Is It Live Or Is It Memorex?
By: Marsha Pearson
Tags: Technology, Speech Recognition, Digital Transformation, Voice Recognition, Digital Marketing

Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

Who remembers that old line, “Is it live, or is it Memorex?”

We had a huge — and I mean huge — “portable” turntable in the basement. I think we spent hours down there listening to records — our most memorable favorite was “Rock Around The Clock”.

Then cam “cassette recorders”. Oh Boy! The new thing! I wanted one so badly! We thought it was the best thing since, well, sliced bread. (Okay, now I really sound old!)

About twenty-five years ago, a friend of mine came to me with a recorded cassette of his proposal to his wife that had, unfortunately, become totally tangled. At the time, I worked for a sound studio in New York City. Sadly, they were not able to fix it. That was the epitome of cassettes. If they broke, they were gone forever.

What a Difference a Lifetime Makes

I find it amazing that, in my lifetime we have gone from simple voice recordings on scratchy tapes that we had the audacity to think they sounded like a live voice, to Dolby sound and the ability to record even the smallest of whispers.

When CD’s came out, it was like a revolution. No more scratchy LP’s (of course, they are having a comeback now of their own), no more tangled cassettes. This simply told me one thing — there will always be a “next big thing”.

The Next Frontier In Recording — Not Recording At All

Artificial Intelligence. What? This is what you get when scientists and engineers collaborate to create something truly interesting.

It is possible, using AI, to now transform any text into speech. And not those old computer-like voices from the pre-Star Wars days. We are talking about male or female voices with different inflections, in different languages. You can even set the desired tone, including a more joyful tone or serious.

How often have you received a robo-call and started talking to the “person” only to figure out it was not a person at all? Okay, so we like to play around with their robotic life-like recordings. They can’t always answer all questions. But, for a while, it sounds very realistic.

Anyway, I digress….

With “Memorex” being the one-time “royalty” of recorded voice, they dared you to be able to tell the difference between live and recorded voices.

Is It Live or Artificial Intelligence?

It is likely that we have been listening to some forms of AI-produced human voice for a number of years now. However, it was not something that was mainstream. The cost to use the technology was prohibitive for the ordinary person.

That all changed recently as the developers at Blaster Products finally introduced a superior text-to-speech technology platform that is affordable for everyone.

Blaster boasts almost ten years of experience in software development. Their team of specialists, who have created the platform that they call Speechelo, have been working on perfecting the speech process for several years now, in an effort to make it absolutely perfect.

They have painstakingly created over fifty human-like voices in twenty-three languages, including some female, some male, and even a child. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. They will continue to evolve and innovate, adding other vocal types for the various languages AND other languages.

Revolutionizing Voiceovers

This process will likely revolutionize the artistic community and change how some voiceovers are done. If you’re on a budget, you will no longer have to hire a live person, requiring scheduling and perhaps recording several takes to get the sound just right.

AI means you can simply create your text, select your language and voice (male or female), and generate the vocal rendition of your text. Then it can be uploaded to go along with any video.

Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash

Is There Really A Difference?

I am a perfectionist, but I’m not any kind of sound expert. I have to say that, if I listen long enough, I might hear a difference if I was specifically looking for it.

But if I don’t know to be listening for the “tell tale” sounds of AI, I likely wouldn’t notice it, especially if the overall recorded piece was not more than a few minutes in length.

In fact, it is possible that, before Speechelo, there were other instances in which AI was already being used to record speech. (Remember Hal from 2010: A Space Odyssey? Although, now that I think of it, that was likely a real person pretending to be AI. What a switch!)

The Bottom Line

Technology continues to evolve at such a fast pace that we will, one day, not be able to tell the difference between AI and a real person. Or, perhaps we are already there, and just don’t know it yet. Or — we are there, and just don’t accept it yet…

Scary, right?