The 10 Best Text-to-Speech Synthesizers of 2022

The interface of the Robot Talk synthesizer is outrageously simple: after installation, a program window appears in front of the user, into which you can paste any copied text. Then it remains only to choose the appropriate voice for dubbing (there are five in total: three male and two female), if necessary, adjust the timbre and speed of speech - and that's it, you can enjoy mechanized voice acting! The resulting audio file can be saved to your computer to use later or sent by mail directly in the program using the "share" function. The synthesizer supports Russian and English, but problems may arise with the first: the program does not always hit the stresses correctly, but errors occur only because of complex words.

It’s worth mentioning right away that Acapela is hardly suitable for everyday use: the program’s functionality is too rich to be used only for listening to books or voicing short passages of text. The features of the program can be found on the official website, where a demo version of the synthesizer is presented: for free, Acapela will voice for you any text 300 characters long, and you can choose from more than 30 voice languages ​​and 10 voices, some of which are available only after purchasing the full version. versions. The license and installation of the synthesizer on a computer gives full access to the entire database of voices (there are more than 120 in total, including female, male and children's voices).For them, you can adjust the volume, speed, emotional color (sad, joyful or neutral) and even dialect options, if they are relevant for the selected language.

Initially, Govorilka was not conceived as a commercial project - as can be seen from the simple, almost "ancient" interface of the program, tailored for the first versions of Windows. However, the synthesizer is really made with soul: it not only translates text into speech, but also offers tools for easy work with voice acting and files. First, when the file is loaded, the program automatically "scrolls" the text down in the manner of a prompter and highlights it - so you can easily follow the readable fragment.Secondly, pronunciation can be improved by adding problematic combinations to the software dictionary: it is thanks to the contribution of ordinary users that Govorilka is considered one of the most organic-sounding synthesizers. It is worth noting that the standard version of the program will not speak Russian if you do not have the appropriate engine installed, but a detailed guide for solving this problem can be found on the official website of the developer.

For a program that is distributed free of charge, "Balabolka" is surprisingly multifunctional: it not only translates sound into text, but also optimizes it so that the virtual "narrator" does not make mistakes typical of machine speech. For example, the program automatically corrects spelling and removes all hyphens from the text to another line, which cause long hesitation. And it is also very convenient to work with it: just load the text from the finished file into the program (almost all text-containing formats are supported) and wait until the engine processes it. The resulting audio file can be immediately saved on a computer or pre-processed using the Microsoft Speech API package of speech functions to change the timbre and speed of sounding - that is, Balabolka works quietly with default software.

Oddcast is just a sample of the full version of the program, which the developers distribute on a paid basis, but they approached the creation of an introductory fragment with such a mind that it deserves a separate place in this rating. At one time, the online synthesizer can voice up to 600 characters of text in more than 30 languages ​​of the world, but the main feature is that the text itself is spoken by an animated announcer! The appearance of the character is set randomly after clicking on the dice icon in the corner of the screen, and the gender is determined by the selected sound option (male or female). The avatar not only makes a speech, but also follows the mouse cursor - such an interactive element will be very interesting for children. In addition, very pleasant and harmonious sounding voices are provided for the synthesizer: for example, in the Russian version, you can choose from Dmitry, Milena and Olga, each of which sounds unique and lively.

The beauty of the Text to Speech service lies in its ease of use and good functionality, which is offered completely free of charge. You need to insert the desired piece of text into the program window, select the language and voice of the voice (male or female), and after that the voiced passage can be listened to as many times as you like. This partially compensates for the inability to save the voiced text as an audio file - for this you will have to use third-party programs. A nice feature of the service is the support for country dialects (for example, American and British pronunciations of English) and the option to adjust the speaking speed. But the unpleasant moments include the machine nature of the sound of voices: in fact, these are the same engines that are used for audio transcription in online translators.

Zvukogram maintains an ideal balance between functionality, cost of services and web ergonomics: the service is designed in a very modern way and supports the most common audio languages. A peculiar feature is a large pool of voices, which are divided into the category of "regular" and "premium": the latter can be used for off-screen dubbing of entertainment content, since professional actors were invited to record and generate them. The system of charging for the services of the service is also of interest: voice acting is paid in “tokens” - the local currency, which is calculated from the ratio 1 token = 1 ruble. The generated audio recording with speech can then be downloaded and saved to yourself. It is worth considering that tokens are withdrawn for the voice acting of even a small text fragment, so the user will not be able to use the services of the service for free (or at least within the trial period).

SpeechText can hardly be called a full-fledged speech synthesizer: for this, it lacks more advanced voice settings for voicing. However, this is a great app for low-end Android devices - it can be used as a mini pronunciation dictionary to help with the process of learning a foreign language. SpeechText instantly speaks the phrases you type in and boasts a large pool of available languages, which can be expanded by downloading additional packages. It also provides the ability to save voiced fragments as audio recordings directly to the phone's memory - in the settings you can select the format and set the path to the folder where the audio files will be stored.

Voice Aloud Reader is ideally suited for reading books: its functionality allows you to extract text from EPUB files and turn it into an audio book read in a calm voice that you can listen to at any time. The synthesizer remembers well the place where the session was interrupted, so you don't have to worry about losing the right page of the file. And this application is the only one in our rating that offers the OCR function (that is, text recognition from images). This will allow you to extract and read text from PDF files, which is rare even for computer software. Another interesting feature is the sleep timer, which automatically stops reading aloud after a set period of time: a feature that can be very useful if you use a synthesizer to read bedtime stories to children.

"Chatterbox" is not the most serious name, but serious working functionality and an excellent approach to voicing the text. Being an Android-based app, it will directly read aloud text from third-party sources if you have the appropriate permissions. Let's give an example: you open a web page, select text, click the "share" option and select "Chatterbox" from the drop-down list - and it will easily translate the text into live natural speech. In addition, the application is very convenient to use as a notepad for notes: make short notes in it that you can immediately voice, or leave them for later. Phrases are saved in .wav format or audio files can be shared directly via Telegram or WhatsApp, and the settings menu offers customization options - from the color palette of the application workspace to adjusting the tone and voice speed.