Voice banking (clinical information)

Voice Banking

• What is the difference between voice banking, message banking, and voice cloning?

  ✓Supports this

  “Message banking can only play back the phrases you actually recorded. It cannot build new sentences you did not record.”

  The speech and language therapy professional body sets out the same limit, and adds the consequence: these recordings cannot be used to build new sentences by typing or spelling them.

  The individual message banking recordings can be added to an AAC device, though playback is limited to only what has been recorded — they cannot be used for generating novel messages by spelling (Costello, 2020).

  What is message banking and how is it different to voice banking?

• What is the difference between voice banking, message banking, and voice cloning?

  ✓Supports this

  “Message banking and voice banking are often done together, because each covers something the other does not.”

  The speech and language therapy professional body treats the two as complementary rather than alternatives, and says both sets of recordings can normally be used on the same device.

  Given the short time it may take to complete both, message banking and voice banking are frequently completed in parallel.

  What is message banking and how is it different to voice banking?

• How does voice banking work, and what is involved?

  !Qualifies this

  “How much recording is needed varies a lot between services, and can run to a few hundred prompts.”

  The speech and language therapy professional body gives a typical range that starts at a few hundred phrases but reaches well over a thousand, so a few hundred is the low end of what it describes.

  To create a PSV, a set-list of phrases needs to be recorded – often between 350 and 1600.

  What is voice banking?

• What if my voice has already changed?

  !Qualifies this

  “Recording can still be worth doing after speech has started to change, though what it produces will not be the voice as it was.”

  The speech and language therapy professional body warns that ordinary voice banking will not clean up speech that is already slurred or weak, so anything recorded now will carry that. It adds that clinical experience indicates the result may still be acceptable and useful to people, and that some people decide not to use the voice they have made.

  Voice banking with dysarthria or dysphonia will result in a PSV with dysarthria or dysphonia – there will be no 'correction' of any impairment.

  Role of the speech and language therapist

• What is voice banking (and message banking), and why do it?

  !Qualifies this

  “A voice built from your own recordings can sound recognisably like you on a communication device, rather than like a generic computer voice.”

  The speech and language therapy professional body puts the limit more strongly: a personalised synthetic voice can never be an exact replica, and it says some people are disappointed and feel the voice does not sound like them.

  It is also worth noting that the PSV can never be an exact replica of a person's voice and therefore some people may be disappointed and feel that the voice does not sound like them.

  Role of the speech and language therapist

• What is voice banking (and message banking), and why do it?

  ✓Supports this

  “Voice banking and message banking work best while speech is still clear, which is why they are worth understanding early.”

  The speech and language therapy professional body gives the same timing guidance for both approaches, and puts the point to act before speech quality has changed noticeably. It also says people should be given enough information as early as possible to decide for themselves, which is the reason for raising it early.

  Voice banking and message banking are best carried out before there is significant change to speech quality.

  Role of the speech and language therapist

• When should I do voice banking?

  ✓Supports this

  “A synthetic voice reproduces the speech as it sounded on the day it was recorded, including slurring or weakness. Standard voice banking does not correct it.”

  States plainly that banking a voice that is already slurred or weak produces a synthetic voice that is slurred or weak in the same way, and that nothing in the process fixes it.

  Voice banking with dysarthria or dysphonia will result in a PSV with dysarthria or dysphonia – there will be no 'correction' of any impairment.

  Role of the speech and language therapist

• When should I do voice banking?

  ✓Supports this

  “The usual advice is to bank a voice sooner rather than later, while speech is still clear.”

  The speech and language therapy professional body places the point to act before speech quality has changed noticeably, and gives the same guidance for message banking.

  Voice banking and message banking are best carried out before there is significant change to speech quality.

  Role of the speech and language therapist