Custom Voiceovers and TTS (Text-to-Speech) Voiceovers

Voiceover is implemented into the content with the built-in text-to-speech generator or as individual audio files. Each Content Step can be assigned one voiceover, which will be played once as soon as the Content Step is accessed. It’s recommended to use text-to-speech voiceovers during the creation phase, and only record acted voiceovers once the content has been tested enough.

Text-to-speech voiceovers

To implement text-to-speech voiceovers into the tutorial, the voices to be used have to be defined in settings.

Add a new voice
Add a new language (English is set as default)
Give the voice a name
Edit voice settings
1) Engine
2) Voice name
3) Voice type
4) Use SSML in text
5) Processing
6) Filter

After the voices are added in the settings, the voiceovers can by applied to Content Blocks in the Inspector menu.

Subtitles are added normally

Apply text-to-speech voiceover

Text to use instead of subtitle

Recorded voiceovers

It’s recommended to name the files to match the step names. For Example a step could be named “SET-005 Shuffle the red cards” and the accompanying voiceover file could be named ‘SET-005.mp3‘.

General guideline for voiceover files:

Filetype: MP3

Bitrate: ~128kbps

Sampling Frequency: 44100KHz

Channels: Mono

Padding: 150-200ms of Silence at the beginning and end of each segment

PEAK: max -3 dBFS

RMS: between -18 and -16 dBFS

Guidelines

● Use the best possible equipment available (microphone, preamp, acoustically treated room, microphone reflection filters, etc.)
● Recording space needs to be quiet from outside noise.
● Use a studio environment or acoustically treated room to minimize room echo. (Any soft material on walls and floors is better than nothing).
● Set recording level so that the audio doesn’t clip and monitor that constantly during recording (meaning that the audio level never exceeds 0dBFS).
● Match the selected style throughout the recording.
● Make the voice actor comfortable, remember to have regular pauses and to drink water occasionally (dry mouth emphasizes nasty mouth click sounds).
● It is recommended to record several takes of a line (especially in the beginning of the recording) and select the best take for the Deliverable.
● If in doubt which delivery style would work best for a certain line, feel free to put two versions into the file, but please remember the notify the Client (comment in the content document)