4 ms·

I have to say that a number of audiobooks I've bought recently have been totally spoilt by the narration - and the AI voices on offer here all sound better than

I have to say that a number of audiobooks I've bought recently have been totally spoilt by the narration - and the AI voices on offer here all sound better than the humans involved in those books. I also remember reading, a couple of years ago, that Apple was working on improving the voices for Siri - resulting in me thinking "surely Apple has more important things to work on to improve Siri". I guess this was what they were actually aiming for.

mcphage 4y ago
> I guess this was what they were actually aiming for. I would imagine it was the other direction—that this is a way for them to test out their improvements to Siri.
Dig1t 4y ago
It's so true! It's such a tragedy when a really good book is ruined by bad narration. All of the Hitchhikers Guide books (except for the first one, which is masterfully read by Stephen Fry), are a good example, but there are tons of other examples. There's usually only one version as well so you can't even shop around for a version with a better narrator either.
- rahoulb 4y ago
  If you can find it, look for the BBC Radio version of Hitchhikers, from the late 70s, early 80s. Each version has a slightly different variation on the story and the radio one is my favourite of the lot. My friend had a copy of the scripts from the radio series and we used to use it as inspiration - "open the scripts at a random page and our band name will be the first thing that Marvin says ... Zootlewurdle - perfect!" I've got them on a set of CDs somewhere, but have nothing that will play them...
- dirtyid 4y ago
  I've learned to enjoy particularly robotic TTS narrations because after a while it becomes associated with my internal voice, and it feels like I'm "reading" the book versus elaborately produced audiobooks that are experiencially closer to enjoying a show. And feel less hesitation about listening at 3x speed. With practice, I can start layering on personality to different characters with neutral TTS voices.

mcphage 4y ago

> I guess this was what they were actually aiming for. I would imagine it was the other direction—that this is a way for them to test out their improvements to Siri.

Dig1t 4y ago

It's so true! It's such a tragedy when a really good book is ruined by bad narration. All of the Hitchhikers Guide books (except for the first one, which is masterfully read by Stephen Fry), are a good example, but there are tons of other examples. There's usually only one version as well so you can't even shop around for a version with a better narrator either.

rahoulb 4y ago
If you can find it, look for the BBC Radio version of Hitchhikers, from the late 70s, early 80s. Each version has a slightly different variation on the story and the radio one is my favourite of the lot. My friend had a copy of the scripts from the radio series and we used to use it as inspiration - "open the scripts at a random page and our band name will be the first thing that Marvin says ... Zootlewurdle - perfect!" I've got them on a set of CDs somewhere, but have nothing that will play them...
dirtyid 4y ago
I've learned to enjoy particularly robotic TTS narrations because after a while it becomes associated with my internal voice, and it feels like I'm "reading" the book versus elaborately produced audiobooks that are experiencially closer to enjoying a show. And feel less hesitation about listening at 3x speed. With practice, I can start layering on personality to different characters with neutral TTS voices.