Ghost in the Machine?

[LarisaNaples]

Has anyone got an idea on how to capture one of those computer-generated voices that Mac uses as "helpers" for computer users who are vision-impaired? (Cleanly, I mean... not simply putting a mic in front of my computer.) I have a character that is literally a ghost in a machine, and I want to use one of those voices to "read aloud" his lines in the script.

[Audio-Drama.com]

I don't about capturing the Mac voice, but the AT&T Labs Natural Voices Text-to-Speech Demo:

http://www2.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php

allows you to type in text and download it as a WAV file. There are several voices to choose from, as well.

[LarisaNaples]

Brilliant! I'll check it out. Thanks.

[JTM]

If you have a Mac Textedit will read it aloud for you in whichever voice you have the system set for. I have used WireTap from Ambrosia Software to record it, but you might be able to do it with Audacity. (I haven't tried that yet.) Sometimes you have to tweak the spelling or punctuation to get it to sound right though too. It works great for your average talking camera (as in Comedy4cast) or android voice.

[LarisaNaples]

Turns out there is a built-in command in the Terminal utility-app on modern Macs that can be used for this. Launch Terminal, then at the command line, type:

>say -o outputfile.aiff "text"

and it will automatically generate an aiff file called outputfile, that contains an audio recording of your computer's text-to-speech voice speaking the text content within the quotes. You can select the computer voice in the system preferences, prior to running the script.