What Goes Into Creating a Free Text to Speech Module?

The text to speech market is experiencing a steady growth today, with increased digitalization and the need to optimize costs associated with this application.

It is a highly useful tool, evident from the numbers published by Market Data Forecast by the end of 2027, the market of text to speech will have reached $6.52 billion in value, growing at a compounded annual growth rate of 15.32% (2022 to 2027).

As simple as it may sound, text to speech technology actually has a lot going on behind the scenes. The choice in hundreds of voices that an AI voice generator is able to deliver has to come from somewhere and that’s what this blog will explore.

Let’s understand the process that helps set up a good TTS engine and how these software companies approach specialized requests.

Talent Scouting

Building a good TTS module absolutely banks on onboarding the right talent for the job. Text to speech isn’t your typical software-generated voice pack. It is a complicated, intelligent synthesis of real voice with the right intonations for any language and accent.

The process of building TTS software begins with accepting a client request. It could be anything – for example, a client requesting to build a voice assistant in the native Korean language.

While normally, TTS companies would look for linguists to get the job done, for specialized jobs such as these, the requirement is niche. It requires hiring a phonologist who can understand how words are spoken and the rules of the native language so that they can be incorporated into the TTS module.

Developing a Script

The next step towards building a free text to speech module constitutes developing an accurate script that justifies the niche request. For example, for TTS to be developed to speak the native Korean language, it is important for the linguists, proofreaders, and phonologists to study the grammar and pronunciation that the language is meant to follow.

The tools these professionals use for achieving this are guides on the phonetics of the language, like International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) or Speech Assessment Methods Phonetic Alphabet (SAMPA).

The transcription the professionals create is accurate with regards to intonations, pronunciations, punctuation behaviour and other finer details of speaking the requested language like a native.

Recording the Script

Once the respective departments have approved the corrected and polished transcripts, they must go into recording. Based on the persona described by the client (the persona that they wish the TTS output to have), the TTS company either scouts for the right talent or selects one from their own pool of voice artists for the job.

The company does extensive assessment of each selected voice artist, looking for the right set of consistency, prosody, enunciation, endurance and closeness to native speech that the client has requested.

More often than not, TTS companies start with a native voice talent to eliminate the risks of differences in pronunciation and violation of the language rules. Plus, it also gives the benefit of establishing lawful linguistic boundaries for working with a new foreign language.

Data Processing

This is the handover stage, where the free text to speech software changes ownership from the creator to the client. The data then goes into the artificial intelligence systems of the client, learning from their proprietary algorithms and polishing itself. If there are any problems, the requested recordings are recreated to correct the errors.

Wrapping Up

As simple as it looks, many processes have to be combined to create a good, believable, and convincing TTS module. The recap above displays in quintessence what things look like behind the curtains of text to speech.