Spoken Beta V0.8.6a: Personal Voice and Emotional Cueing

You might notice that this release is labeled 0.8.6a. The "a" indicates that this is the first of two releases with big (and very related) changes when it comes to narration. Today we announce the release of Personal Voice and Emotional Cueing, among other fixes. Soon, we'll reveal v0.8.6b which will introduce an entirely new era of voice automation.

Personal Voice Cloning

We've heard you, memoirists and nonfiction authors (and YOU, SF authors who want to use your own voice for that 9-armed alien!) You can now clone your own voice and have exclusive use of it for your stories.Manage and customize your voice clone anytime from the Voices tab.

You can upload up to 10MB of audio, or record your voice in real time using our training script.

Once cloned, your voice will be available to manage from the Voices tab, and selectable for any character or narrator as the first in your Custom Voices list.

Emotion Detection & Cueing

Spoken intelligently detects the emotional tone of any dialog passage—whether joyful, tense, melancholic, or anything in between. Beginning with this release, we are using that tone to emotionally cue the voice, and we allow you to edit the tone to match your creative intent. Want a sorrowful scene to feel hopeful instead? One click and the emotion is transformed. Note: Your mileage may vary based on the voice being used.

Speak it countdown

When you use Speak It to deliver that perfect passage, rather than immediately beginning to record (which often caught mouse clicks) you’ll now see: 3, 2, 1… record!

Other passage editor changes

• Force renarration is now under fine-tuning

• An "Update" button now appears on an individual passage after it is changed

• A trash can icon has been added to delete the passage

• Passage editor tips and tricks link added to the passages page

Content Moderation Message

If the voice clone owner has content restrictions, we’ve added a message that lets you know when a passage has been flagged: 

"This voice has moderation enabled and the passages outlined in red contain information our narration partner has flagged. Please edit the passage or choose a different voice to continue."

Publish date fix

The publish date now reflects the date that your project was actually made public. If you have a project waiting in drafts for a couple of months and finally release it to the public, your publish date will reflect that date.