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I'd like to think that in the future this will be possible, but at present I believe there are still too many uncanny valley problems for me to regard any TTS g
by spudlyo 1y ago
I'd like to think that in the future this will be possible, but at present I believe there are still too many uncanny valley problems for me to regard any TTS generated audio books as high quality. I can sometimes tolerate listening to articles or technical essays done this way, but quality audio book narrators often do consistent and distinct character voices, understand complex emotional states, and are capable of reacting to contextual clues and subtext. This seems like a pretty high bar for current TTS models.
Something like NotebookLLM seems shockingly good at first, and gives me hope that eventually we'll have machines that are nearly as good as humans at this; but after listening to it for an hour or so the novelty wore off and the artifice of it now seems galling and distracting.
- bookofjoe 1y ago>quality audio book narrators often do consistent and distinct character voices, understand complex emotional states, and are capable of reacting to contextual clues and subtext. The best experience I've ever had with audio books is John le Carré reading his early novels (not in public domain). He uses a different voice for each character and they are SO pulsing with life it's breathtaking.
- spudlyo 1y agoThanks for the tip! I love well narrated audiobooks, and I've been meaning to get into one of le Carré's books for a while. I see he narrates the "John le Carré Value Collection" on Audible which has Tailor of Panama, Our Game, and Night Manager for a single credit. Is that what you're referring to? Along those lines, there is a great 2007 unabridged audiobook[0] of Frank Herbert's Dune that is read by Simon Vance for narration, but other characters are dramatically performed by other voice actors. It's excellent, but sadly a tad bit uneven and inconsistent in production. It's like they got 3/4ths of the way through the project and some of the original voice actors couldn't complete the project and Vance had to pick up the slack. Regardless, it's still one of my favorite audiobooks. [0]: https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781427201447-dune https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781427201447-dune
- bookofjoe 1y agoMy favorites are his first books read by him: "Call For The Dead" and "A Small Town in Germany" Listen here: https://youtu.be/e1lmpG3kCDg https://youtu.be/e1lmpG3kCDg https://youtu.be/30QOqAcY4bY https://youtu.be/30QOqAcY4bY https://youtu.be/0Ik9Gv9s0TQ https://youtu.be/0Ik9Gv9s0TQ https://youtu.be/q79SspzdpLA https://youtu.be/q79SspzdpLA https://youtu.be/i3UnPBMouwU https://youtu.be/i3UnPBMouwU FWIW The three novels in the "Value Collection" are abridged: https://www.amazon.com/John-le-Carr-Value-Collection-audiobook/dp/B00B7XWG7E https://www.amazon.com/John-le-Carr-Value-Collection-audiobo...