I was very excited to learn that you have new "neural" voices for text-to-speech function. But when I tried this "new" feature, I found that it still gives the same scratchy-sounding robotic voices that are impossible to control. Maybe I am missing something? What is new about this new feature?
We've found that for some users, a small change is needed to be made to the script in order to trigger the new neural voices. As a workaround, try inserting a space at the end of the script before hitting update to trigger the switch to the neural version of the voice. You'll know it worked because the waveform of the audio will flash, and a progress dialog will show briefly.
Let us know if this works for you so I can included this thread in the bug report which will allow us to notify you as soon as a permanent fix is released. If it does not, would you be willing to share a copy of your project file here or in private by opening a support case so we can take a closer look at what's happening? We'll delete it when we're done testing!
Is there a way to apply a custom speech to the voices? Is it as simple as applying the AWS suggested ssml tags around the text? eg. <speak><amazon:domain name="news"> <prosody pitch="high"> <prosody rate="x-slow"> <prosody rate="x-fast"> <prosody volume="x-soft"> <amazon:effect name="whispered">
Hello! I am having problems with voices mixing (neural and classic) in my courses, even if I update the voices to the new ones, rewrite the text, or add an extra space at the end to force the update, the voice that sounds sometimes is the classic one. Even in the same paragraph both types of voices appear sometimes mixed! :(
I find that no matter what I do the quality of the soundtrack with voices is just not great. They sound metallic and appear to be recorded in a closed space with hard surfaces all around, so there's a slight unpleasant echo. I find the industry standard has risen so much now (try any of the Vyond text-to-speech voices), so it would be great to hear the same great quality from Storyline voices.
If you've already tried the workaround that I mentioned in my last response and it didn't make any difference with the voices, please share a copy of your project file here or in private by opening a support case so we can check why you are experiencing quality issues with the new neural voices. We'll delete it when we're done!
Thanks for sharing your files! We're collecting feedback from our users regarding how they feel about this new update and I made sure to include your voice to the report. We'll let you know if there are any changes to the feature to improve the voices!
I think the issue is mostly with some speakers. It seems that "Danielle" has a better tone and resembles the one from Vyond. Although, the one from Vyond sounds better, in Storyline Danielle is better than other speakers.
Can anyone share how they got the "new voices" to appear in the dropdown menu in Storyline? I till am seeing the old voices and do not see the option for Danielle.
15 Replies
Hello Darya,
Happy to help out!
We've found that for some users, a small change is needed to be made to the script in order to trigger the new neural voices. As a workaround, try inserting a space at the end of the script before hitting update to trigger the switch to the neural version of the voice. You'll know it worked because the waveform of the audio will flash, and a progress dialog will show briefly.
Let us know if this works for you so I can included this thread in the bug report which will allow us to notify you as soon as a permanent fix is released. If it does not, would you be willing to share a copy of your project file here or in private by opening a support case so we can take a closer look at what's happening? We'll delete it when we're done testing!
Is there a way to apply a custom speech to the voices? Is it as simple as applying the AWS suggested ssml tags around the text? eg.
<speak><amazon:domain name="news">
<prosody pitch="high">
<prosody rate="x-slow">
<prosody rate="x-fast">
<prosody volume="x-soft">
<amazon:effect name="whispered">
https://docs.aws.amazon.com/polly/latest/dg/supportedtags.html
access to Amazon Polly via storyline unfortunately does not include SSML support and therefore does not include supported of SSML tags
https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/alternative-text-to-speech-tts-solutions-for-elearning#reply-874145
there is a feature request for support SSML since more than 4 years
https://community.articulate.com/discussions/articulate-storyline/text-to-speech-ssml-tag#reply-625478
I guess I'll have to use polly manually, was hoping to avoid that step using Storyline. Cheers
Hello! I am having problems with voices mixing (neural and classic) in my courses, even if I update the voices to the new ones, rewrite the text, or add an extra space at the end to force the update, the voice that sounds sometimes is the classic one. Even in the same paragraph both types of voices appear sometimes mixed! :(
Hi Diego!
I just replied to your other post here!
Looking forward to hearing from you!
I find that no matter what I do the quality of the soundtrack with voices is just not great. They sound metallic and appear to be recorded in a closed space with hard surfaces all around, so there's a slight unpleasant echo. I find the industry standard has risen so much now (try any of the Vyond text-to-speech voices), so it would be great to hear the same great quality from Storyline voices.
Hello Darya,
If you've already tried the workaround that I mentioned in my last response and it didn't make any difference with the voices, please share a copy of your project file here or in private by opening a support case so we can check why you are experiencing quality issues with the new neural voices. We'll delete it when we're done!
ah, thank you! Here you go.
For comparison, here's the same text generated by Vyond text-to-speech robot:
Hi Darya,
Thanks for sharing your files! We're collecting feedback from our users regarding how they feel about this new update and I made sure to include your voice to the report. We'll let you know if there are any changes to the feature to improve the voices!
Jose, thank you so much for looking into this!
I think the issue is mostly with some speakers. It seems that "Danielle" has a better tone and resembles the one from Vyond. Although, the one from Vyond sounds better, in Storyline Danielle is better than other speakers.
Helllo all,
Can anyone share how they got the "new voices" to appear in the dropdown menu in Storyline? I till am seeing the old voices and do not see the option for Danielle.
Thank you!
Hello Karen!
You should see the new voices if you're on the most recent update for Storyline 360. This is what it looks like on my end.
You might consider uninstalling and reinstalling Storyline 360 to see if that does the trick!