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It sounds okay, but it lacks emotion and is monotone for fiction, it's the voice equivalent of the uncanny valley, which is probably fine if you don't really care.
I would for sure not want this for fiction, it's too obvious that the voice has no understanding whatsoever of the text, but it's probably pretty nice for converting short news texts or notifications to audio.
Your point is a valid one, but I want to add to it that it is also a matter of expectations and how one listens. Years ago, when I was dating someone who spoke Russian as one of her native languages, we had to do a funny compromise when watching films together with her parents: they didn't speak a word of English, so we'd use the Russian dub with English subtitles. I noticed that the Russian dub was just one man read…
On the one hand, this is very convenient. Probably cool for some non-fiction. On the other, some of my favorite audio books all stood out because the narrator was interpreting the text really well, for example by changing the pacing during chaotic moments. Or those audiobooks with multiple narrators and different voices for each character. Not to mention that sometimes the only cue you get for who's speaking during d…
> On the other, some of my favorite audio books all stood out because the narrator was interpreting the text really well This (and everything else with AI) isn't saying "you don't need good actors any more". It's saying "if you don't have an audiobook, you can make a mediocre one automatically". AI (text, images, videos, whatever) doesn't replace the top end, it replaces the entire bottom-to-middle end.
Was just looking for a TTS model to run locally for reading out loud articles, and never heard about Kokoro before! This looks great. I wonder if it can run in the browser somehow - could be a nice WebExtension.
https://k2-fsa-web-assembly-tts-sherpa-onnx-en.static.hf.spa...
I would love to have an e-reader that allows me to switch between text and audio at the press of a button. Imagine reading your book on the couch and then switching into audio mode while doing the dishes seamlessly, by connecting bluetooth headphones.
For Android:
- Moon+ reader pro - some paid high-quality TTS voices (like Acapella)
For iOS:
- Kybook reader and internal iOS voices (no external TTS voices for the walled garden)
This works well enough to listen to a book while you walk and when you get back home read on the WC from the place you stopped.
Additionally if you buy a tablet or an android ebook reader, you install the app there an you can continue on your bigger/better device seamlessly.
Whisper-sync for the masses! Ahoy...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I guess this is still very useful if you are blind.
Yeah, for accessibility purposes on things that aren't already narrated, this is kind of thing is huge.
oh, and it's also a boon for those who can't afford to buy audiobooks.
Was just looking for a TTS model to run locally for reading out loud articles, and never heard about Kokoro before! This looks great. I wonder if it can run in the browser somehow - could be a nice WebExtension.
I know it should work for Firefox on an article in reader mode.
Or in MacOS you can select text and have it read out loud.
All these AI text to voice models seem to ignore emotion. It always sounds like a robot.
https://emosphere-tts.github.io/
We are getting there