Comments on: Text to speech to mp3?

Question: Text to speech to mp3?

zaebiz — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 17:03:39 -0800

I want to have a Word document read out by an automated voice and converted into mp3 format which I can then listen to on my mp3 player. The document could be up to a few thousand words. What is the easiest/cheapest way to achieve this? Also what is the best (most professional) way to achieve this?

By: scottreynen

scottreynen — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 17:20:05 -0800

I recently did some contract work for Feed2Podcast, which, well, does what the name suggests. Part of that is free text to MP3 conversion. To use that you'd have to put the text in a blog, run the feed through, look at the podcast for the MP3 URL, and download the MP3. I suspect there's some easier way to do text to MP3, but that's the easiest I know.

By: Merdryn

Merdryn — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 18:40:42 -0800

Text Aloud from NextUp.

By: Milkman Dan

Milkman Dan — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 18:54:15 -0800

I got this one! Convert your Word document into a PDF. Open it in Acrobat Reader. Certain version of Reader have a wickedly monotonous, built-in reading-aloud feature! Just click "Read Aloud," and let your recording software capture it.

By: Milkman Dan

Milkman Dan — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 18:57:05 -0800

Oh jeez. Just for fun, I busted open Acrobat Reader 7.0, opened my university transcript, and went View --> Read Out Loud. Good grief. Such a steady, watery voice; sounds like a principled man is giving a very disciplined lecture while gurgling. Hearing all those sexy numbers and letters makes me want to JUMP that reading voice.

By: mecran01

mecran01 — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 19:35:10 -0800

What computer system are you using? Mac users can do this from the command line.

By: zaebiz

zaebiz — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 19:36:58 -0800

mecran01: "What computer system are you using? Mac users can do this from the command line."

PC. WinXP. 2.3Ghz. 1gb RAM.

By: jozxyqk

jozxyqk — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 19:41:28 -0800

Easiest/cheapest way to do it is to buy a USB microphone, open up Windows Sound Recorder, and read the document yourself out loud (or ask someone to do it for you, kinda a reverse-transcriptionist service). It'll also sound a lot more natural than any artificial-voice solution anyway.

By: oats

oats — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 19:49:02 -0800

Cheapest: 'festival' open-source speech synthesis. I recommend the 'mbrola' voices.

Most Professional: I understand that Joe Mantegna does audio book readings.

By: RichardP

RichardP — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 20:03:29 -0800

What is the easiest/cheapest way to achieve this?

What operating systems do you use? On Mac OS X you could use the following steps (assuming you have a copy of Word, but don't have LAME installed):

Save the Word document as a plain text file (for instance, "speech.txt") to the top level of your user directory.

Type the following at the command line: say -f speech.txt -o speech.aif

Drag the file speech.aif into iTunes.

Choose the Preferences menu item in iTunes. Click the Advanced tool, switch to the Importing pane, and make sure you're importing using the MP3 Encoder.

Find the speech file in the iTune music library, select it, and then choose Convert Selection to MP3 from the Advanced menu. A second file named speech will appear in the library.

Using the Get Info menu item in iTune, determine the path to where iTunes has stored the new MP3 version of your speech file.

Copy the new MP3 file to a convenient location.

What is the best (most professional) way to achieve this?

Rent time at a recording studio, hire a voice actor to speak your text, and hire a sound engineer to record the actor. Ask the sound engineer to convert the recording to an MP3 file.

By: zaebiz

zaebiz — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 20:25:13 -0800

Merdryn: "Text Aloud from NextUp."

Just downloaded and tried this. Has some awesome Australian (as well as many other) voices. This is going to be great.

By: psychobum

psychobum — Tue, 05 Dec 2006 21:33:33 -0800

Winamp has a text input plugin on their website and a mp3/etc export output format