The Top 6 AI Voice Generators of 2024
Creating a voice-over can be quite challenging.
From multiple takes to perfect your performance, limited rehearsal time, and mastering audio editing software, the process can be overwhelming. Even with all this effort, without a professional studio, background noise can ruin your perfect take.
AI voice generators have come a long way, offering impressively best realistic results. These AI text-to-speech tools have significantly improved in quality, realism, and control, allowing you to create a natural-sounding rendition of your text without needing a studio setup.
The Best AI Voice Generators
- ElevenLabs for a wide range of realistic voices
- Speechify for human-like cadence
- WellSaid for precise word-by-word control
- Respeecher for engaging speech variations
- Altered for diverse narration styles
- Murf for emphasis control
What Defines the Best AI Voice Generator?
The best AI voice generators stand out by producing natural and realistic speech, almost as if a real person is speaking.
Besides this intuitive criterion, each platform offers various settings for customization, such as pronunciation, pitch, volume, and pace. For those going fully AI, learning Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) can provide detailed control over each word’s delivery. However, overusing these features can detract from the quality and realism.
Key Focus Areas in Testing the Best AI Voice Generators:
- Realism: These apps provide realistic speech with natural tone variations and pauses.
- Controls: Options for pitch, volume, pace, and pronunciation allow fine-tuning.
- Audio Quality: Searched for the highest export audio quality to ensure usability in any project.
- Voice Library: A variety of voices, including different languages, offers greater flexibility.
- Extras: Additional tools for generating voice, such as audio-to-audio conversion or AI model training, were considered.
- Narration Pacing: Humans vary their reading speed to add emphasis and engagement. Effective AI models replicate this variation.
- Intonation: Good intonation involves natural pitch variations throughout sentences. Many subpar models lacked this, sounding robotic and lifeless.
- Emotional Performance: Some apps offer emotional renditions (sad, excited, whispered).
While evaluating the best AI voice generator for your needs, remember that minor imperfections are often forgivable, as your audience will focus on other aspects of your content as well. Here are this year's top picks.
The Best AI Voice Generators
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Best AI Voice Generator for Hundreds of Realistic Voices
ElevenLabs (Web) ElevenLabs example output
ElevenLabs is the top choice for generating hundreds of realistic voices, offering a voice library with over 300 options, including licensable AI-powered versions of real people like Christy Carlson Romano, the TV actress and voice of Disney's Kim Possible.
With such a wide selection of voices, the platform provides efficient search and filtering tools. By clicking on "Voices" in the left-side menu and then selecting the "Voice Library" tab, users can search for voices by name or browse through categories based on style or purpose, such as conversational or advertisement-oriented voices. The voices can be sorted by trending status, output frequency, and more. Advanced filters also allow users to refine voices by category, gender, age, language, and accent.
Liked voices can be added to the "Voice Lab" for easy selection in the speech generation tool. After pasting text or uploading an audio track, users can select the desired voice and click "Generate." If the initial result isn't satisfactory, adjustments can be made by choosing a different AI model or tweaking settings like stability, similarity, style exaggeration, and speaker boost.
ElevenLabs is valued at $1B and continues to grow, offering flexibility and quality despite its less powerful controls compared to other platforms on this list.
ElevenLabs price: Free for ~10 minutes of audio per month; paid plans start at $5/month (or $50/year) for ~30 minutes of audio and extra features like voice cloning.
Best AI Voice Generator for Human-Like Cadence
Speechify (Web, iOS, Android) Speechify example output
Speechify excels in generating human-like cadence, creating outputs that sound like they were performed by a skilled voice actor. The voices are calm, well-paced, and maintain a good balance between variation and consistency.
Although Speechify brands itself as a platform for reading text aloud for productivity purposes, such as listening while driving or walking, it also offers a tool for generating and downloading voices for projects. In the Speechify Studio, users can adjust speed, pitch, volume, pronunciation, and pauses for the generated voice.
Extras include a tool for creating slide-based videos by adding background music and exporting the result, and the ability to add a user's own voice to the platform for personalized generation.
Speechify price: Free without the option to download; paid plans start at $24/user/month (billed annually) or $69/user/month (billed monthly).
Best AI Voice Generator for Word-by-Word Control
WellSaid (Web) WellSaid Labs example output
WellSaid Labs offers precise control over voice generation, allowing adjustments to be made down to individual words if necessary. In the editor, users can select specific words or phrases to adjust loudness or pace and modify punctuation pauses.
Pronunciation adjustments can be made via the "Pronunciation" tab in the left-side menu, allowing for custom respelling of words. The platform also offers a Resources section with guides to help users get started and collaborate with others by sharing project links for feedback.
WellSaid Labs price: Free trial available; paid plans start at $44/month (billed annually) or $49/month (billed monthly).
Best AI Voice Generator for Engaging Speech Variations
Respeecher (Web) Respeecher example output
Respeecher excels in adding engaging speech variations to its generated voices, making the narration more interesting and natural-sounding. The platform allows users to generate different voices or narration styles and offers settings for pitch calibration, emotional range, and general audio properties.
Users can input text, upload audio files, or record live using a microphone. Respeecher also offers the ability to train AI models with custom voices, making it possible to create an entire cast of characters.
Respeecher price: From $4/month.
Best AI Voice Generator for Narration Style Variety
Altered (Web, Desktop) Altered example output
Altered offers a wide range of narration styles, allowing users to change pitch and rhythm to convey different tones. The platform includes real-time morphing, post-production morphing, rapid voice creation, text-to-speech generation, and an audio editor with numerous controls.
The text-to-speech tool provides various narration styles, and users can experiment to find the best fit for their script. The audio editor allows for advanced editing features like transcription, speech generation, and noise removal.
Altered price: Limited free plan available; paid plans start at $6/month.
Best AI Voice Generator for Emphasis Control
Murf (Web) Murf AI example output
Murf offers powerful emphasis control, allowing users to change the meaning and feel of a sentence by emphasizing different words. The emphasis control button is located next to the play button and provides a high-medium-low scale for adjusting emphasis on each word.
Additional controls include speed, pitch, pauses, and custom pronunciation. Murf also features a wide range of narrative styles, video and music integration, and collaboration tools for team projects.
Murf price: Free for 10 minutes of voice generation and 2 projects; paid plans start at $23/month (billed annually) or $29/month (billed monthly).