VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

[Ed Fisher]

Just in case you don't already have enough to worry about...

See what Adobe is doing here with VOICE manipulation.

https://youtu.be/I3l4XLZ59iw
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"I reserve the right to be completely wrong."

[Mike Harrison]

Impressive, yes. But it makes me wonder if there was a distinct purpose behind this, or if it was just another case of "Gee, Wally, look what we can do!"

IMHO: far too much manipulation. In so many areas. Have we become that bored with all that is genuine?

[Edit] Regardless of the purpose, there will still exist the inability to synthesize the correct tone and inflection on words/syllables as related to context.
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

[Jack Daniel]

At the risk of sounding entirely self-interested (in fact, I'm only 98% self-interested), you've hit upon the key word: Authenticity. A perfect voice print is not authenticity in any important way unless that print is connected, as we say.

But of course it is quite interesting, this tech.

We should not lose sight of the fact that as tech becomes more sophisticated, so does our ability to detect its use--at both a counter-tech and a human level.

Notice how the least believable thing the demonstrator said was how they were "trying" to come up with ways to make "Voice" forensically traceable? I'm sure that will stop only the least capable hackers.
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Jack Daniel
Narrator / Man About Town

[Bob Bergen]

I commented regarding this on Facebook. I doubt this will be perfected in our lifetime as computers cannot act. But even if it is perfected, this is more of a threat to the non union vo world as the union already has protections regarding this technology. We are compensated for lifts into new product all the time.

To me, the biggest threat is journalism. The ease of creating new dialogue by politicians and celebrities. Already we are seeing livelihoods and reputations being destroyed by political correctness or verbal blunders. Imagine the "I never said that(s)” that will come from this technology. OR, those that actually DID say something but can now use this technology as an excuse/defense.

[DenaliDave]

This won't be replacing VO people...exactly.

What I CAN see this being used for is things like Siri, Cortana, Google Now -- ie; virtual assistants.

You could (in theory) record enough of your own speech during the setup of your new cell phone or Amazon Echo to enable it to sound "like" you.

It will sound choppy and processed, but it might add a bit of human-ness to the technology.

It might also be used for video games. We, the VO talent will still have to read scripts to capture the voice data, but the computer could then on the fly re-arragne things to make custom, in-game dialogue possible.

The thing I fear, is this kind of technology combined with this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohmajJTcpNk

Just imagine being able to combine both technologies.
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"The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve." - Buddha
www.alaskamic.com

[Jack Daniel]

Dave, that is disturbing--but I say that in a good way. At least for the moment, which is to say as it appears in that video, none of us would be convinced that the "enhanced" Bush (now there's a phrase you wouldn't expect) is real. It has that uncanny valley thing all over. That said, the tech will no doubt improve and, as you say, combine with the voice aspect to make pretty much anything "sayable" by anybody.

In a moment of crisis, however, or with enough clever prepping, even today's version of the pseudo-Bush might be enough to sway the right people to make the wrong, terrible, decision.
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Jack Daniel
Narrator / Man About Town

[DenaliDave]

That's what I'm saying...give it 5 years along with Adobe's new software...we could see "speeches" from sitting presidents that are dead or otherwise preoccupied.

They used to say a picture is worth 1,000 words. Then came photoshop.

Then they said a video is "proof"...then computer generated graphics came (CGI)...

And now? Now they can combine both, in real time...creepy!
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"The wise ones fashioned speech with their thought, sifting it as grain is sifted through a sieve." - Buddha
www.alaskamic.com

[Mike Harrison]

TTS (text-to-speech) technology is indeed being used by some producers of eLearning content. It's been discussed in various blogs for at least the past five or more years. Here's one of those blogs.

When I commented then that TTS is not capable of proper inflection (it very often places emphasis on the wrong syllables or words), the diehard speech hackers said they would just begin futzing with the code to make the inflection correct.

My question is still the same: exactly how, with all the futzing required, will this be easier and cheaper than hiring an experienced professional to nail it in much less time? As yet, unanswered.

(edited to add the blog link)
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Mike
Male Voice Over Talent
I have taken leave of my sensors.

[Jack Daniel]

Indeed, Mike. And if the technically impressive but as-yet-soulless output serves your voicing need, then--even if your algorithms are timely--you are not my client anyway. Which probably sounds more bitter than I intend it.

And if you can make something that can do what I do, well, congratulations! For you've created life.
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Jack Daniel
Narrator / Man About Town

[todd ellis]

this would, however, be a fantastic time saver in - say - eLearning narrations for minor pickups - replacing mis-read words, etc without waiting on the talent to get back to the studio to do a pickup. handy as all get-out.
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"i know philip banks": todd ellis
who's/on/1st?

[Lee Gordon]

This isn't something we have to worry about because Adobe will most likely make this technology available by some highly overpriced, cloud based, subscription-only arrangement. And not only will the AI need to be able to act and impart proper inflection, it will also have to discern the meaning of sentences that are written without commas where they belong, and with them where they don't belong, and sentences that don't have periods at the end.
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Lee Gordon, O.A.V.
Voice President of the United States
www.leegordonproductions.com
Twitter: @LeeGordonVoice

[Jason Huggins]

So you're saying it'll help me interpret Todd's posts??

[Ranger]

Worry is an anchor....cut the rope