VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Scott Pollak]

Similar to the thread Bruce started, but much more informative and featuring our own September Day:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/17/4596374/machine-language-how-siri-found-its-voice
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Scott R. Pollak
Clients include Pandora, NPR Atlanta, Wells Fargo, Cisco, Humana, Publix, UPS, AT&T, HP, Xerox and more.

www.voicebyscott.com

[Mike Harrison]

Excellent, Scott. Thanks for sharing.

In February of 2008, I spent a week in the studio of a European TTS company, recording exactly the type of material described in this article. That company is now owned by another company, but the NDA prevents me from saying anything more. Unfortunately, even I don't know what the recordings of my voice were being used for.

But it was a wonderful experience, being part of an emerging technology.

I was glad to see this article made a point of mentioning context, which obviously plays a big part in how some words are pronounced and/or some syllables are inflected. In the some blog discussions I particpated in a few years ago, extolling the virtues of using computer-generated voices in eLearning, a point I was trying to make was that no matter how 'real' a CG voice might sound, there will always be the issue of genuine inflection. The goal of CG speech in eLearning is to save money. But if it's necessary to go through every script and play with HTML code to create the proper inflections, where are the cost savings?
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

[Kristin Lennox]

Cool article!

Ryleigh went through exactly this experience when she recorded for the Proloquo 2Go speech a -- she was recording for six hours a day, for four days straight.

[FinMac]

That was an interesting article, Scott!

It reminded me of when I was working as a Chess Consultant in the 1980s. My work was with a Chess Computer programmer who worked for a company based in Hong Kong.

At that time I was a rated Chess Master and my work involved developing heuristics for the program, as well as the opening book library, etc.

It seems like I worked myself out of a job as we got the little plug-in computer to play "Expert" level chess. It was still about 150 rating points or so below my rating and I could always beat the computer. But to improve on the play my boss had to rewrite the entire program. Thus ended my career as a Chess Consultant.

Will we work ourselves out of a job?

My boss and I used to debate who would be better, the computer or the human. I always took the side of the human while he choose the computer.

It was a sad day when Deep Blue beat the world chess champion, Gary Kasparov. Perhaps that day is coming for VO talent as well. Though it might still be a long way off. And in the meantime there is still a lot of work to do!

Mac
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www.scottsvoiceover.com - An American voice in Finland

"If you want to get to the top, you have to get off your bottom". (Unknown)

[Scott Pollak]

Fin, having grown up learning to play chess from my dad (a mechanical engineer with an insanely analytical mind), I'm extremely impressed by your former chess rating. I was never anywhere near that, even in my dreams. I remember the Big Blue/Kasparov match well.

I used to think we wouldn't automate ourselves out of a job, but I look at the advances CG has made in movies.

The difference is that with CG, you can create unreal scenes that would almost impossible to create otherwise, such as outer space scenarios, superheroes, etc. But will it ever become competitive to replicate a human voice, either financially or artistically? That remains to be seen.
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Scott R. Pollak
Clients include Pandora, NPR Atlanta, Wells Fargo, Cisco, Humana, Publix, UPS, AT&T, HP, Xerox and more.

www.voicebyscott.com

[Scott Pollak]

* Bump *

AND>>>>>>>> Here is the REAL voice of Siri, another Atlantan, BTW:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/04/tech/mobile/bennett-siri-iphone-voice/
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Scott R. Pollak
Clients include Pandora, NPR Atlanta, Wells Fargo, Cisco, Humana, Publix, UPS, AT&T, HP, Xerox and more.

www.voicebyscott.com