More on Voice Banking

I mentioned Voice Banking in my last post – here’s a few more details.  Almost everyone with ALS eventually lose their voice – it can be one of the first signs in ALS called Bulbar Symptoms.  I find Bulbar Symptoms perhaps one of the most distressing aspects of the disease – but what is is.  And I don’t get to vote.

When I first heard about losing my voice I didn’t think it was such a big deal. I figured I’d just pick a voice out there; how about Steve Hawkins’ voice?  Or better yet – Darth Vader to scar the dogs!  However about a month ago Susannah mentioned that she wanted to hear my voice – not someone else’s.  So I started investigating Voice Banking. 

So I’ve started using an on-line program called ModelTalker– which is a free service for those losing their voice.  It’s funded through grants and donations – a truly remarkable organization.

There are a couple of things that you have to do before starting the process – first you have to get a very good microphone & headset.  I bought one they recommended from Amazon for about $45 – the Sennheiser PC 36 Call Control USB Binaural Headset. 

Next you have to find a silent location to record in.  When I started we were traveling in our Airstream trailer – which when all windows are closed is amazingly quiet.  So that was been my recording studio; now it’s my home office.

ModelTalker’s process is for you to record your voice using prescribed sentences.  They show you a sentence then the reader reads the sentence and you try to repeat the sentence as closely as possible.  They then rate how you repeated based upon amplitude, pacing and pronunciation.  The goal is to record 1600 sentences! 

Eventually ModelTalker will use the 1600 sentences to generate your own synthetic voice.  The sentences are from “The Wizard of Oz”, “The Call of the Wild” and other classics. 

Ironically long before my ALS I have frequently joked that the only foreign language I know is English, and I don’t even speak that very well (as an aside, I was born and raised in the U.S.).  At one point in the recording process I was having trouble pronouncing a word.  After a number of tries, I finally got it correct - I mentioned to Susannah that I’ve had trouble with pronunciation – she quipped “What’s new about that?”

It takes me about 45 minutes to record 100 sentences.  You can listen to your sentence recording and re-do it if needed.  You can also hear a sample of a synthetic voice based on the number of samples already recorded.  I’m currently about half way done with the process.  Here are 2 examples – the first is my current voice:

 While the second is a sample of the synthetic voice:

My voice has been changing – I am quieter then normal, my speech rate has slowed down, I’m having trouble with some pronunciation and it gets harder to speak as the day wears on.  This morning for the first time I noticed I’m getting tongue fasciculations. So there’s some urgency to my recordings now. 

Emotions, Voice Banking and Laughter

Part of ALS is that my body reacts without my being able to stop it.  If there’s a loud noise, I’ll startle/jump to the extreme.   Our bodies are very good at suppressing the startle reaction – mine isn’t any longer. 

One thing very strange about ALS is that emotions become magnified.  It’s almost like there’s a mind-body connection in that just as my physical reactions are magnified, so are my emotional responses.  I laugh a lot and at weird times and situations (I also get teary and cry more easily, but that’s another story).  My laughter doesn’t come out as just a giggle – this is a full-body-run-out-of-breath-gasp-for-air laugh!  It’s kind of infectious.  Things just strike me as funny and I can’t stop myself.  Word of warning – don’t say anything funny while I’m eating or I’ll either spit what ever I have in my mouth across the table, or aspirate it.  At which point you may have to do the heimlich maneuver on me ;-)

So a few days ago I was talking with Susannah about the “Voice Banking” I’m doing and she asked me “how does voice banking work – that is do you ‘bank’ specific phrases or what?”  

I told her “there are two types of voice banking – one is that you ‘bank’ certain phrases so that later when you’ve lost your voice you can ‘select’ phrases from a list on your computer/device.  The other way is that you record a series of sentences which are used to create an synthetic voice which sounds like your voice.  I’m working on creating a synthetic voice that sounds like me.  Then as I type in words or phrases, the synthetic voice will say whatever I’ve typed.”

I continued, “for example if was doing the first version of voice banking mentioned above, I could pre-record and store the phrase ‘WTF’ (I’ll let you fill in the initials) then when I want to say that I would select it off a list.  In my case I’m working on a synthetic voice.  So that means I’ll have to type in what I want to say; that is the synthetic voice depends on my typing things in – and since I’m a poor typist it would come out as ‘What’…..(I paused for 5 seconds)…. ‘the’ …….. (I again pause for 5 seconds) … “  At this point I never got to the last word because I was laughing so hard – which got Susannah going as well!