DaveClone - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 11:45:18 am
content: I'm experimenting with various AI voice cloning tools.Just tried ElevenLabs and it's, well, not me at all.No surprise given the limit of 10MB of source learning material and the instant nature of it.FAILhttps://www.eevblog.com/forum/chatgptai/daveclone/?action=dlattach;attach=1777136

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 12:42:58 pm
content: My understanding (from memory and could be wrong), is that a person has difficulties, properly hearing (comparing) their own/real voice from recordings. Because, unlike when other people speak, you hear your voice more directly and more via direct vibrations and things.I.e. You are NOT (contrary to a persons opinion), necessarily the best independent judge of how real it sounds.To me, (although it does sound a fair bit off), it is a (somewhat vaguely) reasonable representation of your voice (via the supplied MP3 file). But by no means, anywhere near perfect.Also, I suspect opinions (perceptions) on how good it is (or not), will vary a fair bit, from person to person.N.B. I agree, it is not especially brilliant (the MP3), and fairly easy to tell it is not you.EDIT: Here is an article, which attempts to explain the differences, between hearing your own voice, while speaking and a recording.https://www.wonderopolis.org/wonder/why-does-my-voice-sound-different-on-a-recording

author: RoGeorge
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 01:17:25 pm
content: Very few will notice the differences if you overlap that sample mp3 to one of your videos.Not a perfect imitation, but very close.

author: schmitt trigger
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 01:24:24 pm
content: The genie is out of the bottle.It is a matter of time where voice clones become indistinguishable, not only in the pitch, tone and inflection, but also in the unique combination of mannerisms that everyone has.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 02:24:52 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 07, 2023, 11:45:18 amFrom a distance (say California), it's close enough to call it 'Dave'.Part of the reason that I accept it as 'Dave' is that I don't hear audio from videos on a frequent basis. The subtle differences are probably lost on me.It's 'Dave' for all practical purposes.

author: PA0PBZ
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 03:22:05 pm
content: It's missing a bit of variation in tone and speed but yeah, it's Dave.

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 04:09:59 pm
content: I would also say it's close enough. The difference from the "real deal" might stem from the text style as much as from the voice itself.(The sample text is probably from a textbook or such, very matter-of-fact and not "no script, no fear, all opinion".Could you let the AI voice read a short piece of transcript from a typical EEVblog or EEVblab video?)

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 04:17:17 pm
content: Quote from: ebastler on May 07, 2023, 04:09:59 pmThat's a very good point, and idea. With interesting results, if carried out.

author: Kim Christensen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 07:05:33 pm
content: It does sound a bit like Dave... needs some more phrases like "Flappin' in the breeze", "brilliant", "there you go", etc for more realism.

author: gamalot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 07:52:01 pm
content: For me, a non-native English speaker, the voice is very close to Dave's video, but the accent and tone of the speech are a little different, it sounds too formal or serious.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 08:30:00 pm
content: It's a lot more lifeless than the real deal, but the voice tone sure sounds very similar.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 08:52:47 pm
content: I say it doesn't sound like Dave at all. The accent is much weaker. It sounds more like standard British English, than Dave's Australian accent.

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 07, 2023, 09:27:52 pm
content: I can’t tell the difference in the voice itself. But the way of speaking is wrong. Hearing this, I imagine Dave being coerced into giving a lecture to an empty room, while he himself is falling asleep. Give the real Dave a white, empty sheet of paper to describe and he will sound more enthusiastic.I am also used to hearing Dave at 1.5×. This sounds sooo sloooooow at the default speed.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 12:47:10 am
content: Quote from: MK14 on May 07, 2023, 12:42:58 pmI have literally thousands of hours of training hearing my own voice through speakers exactly as you and everyone else has. Remember, when I edit my videos I'm listening through speakers, I'm not hearing my voice internally.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 12:47:52 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 07, 2023, 08:52:47 pmThat's exactly how I hear it, it's clearly british.

author: Kim Christensen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 12:59:20 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 08, 2023, 12:47:52 amTo us poorly educated North Americans; Brit, Aussie, NZ, ya'll sound the same!

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 01:03:41 am
content: Ok, try this:

author: Kim Christensen
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 02:10:26 am
content: There is definitely a difference, but it's still an impressive imitation. Your real voice is more animated and dynamic and the accent is a bit different, but I'm sure some people could be fooled by the AI voice.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 02:51:29 am
content: Quote from: Kim Christensen on May 08, 2023, 02:10:26 amMaybe some, but it's so not an aussie accent it's not even close in that regard.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 02:54:36 am
content: Quote from: karpouzi9 on May 08, 2023, 02:30:10 amNo person with anything more than a few minutes of public audio of their voice out there is safe.Wait until I try the higher end ones that build word lists and take days/weeks to process and build a voice profile, I'm betting it'll be chalk and cheese against this simplistic one.This one literally look zero processing time. I uploaded the source files and that voice you heard was generated a minute later.

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 02:56:23 am
content: Dave: in this video having to take a breath makes it sound like a human.karpouzi9: for the particular situation you mentioned there is a working, well tested and widely deployed solution. Created over 40 years ago. It’s called a public-key signature.In general case, I see it from a different perspective. Finally the majority can no longer turn a blind eye to problems, which were present for a long time, but were either understood by or affecting minorities or people deemed not worth caring about.

author: Circlotron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 03:47:31 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 08, 2023, 02:54:36 amPity Bob Hawke isn't still Australian Prime Minister then. Comedians and others had a great time with his voice back in the day.https://youtu.be/xz9BmAXW_Gs

author: David Aurora
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 03:58:10 am
content: Yeah, nah. I'll give it points for timbre- for a split second I was impressed on a word or two (FFT analysis of your voice vs the fake voice could be pretty interesting), but the accent difference was hilarious.Still, this time next year it'll probably be perfect

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 04:07:29 am
content: Quote from: Circlotron on May 08, 2023, 03:47:31 amTotally iconic!

author: golden_labels
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 05:07:45 am
content: It’s worth remembering, that person’s voice should not be considered secret from security perspective. I am mentioning this, because the general population believes information not offered to wider public audience is secret. Just like other similar instances, one’s voice is both both processed by many parties and easily obtainable in active attacks (a phone call, for example).Regarding fakes, a recommended movie:“The Congress” (2013).

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 05:31:14 am
content: If you go back a number of decades, the state of artifical voice technology, e.g. Stephen Hawking's, was:So, compared to that, rather noticeable robotic, non-human voice. It has come along, in leaps and bounds.If, because of medical reasons, one had to lose ones voice for a few months. I think the quality, is pretty good (as a temporary fix, until recovery from the medical situation). Even if it is not bang on, in a number of respects, such as accent.

author: chickenHeadKnob
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 08, 2023, 09:28:22 pm
content: I hear the the AI voice as averaging out and flattening your accent. Much in the same way people, typically actors who spend equal time in England and North America, are often accused of having a "mid" Atlantic accent.There is a fellow Australian you-tuber, Mr Green who makes parody videos of nilered. The voice is quite good. short:https://www.youtube.com/shorts/kBR4XuBH1AEHe describes his process in this video, skip to 15:16. He is somewhat coy as to the actual software he is using, there must be a non-disclosure clause.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2023, 04:02:47 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 08, 2023, 12:47:10 amI think those thousands of hours would probably improve your ability to tell the quality of something trying to imitate your voice. But there might still be residual psychological (biases) affects, because of the partially weird way, humans hear their own spoken words (speech).I suspect that if you phoned up some of the members of this forum. But used the 'text to speech' voice translator (as you did, in some of your recent AI videos). A number of members, would be fooled into thinking it was the real Dave Jones of EEVblog, voice talking.On the other hand. If you limited those 'test' phone calls, to only people who had already spoken to the real you by phone, on a huge number of occasions. E.g. At least many hundreds of hours. They would be considerably more likely to tell, it wasn't your real voice.I.e. It perhaps is good enough to 'fool' people, less familiar with the real you and/or people who are not so good, at telling if a speaker is real or not (fake).

author: Mr.B
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 09, 2023, 04:15:04 am
content: Dave: What is your wife’s opinion of the fake voice?She is probably the most qualified to rate its closeness to the real thing.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 09, 2023, 08:07:21 pm
content: For the first video its interesting how most people are saying "8/10 its Dave but without the accent". For me the accent is a huge difference, so it doesn't sound like him at all.Rough idea for my points scale might be:- average pitch 2pt- variation in pitch/intonations 2pt- cadence 2pt- accent 2pt+?- other ?Yeah its got the average pitch and cadence right, but, its missing the rest of it (accent, intonations). 4/10.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 03:09:55 am
content: Quote from: Mr.B on May 09, 2023, 04:15:04 amAsked her last night.Two words into CloneDave and she laughed and said pommy accent. She also rated it a complete fail because of the accent.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 03:12:17 am
content: Quote from: MK14 on May 09, 2023, 04:02:47 amAny "bias" would be because of where I'm from. I bet you there isn't a single aussie who would not identify the voice as clearly a british accent, and therefore rate it as a fail as a result.

author: MLXXXp
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 06:13:39 pm
content: An AI won't be able to believably sound like Dave unless it adds"and stuff like that","and things like that"or a similar filler at the end of every 3rd or 4th sentence that it's given to speak.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 07:00:30 pm
content: I'd say it sounds surprisingly close, like it could be Dave talking over the phone or recorded with a crappy microphone or something. It's not spot on, but it's probably 90% there and if someone told me that was Dave's voice I'd probably believe them.

author: MK14
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 10, 2023, 10:54:44 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 10, 2023, 03:09:55 amQuote from: EEVblog on May 10, 2023, 03:12:17 amYes, I own up, you have got me hook, line and sinker, here.Ironically, I've fallen, for exactly the phenomenon, that I was suggesting, you might be suffering from (bias and possible lack of proper perception, of how the speech actually sounds like, because it was your own voice).Because of my significant lack of experience with aussie accents, and I'm probably relatively (compared to the general/average population), not especially good with accents. I wasn't hit by anything like the same, hint/signal/signs, when listening to the 'fake' Dave Jones, voice patterns.[Wild Speculation]: Because of the way the AI system was trained, with (presumably) lots of available voices, which (also presumably) were American and British accent voices, rather than aussie ones. Perhaps that made the AI system you used to create the 'fake' voice, tend to create new voices, based very strongly on the training data (voices), which if they lack much/any aussie in them.Which perhaps means it will tend to make 'fake' voices, with potentially the wrong accents, if it was missing or mostly absent, from the original training data.But as I said, this is 'wild speculation', as I don't really know the specifics of how the system you used, was created and trained.

author: thm_w
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 11, 2023, 12:28:08 am
content: Been around many Australians so maybe thats why its easy to pick up. Just don't ask me to tell the difference between new zealand and australian accent.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 11, 2023, 02:04:35 am
content: Quote from: MK14 on May 10, 2023, 10:54:44 pmNo doubt.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 12, 2023, 08:14:21 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on May 11, 2023, 02:04:35 amSome would say that's discrimination.Is there anyone else with an unusual accent, but not close to standard British or American English, who's tried this? There's no point in me doing it, because my accent is fairly close to boring generic British. It would be interesting to see what it makes of a South African, or Scottish accent.

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 13, 2023, 01:04:20 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 12, 2023, 08:14:21 pmOf course, there are variations in the basic Aussie accent.A lot of people who "identify" as Australians are migrants from elsewhere who have been in this country for many years.English people in particular tend to develop an interesting "hybrid" accent over many years, which is still recognisably Australian, but is distinct enough for Australians to say "Ok, you are English by birth, but have spent a long time in Oz".*(Other "Poms", on the other hand, either keep their original accent, or lose any vestiges of it, & speak with a normal Australian accent)The late actor Trevor Goddard, although he only spent a few months in Perth WA years ago, had that accent "down pat", when he played ""Lt. Cmdr. Mick Brumby" RAN in the "JAG" TV series.Hearing it, I immediately placed him in the above*category.Mr Goddard showed the "knack" that some humans have for picking up nuances of accents, that it is "a bit of an ask" to expect AI to emulate at this quite early stage.Back in the day, when artificial speech was making its very basic steps, many of its early iterations sounded very "Dalek like", but people would start to "tune in" to them mentally, making their speech more understandable.I was quite happy with my adaptation to them, until I heard one speaking French!

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 11:06:41 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 12, 2023, 08:14:21 pmI'd pay money to hear an AI version of Mark Meechan (Count Dankula) try and do jokes.

author: AndyBeez
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 14, 2023, 02:14:20 pm
content: The UK is an accent soup. Not only can you tell from which city someone originates but also, from which side of that city. London I believe has at least 10 distinct accent groups? I will also add another London accent group which is a type ofsocial media accent. This whiney accent afflicts 20 somethings who grew up watching the Carcrashians onUTube. It'scommonEnglish mixed with west coast L.A. Makes the speaker sound double dimOn the subject of AI, PCs/Macs have system voices in many accents too. Test your localisation by asking the accented voice to speak various phrases. I found the Scottish accent on a Mac is highly adept at swearing - for some reason?!Haggis!Meanwhile, Apple's female system voice in an Aussie accent is calledKaren. I have no idea why that is? See [Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content > System Voice ] if you're interested in hearing "winner winner chicken dinner" uttered by a generic Cath and Kim.Comparing computer accents might make an interesting segment on the AmpHour/etc++ I'll add here the worse British English accent has to be the northern Irish or Ulster accent. Curiously, the southern Irish accent is one of the nicest. Weirdest is the impenitrable Newfoundland accent which is some mysterious blend of Gaelic, French and f-knows. As for the Kiwis, sorry to hear it's still legal to have six on a Sunday.

author: RJSV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 12:49:58 am
content: I'd give the BOT version a '7' and with my comment that I noticed, in the BOT's third sentence being read, that there was a noticable 'swell' or volume increase at the start of sentence. That sounded very natural 'human' to modulate speech like that.All you 'Dave's out there are way too precise, knowing and comparing to the BOT version, but most people don't listen so critically. To myself, that sounded human, and I wasn't looking for clues, that it should be 'Dave', only listened for generalities, and the BOT passed, largely on that one, change of volume spoken.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 06:25:38 am
content: Quote from: AndyBeez on May 14, 2023, 02:14:20 pmShe's real, and the voice of Siri, Garmin, Navman, and TomTomhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karen_Jacobsen

author: vk6zgo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 15, 2023, 07:56:16 am
content: Quote from: AndyBeez on May 14, 2023, 02:14:20 pmYou might enjoy the following;

author: AndyBeez
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2023, 09:43:10 am
content: New to iOS 17, Apple Personal Voice.QuoteThe future is nearly here. IOS17 roundup:https://www.macrumors.com/roundup/ios-17/

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2023, 11:18:33 am
content: Honestly, I've tried these text to speech voice cloning softwares.I've noticed that my voice was already changing if I was reading something, probably more than with the TTS.I've tried one that worked with something like a 20 second sample, you imagine you would need hours of sample to train it. And it got the tone quite alright. I think when we get the frameworks to process hours of recordings, and learn speech differences/dialects then it will be very difficult to distinguish. Because the TTS was pronouncing some words quite differently than I'm, well because not a native speaker and such.