VOICE banking and messaging

I laid in the hospital with my phone in hand, my voice boomed surround sound style. The nurse or doctor would be like where is that coming from? How did you do that? I've never seen anyone do that before!

I would think first instinct for anyone finding out they would never speak again would be what tech can i use to speak? right? I rifled through the lack of organized data on the internet and sure enough found i could have 'Sexy French voice' or a cute Aussie accent! AHAH then i found that i could get my own voice synthesized!! I've never really been fond of my voice - but when you find out its going a way you get attached pretty quick. I actually feel a little bit guilty about how i thought of my voice all these years..poor little voice. It was perfectly fine and i was always down on it.

For some unknown reason the information on Voice Banking and Messaging is not well summarized anywhere i could find. So i had to pull out a spreadsheet and get to it. I decided to hedge my bets and record with as many of the sites as i could - the quality really seems to ebb and flow between companies so i'm super glad i did. Especially if you want to have some emphatic obscenities on hand, its the way to go!

My Short list and what I gather so far:

• SpeakUnique : decent phone app and pretty good voice rendition, with the exception that the company is out of the UK so they inadvertantly gave my voice a touch of an accent.

• Acapela: i have no idea what it sounds like yet because the give it to you as cryptic bunch of downloaded files that should be able to be used with an AAC. (a tablet that allows speech for those without).

• Voicekeeper: This voice actually sounds most like my own so far. However, the phone app sucks. I might be able to use this later on depending on the AAC device i chose.

• Cereproc: ummmm...i just got the first draft back on this voice and i sound like i'm about 150 years old so we will see where this one goes.

• Tobii message banking: this is message banking (clips of exact phrases that are pre-recorded). Not sure how well this integrates yet in other systems.

During the next few months i will be sorting through different tablet AAC options and will update with more info on the voices.

In the meantime i found the best phone app was via Speak Unique. BUT i super suggest getting a decent external speaker and a bluetooth keyboard. The iphone can only pump out so much volume so if you are in a louder environment or have a loud family like myseld, it just doesn't cut it. AND for me at least. I can type a billion times faster than i can text.