Text to Speech: How It Works and How to Convert Text into Speech
Text to speech (TTS) turns written text into spoken audio. On Uberduck, you paste or type text, choose a language, and generate synthetic vocals for voiceovers, videos, music, or accessibility. The same platform also supports text to singing, text to rapping, voice conversion, and voice cloning, so TTS is often the starting point for a wider voice workflow.
What text to speech actually does
TTS reads your input text and produces an audio file that sounds like a person speaking. Uberduck describes its output as "realistic, expressive synthetic vocals" aimed at agencies, musicians, marketers, and creators.
Typical uses include:
- Voiceovers for videos, ads, and social media
- Podcast intros, outros, and background narration
- Accessibility: letting written content be listened to instead of read
- Music and creative projects where you need vocals without a recording session
If your goal is singing or rapping rather than plain speech, Uberduck separates those into their own modes (text to singing, text to rapping), so pick the mode that matches the output you want.
How to convert text into speech
- Enter your text. Uberduck shows a character counter of
0 / 350, so keep individual generations within that limit and split longer scripts into chunks. - Choose a language. The platform lists 70+ languages (see the coverage section below). Pick the language that matches your text so pronunciation rules apply correctly.
- Generate the audio. The result is synthetic speech you can use in your project.
- Review and re-generate if needed. If pacing or pronunciation is off, adjust the text (see common problems) and run it again.
If you need this at scale or inside an app, Uberduck also offers API access for text to speech, text to singing, text to rapping, and voice conversion — useful when you want to generate audio programmatically instead of through the interface.
Options to compare before you commit
| Dimension | What to check | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Voice style | Speech vs. singing vs. rapping | Each is a separate mode; a speech voice won't give you a sung line |
| Language coverage | Whether your language is in the 70+ list | Determines whether pronunciation will sound native |
| Custom voices | Whether you need voice cloning | Cloning lets you make a custom voice that can speak, sing, and rap |
| Voice replacement | Whether you need speech-to-speech | Speech-to-speech changes your voice to someone else's while preserving style |
| Commercial use | Plan terms | Uberduck states commercial use applies on any paid plan |
| Integration | API vs. interface | API suits automated or high-volume generation |
Language coverage
Uberduck lists support for 70+ languages, including Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Georgian, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Latvian, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Malay, Maltese, Mandarin, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh, and Zulu.
Check that your target language appears here before building a workflow around it — a missing language is a hard stop, not something you can fix with text edits.
How TTS connects to voice cloning and speech-to-speech
TTS is the base layer. Two related features extend it:
- Voice cloning — make a custom voice and let it speak, sing, and rap. Use this when a stock voice isn't distinctive enough for your brand or project.
- Speech-to-speech (voice conversion) — change your voice to someone else's while preserving your style. Use this when you already have a recording and want a different voice on top of it, rather than generating from text.
A practical sequence: generate a draft with standard TTS to lock in timing and wording, then move to cloning or conversion once the script is final. That avoids re-recording or re-cloning every time you tweak a sentence.
Common problems and fixes
Mispronunciations. Names, acronyms, and technical terms are the usual culprits. Rewrite them phonetically in the input text (for example, spell out how a name should sound) and regenerate.
Unnatural pacing. Long sentences and missing punctuation cause flat or rushed delivery. Break text into shorter sentences, add commas and periods where you want pauses, and regenerate in chunks rather than one long block.
Hitting the character limit. The 0 / 350 counter means long scripts must be split. Generate section by section and stitch the audio together afterward.
Language limits. If your language isn't in the supported list, TTS output won't be reliable. Confirm coverage first.
Wrong mode. If you want a sung or rapped line and you're getting plain speech, switch to the text-to-singing or text-to-rapping mode instead of trying to force it through standard TTS.
Where to go next
Start with a short test: one paragraph, your target language, standard TTS. If the result fits, scale up through the API or move into voice cloning for a custom voice. If you need music rather than narration, Uberduck's song creation generates tracks with lyrics in seconds and supports 70+ languages and hundreds of musical styles — no musical experience required, and commercial use applies on any paid plan.