the book. I know that contradicts my question, but I was just checking to see if there was something better.

 

[TomTrepreneur]

I think Fiverr has some good VoiceOver people that could potentially get you much better results and add that extra needed personality to give your audiobook a better feel.

I know "free" seems to be a good option on a budget, but I think it's worth it to spend the money for a better end product overall.

Sorry Jeff I missed your post earlier, yeah sounds good, I'll have a look. I just checked out the iphone app for Natural Reader and it's updated, 9.99 for two offline voices I think. I'll get that for now and see how I feel about it. It's been ages since I used tts, but it did help me somewhat a few months ago with college stuff. I would be changing the stuff very often so something on the go is what I'm looking for at the moment.

But as for Fiverr, would this be a good way to get whole books done of just a few pages. I know of course the amount of time required couldn't possibly cost only 5 dollars, but I doubt it would be legal, would it?

 

[TomTrepreneur]

Nah I don't think I'll be sticking to this anyway, I forgot how awful it sounded. It's terrible, voice goes all over the place and the amount of time it takes to edit the files isn't worth it.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[DaRK9]

I would just try recording it yourself if its just for you. I recommend Audacity.

 

[IAmTheJeff]

Yeah, I thought you meant for releasing an audiobook of something you wrote lol

On fiverr they give a specific number of words or pages that they'll do for $5. A lot of them have up sells that allow you to get more of their services for more money. Just check some out, and see if that would work. Otherwise I would go with the suggestion from DIrishKelley.

 

[TomTrepreneur]

Ok thanks guys, I had thought before about recording it myself, just hated the thought of going round listening to my own voice ha... I'll defo get one of them from Fiverrr too, certainly worth checking out anyway.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.