How to Use ElevenLabs - Best Text to Speech AI Voices (FULL GUIDE)

You're about to discover how to harness the power of 11 Labs, a tool that can transform text into speech and even let you create unique voice designs. This tool is an exceptional AI voice generator offering realistic voice outputs. Whether you're looking to clone your voice or use pre-made options, this tool offers great versatility. Though the basic version is free, opting for the starter plan provides more benefits like extra usage limits and a commercial license, making it an affordable choice.

Exploring 11 Labs reveals its deeper capabilities beyond simple text-to-speech tasks. The AI adapts to different writing styles, adding emotion and unique vocal characteristics. There are several settings you can adjust to fine-tune the voice output, ensuring a result that meets your needs. Whether you're involved in professional projects or just experimenting, 11 Labs provides the tools to achieve amazing results.

Key Takeaways

  • Understand the features of 11 Labs for voice generation.
  • Explore settings to customise voice outputs.
  • Engage with advanced functions beyond basic text-to-speech.

Summary of 11Labs

Main Characteristics

11Labs is a tool for speech synthesis that lets you turn text into speech and even customise voices. It offers both text-to-speech and speech-to-speech options, giving you flexibility in creating realistic voices. You can clone voices or create new ones, and it’s incredibly lifelike compared to other options. Customisation is key, as you can choose from a range of voices, styles, and emotions. This allows the tool to act more like a voice actor than a simple text-to-speech tool.

Cost and Options

If you want to try 11Labs, you can start for free, though it does limit your usage. The basic plan is very affordable, starting at just a dollar for the first month and $5 thereafter. With this plan, you get to create up to 10 custom voices with a limit of 30,000 characters, equating to about 30 minutes of audio. It also includes a commercial license, allowing you to use it in paid projects. For those needing more, upgrading to the creator’s plan lifts character limits, offering more flexibility as your needs grow.

Learning About the Voice Generator

Finding Your Way Around the Platform

When you first enter the tool, the speech generation feature is your default starting point. You’ll see options for Text to Speech and Speech to Speech. Take some time to explore these options. Within the settings, there are crucial dropdown menus that help you get the results you want. Your first option is choosing from pre-made voices, and the platform offers a variety of male and female voices for you to explore.

Using Ready-Made Voices

The dropdown menu includes a wide array of pre-made voice options. You'll find multiple accents and tones, each tagged with its style and recommended use. For instance, tags like meditation, news presenter, and more help you choose the right voice. Explore and preview different voices by simply clicking on them, and listen to samples to get a feel for how they sound.

Tuning Voice Features

In the settings, explore three main sliders: stability, clarity and similarity enhancement, and style exaggeration. Move the stability slider to adjust the consistency of the voice. Clarity and similarity enhancement dictate how well the AI mimics an original voice. Lastly, style exaggeration attempts to amplify the speaker's style, but this is experimental and can lead to instability. Play around with these sliders to see what suits your needs best.

Investigating Language Models

The platform offers different language models, allowing you to select one based on your project’s requirements. The multilingual V2 model is often recommended for the best results, as it provides higher quality outputs. Switch between models to understand their unique features and decide which one aligns with your goals.

In-Depth Look at Settings

Reliability and Changeability

In the voice generation tool, there is a slider that controls how stable or varied the speech sounds. Moving the slider to the right leads to a steadier sound, but risks sounding boring. Sliding it in the opposite direction creates more lively speech, with differences from one generation to the next. This can add excitement, but if pushed too far, the voice may lack consistency. For longer texts, it's wise to keep stability higher for reliable output. For shorter pieces, a bit less stability can bring interesting results.

Clear Sound and Voice Matching

Another setting in the tool focuses on how closely the AI mimics the original voice. If the base audio has poor quality, using a high setting might carry over background noises. For pre-made voices or good quality audio, setting it high works well. It's often best to leave this on default, particularly when starting out. Experimenting with this can bring a variety of results, letting you discover interesting voice effects.

Style and Voice Boost

The style feature amplifies the original speaker's manner. Available in the newer multilingual model, this setting can bring creative variations. Pushing the slider up increases unpredictability, resulting in some uncommon outputs. It's typically recommended to keep this setting at zero for regular use. Alongside this is the speaker boost, normally on by default. It slightly enhances how much the output sounds like the original speaker. Changes here are usually minimal, so the default setting is generally sufficient.

Distinct Abilities of 11Labs AI

Contextual Interpretation

11Labs AI goes beyond being just a basic text-to-speech tool. It has the ability to understand the context in which the text is written. This means that if you compose text in the style of a novel, the AI tries to capture the essence of the setting and the characters involved. This feature adds a level of depth to audio generation, making the experience more engaging for listeners.

Emotional Variety and Expressiveness

With various settings, 11Labs AI can produce speech with a wide range of emotions. This is more like having a virtual voice actor than just a typical text-to-speech service. You can adjust sliders for stability and variability to either maintain consistency or add emotional expressiveness. Pushing these settings can result in fun and creative voice outputs, allowing you to experiment and achieve different tones and styles in your projects.

Identifying Applications

When you begin using 11 Labs, you'll see that it has more capabilities than just converting text to speech. The innovative AI can interpret and express different contexts and emotions, giving your projects a more natural touch. It's like having a voice actor instead of a basic tool.

The first step is selecting the voice. You'll find a range of male and female voices with various accents and styles. Each voice comes with tags indicating the accent, such as American or British, the tone, like whispering or calm, and the recommended use, like narration or news presentation.

Next, explore the settings to refine your results. One key slider is stability, which affects the consistency of the voice output. Another is clarity and similarity, important for how closely the voice aligns with your original input. These settings allow you to customise the audio for different projects or media.

You can also experiment with style exaggeration to amplify the speaker's original style. This feature can add flair to your creations, though it may introduce some variability. Use the speaker boost option for enhancing the resemblance to the source voice, though it often results in subtle changes. Each adjustment helps you tailor voice outputs to fit various creative needs, from podcasts to promotional videos.

Using the Speech to Speech Function

In exploring the speech to speech feature, you first access it by selecting the relevant task option in the 11 Labs tool. This feature allows you to convert recorded speech into a realistic AI-generated voice. It relies on context to deliver appropriate tone and style in the output.

When operating this feature, you'll find three main settings to consider:

  1. Pre-made Voices: You can choose from a variety of pre-made voices, each with tags indicating accent, tone, and suggested use. For example, the accent might be American or British, the tone might be whispering or calm, and the use case might be for meditation or narration.

  2. Voice Settings: This involves sliders for stability, clarity, and style exaggeration. A higher stability makes the voice more consistent, while more variability introduces expression into the voice. Clarity settings help match the AI voice closely to the original, but caution is needed as too high a setting may introduce background noise if source quality is poor.

  3. Language Models: You can switch between different models, such as English V1 or multilingual V2. Models have different features and the recommendation generally is to use the multilingual V2 for superior quality in the AI-generated voice.

Experimenting with these settings could lead to interesting and diverse outcomes, providing you with a robust tool for audio content creation.

Final Suggestions and Tips

To get the most out of Eleven Labs, it's best to start with the Starter Plan. This plan is budget-friendly, offering 10 custom voices and 30,000 characters for voiceover work, which equals nearly 30 minutes of audio. The first month is especially cheap, costing about the price of a coffee. This plan also includes a commercial licence, allowing use for paid projects.

Settings To Consider:

  • Voice Selection: Choose from a variety of pre-made voices. These voices come with tags like accent, tone, and recommended use. For example, you'll find American, Irish, or British accents and various styles like calm or whispering. Choose based on the feel you want for your project.

  • Stability Slider: Adjusting this affects how consistent or variable the voice output will be. For shorter content, experiment with a less stable setting for more expressive results. For longer projects, a stable setting works better.

  • Clarity and Similarity Enhancement: This setting makes sure that the generated voice stays true to your chosen audio or voice. If your original recording is clear, set this high. Otherwise, consider lowering it to avoid background noise in the output.

  • Style Exaggeration: Available only with the multilingual V2 model, this increases the expressiveness of the voice but can lead to instability at higher settings. Keep it at zero for consistency unless you want to explore creative outcomes.

  • Speaker Boost: This enhances similarity to the original speaker but usually has a minor effect. It's typically best left toggled on.

For ultimate performance, switching to the multilingual V2 model generally provides the highest quality in voice generation.