The enthusiastic clone

My first blog post appeared in 2010 and followed the publication of my book The Tuning of Place. I titled the post “Tuning as …” The Christmas eve that followed I produced a post “Silent Night.” Here is an excerpt from Silent Night in audio format. It runs for 2 minutes:

That’s not me speaking, but a clone. See previous post: The purloined voice. I think the 2nd paragraph is more convincing than the first. An independent critic has noted a similarity with my actual voice, which perhaps means that it is good enough.

I cloned my voice via the ElevenLabs text to speech website. I uploaded two audio files of me reading some text (other than the Silent Night excerpt). The app sampled the first 10 seconds of each to extract my voice features. I’m pleased that after several re-recordings it retained (and reinforced) my Australian accent.

There are now several YouTube recordings of authors using this technology to create audio books of their writings, and offering advice for others who want to do the same: e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf60IOLpfho.

Considering the effort I expend in writing, it’s good to sit back while my clone does the reading. Having produced many videos of myself talking for classes (see Flipped classroom 101) the cloned voice relieves me of the effort to correct and edit, and to sustain vocal enthusiasm.

References

• Augoyard, Jean-François, and Henry Torgue. Sonic Experience: A Guide to Everyday Sounds. Trans. Andra McCartney, and David Paquette. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005. 
• Chion, Michel. The Voice in Cinema. Trans. Claudia Gorbman. New York: Columbia University Press, 1999. First published in French in 1982.
• Coyne, Richard. The Tuning of Place: Sociable Spaces and Pervasive Digital Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010. 

Note

• Featured image is a reference to Chion’s observation about being in an elevator when the sounds stop suddenly. It is generated by ChatGPT: Please provide an image of a defunct cage elevator in a disused building.