For close to five years now, Amazon’s smart personal assistant Alexa has been there to answer our questions, automatically dim our lights, and play our favorite songs upon request. All this has been great but let’s face it, hearing the same voice and calling out to the same name can become quite monotonous. Luckily, Amazon has now included a couple of new ways you can add some variation to your interaction with your trusty personal assistant.
May 31, 2018 But it is a very costly way to create a voice over these days, as it can typically cost you anywhere between $100 - $2000 for a minute of voice over. Recording the voice over yourself. This is a very cheap option especially when you don’t want to break the bank and you also have a voice that sounds exactly like Morgan Freeman's’ voice. Mar 14, 2014 You need. A computer with Voice Changer Software Diamond 8.0 installed. Using the headphones is recommended (To avoid the echo when microphone is placed too close to speakers and when Duplex is “On”, using the headphone is recommended.) Click play to listen Morgan Freeman's voice.
The days of feeling like a droning robot who just utters the same monotonous process of calling out to the same person are coming to an end. Now, you can change both Alexa’s name and voice. What’s even better is the fact that moving away from the default settings could not be any easier.
Here’s how you can personalize your Amazon Alexa device:
Changing Alexa’s Name
The ability to be able to change Alexa’s new name is a great step towards variation and personalization. However, the wake word options are a bit limiting. Unfortunately, you can’t just swap Alexa’s name for any other quirky or sentimental name/nickname that tickles your fancy. So if you thought you could get Eleven from ‘Stranger Things’, Morgan Freeman or SpongeBob to dim the lights or order you a Lyft, you are out of luck.
What you can do, is choose between “Amazon”, “Echo”, and “Computer” to be your device’s new wake word. All you need to do is implement the following steps:
- Open the Alexa app
- Open the three line horizontal menu button located on the top left corner
- Click on Settings then select the device settings for the Alexa device you’d like to change
- Scroll down the options and click on Wake Word.
- Tap and open the drop-down menu where you’ll get to choose between “Amazon,” “Echo,” or “Computer”
- Depending on your preference pick your favorite Alexa alternative.
- Once you press okay, Alexa’s colored rim light will now turn orange for a few minutes to indicate a transition to the new name you have selected. Once the light goes off, you are done and can now say hello to your new wake word.
Changing Alexa’s Voice
Another way Alexa’s voice can become droning is by only being able to hear the same tones and intonations. Now, you can spice things up giving Alexa a sophisticated British accent or a very passionate French accent. Heck, you don’t have to stop there.
Although her voice will still be female, there is no limit to the accents you can now give Alexa. You can change up her default language setting and switch up her accent by following these steps:
- Open the Alexa app on your phone
- Head to the settings menu and tap on it
- Scroll down the list of devices connected to our Alexa app and select the device that you’d like to apply the settings to.
- Once you’ve selected the device, locate your preferred language.
- Proceed to click on the drop-down menu and choose your preferred accent and/or language
- Save changes and you are all set.
As exciting as all this may be, I should still warn you, changing her voice accent may make it a little bit harder for her to understand you. For instance, if you set her accent to be a British one and yours is as American as can be, some words might be lost in translation. So unless your British accent can sweep the Queen of England off her feet, Alexa may be slightly confused about what it is you are asking for. Other than that, you are all set to go!
Before we conclude, this is not all you can do with your Alexa device. As of now, you can now also enable skills on your Alexa device so as to get your favorite celebrity voices to talk to you.
Enabling Alexa Voice Skills
Remember Amazon’s 2018 Super Bowl where Alexa lost her voice and the likes of Cardi B, Gordon Ramsey, Rebel Wilson, and Sir Anthony Hopkins tried to fill in for her? Well, looks like that hilarious advert may not be too far-fetched.
Thanks to Alexa Skills, you can now have celebrities like Chef Gordon Ramsey speak to you through the device. However, while his voice will not necessarily replace Alexa’s voice altogether, some of his predominant phrases featuring his penchant for harshly criticizing food will be there.
Thanks to Alexa Skills, you can now have celebrities like Chef Gordon Ramsey speak to you through the device. However, while his voice will not necessarily replace Alexa’s voice altogether, some of his predominant phrases featuring his penchant for harshly criticizing food will be there.
Here is how you can enable celebrity skills:
- Open the Alexa app- Once again you will need to open the app then proceed to tap the three-line horizontal Menu
- Choose your preferred skill
- Upon selecting the Skills button, type in your preferred celebrity’s name in the search bar. Select the option that best fits your search then sit back and enjoy your favorite celebrity’s catchphrases.
Note: For most of the skills you can also activate simply by asking Alexa to enable them, although, you’ll need to know the specific skill you want in order to make the request.
Conclusion
The developers at Amazon are working tirelessly to try to make the smart personal assistant sound more and more human. In this regard, one of the latest developments they have been able to achieve is the Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML).
What the SSML does is allow users to switch up Alexa’s voice. Some of the features included are the ability to change the speed of her speech, alter her pitch and word intonations, and enable her to whisper. For families with children in the house or just generally don’t like curse words, there is an option to bleep out or substitute any strong language.
All in all, there are plenty of improvements on the horizon to help better tailor individuals’ experience with their Amazon Alexa devices.
All in all, there are plenty of improvements on the horizon to help better tailor individuals’ experience with their Amazon Alexa devices.
For now, you can begin by breaking the monotonous cycle of only referring to your advice Alexa and changing the default language settings. Although there is currently no way to entirely change Alexa’s voice, what we have now is most definitely more human-like than we did before.
Back in 2015, when we initially launched Animaker, we had only one vision in our mind - to simplify video creation and make it affordable for everyone.
![Morgan freeman voice app machine Morgan freeman voice app machine](/uploads/1/2/6/5/126524899/618570219.jpg)
Since then, we’ve been constantly looking at various aspects of video production that needed to be rethought so that people can easily create quality videos from the comfort of their browsers.
And this time one particular aspect got our attention - voice over creation.
A high-quality voice over is a prerequisite in video production. It has the ability to bring your videos to life and plays a major role in swaying the emotions of your audience.
Till date, you’ve only had 3 (Traditional) ways to create a voice over:
Hire a professional voice actor
They’re people who work out of the mini voice studio in their basement and promise to deliver a high-quality voice over every time.
But it is a very costly way to create a voice over these days, as it can typically cost you anywhere between $100 - $2000 for a minute of voice over.
Recording the voice over yourself
This is a very cheap option especially when you don’t want to break the bank and you also have a voice that sounds exactly like Morgan Freeman's’ voice. ;)
Morgan Freeman Voice Maker
But if you don’t have the right equipment or an appealing voice, it might kill your video and eventually your brand.
Use Text-to-Speech apps
Text-to-speech software eliminates the need to pay a professional. But most of the tools out there were developed as online readers and not tailored for making voice overs.
So the end result is that if you use them to create narratives for your videos, it will sound like a robot.
Don’t you think there should be a better way to instantly create voice overs? Well, now you do!
Today we’re taking things up a notch by introducing a brand new application for our tribe of Animakers. We’ve completely reimagined the way people should be creating voice overs for their videos. And we ended up creating something truly awesome!
Introducing Animaker Voice
Animaker voice is a voice over making app built on top of world class text to speech engines so that you can create human-like voice overs for your videos.
User experience like never before:
Animaker voice’s interface was designed to help you easily create voice overs for your videos.
It allows you to assign voice controls to a specific piece of text. When needed you can even play or review your voice over script line-by-line.
It is also very easy to use. All you have to do is,
Morgan Freeman Voice App Android
- Type or paste in your voice over script.
- Select a language for your voice over.
- Pick a gender and a suitable voice.
- Click on play to review the generated voice over.
- Download it to use in your videos.
It’s that simple!
Why create voice overs with Animaker voice?
To give you a sense of what’s new in this voice over making app, here are a few stand out features:
Human-like voice over
Animaker voice provides a wide selection of human-like male and female voices. Its fluent pronunciation of text enables you to instantly export high-quality human-like voice overs.
Example:
Hello there! My name is Matthew. What’s yours?Play
Hi there! Do you speak english?Play
Intelligent
When I say “Create Human-like Voice overs”, it not only refers to the output voice over, it can also exhibit human-like intelligence when it comes to heteronyms - Words that are spelled the same but pronounced differently based on usage.
Example:
The dove dove into the bushes.Play
Advanced voice controls
Using advanced voice controls, you can add tone or emphasis to any selected word and even control various aspects of the voice over, such as volume, speech rate, and pitch, etc.
This allows you to control not only what the voices say but also how they say it. Now let's see some voice controls in action:
Break:
This feature lets you insert a pause in between words in the voice over output.
Example:
iOS or Android? That’s a never ending debate! Play
Breath:
This feature lets you add natural breathing sounds to your voice over. You can also customize the length and volume of the breaths.
Example:
Hi Michelle! I’m on the treadmill. I’ll call soon.Play
Whisper:
With this feature you can have the voice over be delivered in a whispered voice rather than a normal voice.
Example:
Guess what? I have a secret to tell you.Play
Emphasis:
This feature lets you add or reduce stress to a selected word or phrase. Strong emphasis means that the voice over will be louder and slower. Reduced emphasis is quieter and faster.
Example:
Michael! Stay away from the dog. It might bite you.Play
Multilingual voice options:
With dozens of human-like voices available across a variety of languages, you can select the ideal voice and create voice overs for your videos in many different languages.
Example:
Japanese:
ちょっと、そこ! ようこそ日本へ。 あなたはどこから来たのですかPlay
Spanish:
Real Madrid ha ganado la liga de campeones 3 veces seguidas ahora. ¡vamos Madrid!Play
“Bidding adieu” to the traditional methods of creating voice overs
We strongly feel that this is just the start of something that will grow much bigger and better. We believe that not only videos but also voice overs should be created the DIY way.
If you’re as excited as us about the creative possibilities of Animaker voice, you can get started right here for free.