The Complete Guide to Add Text-to-speech to your TikTok Videos

Tiktok - Always one step ahead

Tiktok is loved in many countries among the Gen Z population due to its ease of use and fancy features. TikTok has consistently been a step ahead in the innovation game, since its inception, with it being among the first platforms to introduce short-length video formats.

Tiktok empowered creators by simplifying video creation without the hassles of editing and publishing. An idea that revolutionized content creation and helped Gen Zs fulfill their dreams of making careers in movies, skits, parodies, etc.

TTS in TikTok

Source: FreewaySocial

In late 2020, TikTok added new functionality to their app - a text-to-speech generator. You have probably seen reels where a distinctive Siri-like voice narrates a text over the video. Adding ironic AI voiceovers with TTS to funny clips has transpired into a trend.

Last year, TikTok came under public scrutiny for the unethical use of a voice artist’s voice IP in its TTS service. Soon after, it made a comeback with a brand new TTS voice and varied features. Creators took an instant liking to the voice, and a barrage of unforeseen TTS memes and trends followed.

Advantages of TTS in videos

The union of cutting-edge AI-voice technology with video opened doors for small creators to make their content accessible. And the flood of creative content as TTS was made accessible to the general public was unforeseen.

Accessibility

TTS helps make content inclusive and accessible for all kinds of audiences. People with visual impairments or learning disabilities benefit from the added layer of comprehension through voiceovers. In fact, the text feature in TikTok can be used to create closed captioning as well.

Knowledge localizations and tutorials

TTS voiceovers are utilized as an assistive medium for educational content. Learning from non-native language sources becomes easier with text-to-speech translations. There are plenty of tutorials and guide videos that use TTS to reach a wider and global audience. TTS educational accounts are popping up in large numbers to cater to the open market.

Parody and entertainment content

The combination of TTS narration and comedy clips is in vogue, a phenomenon that results in unanticipated laughs. Be it inanimate objects talking or a caustic comment in a plain AI voice, the surprise element, and its absurdity are bound to gather chuckles.

TTS in entertainment makes up for some extremely binge-worthy content. Let us see how you can add TTS over TikTok videos and become a part of this growing craze. Or craft a new trend entirely.

How to add TTS narration to TikTok videos in iOS

1. Launch the app and record your video

You need to have a recorded video before adding TTS to it. So start by launching the TikTok app and then hit the red recording button at the bottom. You might zoom in and out of the frame by moving your thumb up and down over the screen. Finish the recording by lifting your thumb off the screen.

Source: Howfinity

2. Add your desired text

Click on the text (‘Aa’) button at the bottom of the app and type in the text you want to convert into speech. While at it, you can also style the text with different fonts and style choices. You might give it a bold font or make the background black and the text white.

Source: TechJunkie Source: Lofi Alpaca

3. Adjust the duration and placement of your text

By default, the text you type will appear for the complete duration of the video. But you can change this by long-pressing the text. A new option selector will appear- Text to Speech, Set-duration, and Edit.

Source: FreewaySocial

Tap set-duration to open the edit window where the length for the TTS text can be manipulated.

4. Turn on the text-to-speech feature

Now that our text is visually appealing and edited to the right duration, we can move to the final step. Once again, long-press the text to open up the selection menu. Select the text-to-speech menu from the list - aptly labeled “text-to-speech.”

Source: Howfinity

An important thing to note is that the text-to-speech will play for the exact duration of the text over your video. If you would like your TTS narration to start from the get-go, you will have to change the duration of TTS from the set duration menu discussed in the preceding step.

5. Find your desired voice style

TikTok offers six different voice AIs with unique styles and cadence of speech. You will see an array of different voice styles in the text-to-speech module. Try these AI voices to understand which one best fits the video. Both male and female voices are provided in the selection.

Source: How To Apps

Select the voice you want and hit the apply button that says - apply ‘voice bot’ to the following text-to-speech. You have now successfully added TTS to your TikTok video. Yay!!!

How to add TTS without the text

What if you don't want the text to show alongside your TTS narration? Well, there is a nifty little trick to the rescue. Decrease/zoom out the text and make it the smallest size. After that, just drag the text out of the frame to the left or right. This way, the text will become invisible, and the TTS narration will play without any hiccups.

An alternative!

There is another way to add TTS to your videos. Instead of accessing the TTS menu by clicking the text, you can add TTS directly while typing in the text as well. Tap on the ‘speaking head’ icon to activate text-to-speech while composing the text.

Word of advice - Both these features and TTS will only work when your TikTok app is up to date. So make sure you have that covered by checking the app store on your phone.

How to add text-to-speech to TikTok videos on Android

The steps to add TTS are virtually the same on Android and iOS. Let's go over them quickly:

1. Launch the TikTok App and record

Choose your frame and record your video by tapping the red button on the screen. Ideally, TikTok provides 15 and 60-sec video recordings. But in the new updates, it is possible to record up to ten minutes by changing the timer on the screen.

2. Type in your text for TTS

Add in your text on the screen by accessing the ‘Aa’ icon at the bottom of the app. You can also format the text with different typefaces and colors found in the edit options at the bottom of the screen. This text will be the input for the TTS engine.

Source: TechJunkie

3. Add the text-to-speech

Tap and hold the text to access the “Text to Speech” option. Bring forth the TTS module by pressing the text-to-speech icon. A default AI voice - called Alex - will narrate your text over the video. You can change the voice by selecting from the different AI voices of Joey, Eddie, Chris, and Jessie.

Alternatively, like in the iOS app, you can also open up the TTS module while typing with the ‘speaking head’ icon. Tap it to bring forth the TTS menu and the different AI voices.

So far, you’ve learned how to use TTS in TikTok. You are equipped to make your own TTS videos and amaze the internet now. But wait, are you wondering what kind of video you should create?

Here are four unique ideas to inspire you to create TTS content on TikTok.

Few interesting ideas to implement with TTS

1. Story narration

TTS voiceovers are highly effective in narrating incidents over TikTok videos. Maybe you want to narrate a personal anecdote or vocalize a text conversation. With TTS, you have the ability to narrate the whole story in the blink of an eye.

2. Deadpan humor voice

The signature dry voice of TikTok TTS is perfect for deadpan commentary and humor. It gels quite well, especially with ironic or sarcastic parodies where the unemotive AI voice makes the video so much funnier.

3. Personify pets and inanimate objects

Watching dogs and cats speak in funny accents is almost everyone's guilty pleasure. TTS makes it possible for your pets to have a vocal personality and share their animal-worldly concerns. That idea alone can lead to hilarious videos.

4. Funny Mispronunciations

Tiktok TTS is still nascent and is being improved simultaneously. So it is natural that mispronunciations seep in for particular native languages. Sometimes the incorrect articulations are hysterically absurd and weird. Tiktok is filled with videos of TTS butchering a word into a blend of comedy and tragedy.

However, there are TTS generators available in the market that are super refined and nuanced. We introduce, Listnr.

Towards more flexibility and customizations with Listnr TTS

Although the TTS in Tiktok is barebones and minimalistic, it practically covers most everyday use requirements. The five preloaded TTS voices provide a reasonable mix of male and female voices with different personalities.

But what if you want more control over the TTS voices? You may intend to alter the voice speed, play with the speech cadence, and fine-tune the pronunciations of local words. Such customizations can only be performed in an advanced TTS engine. For that, you will have to go outside the confines of TikTok.

Listnr TTS uses state-of-the-art technologies to craft synthetic voices that sound as good as natural speech. Listnr also gives you minute controls that can be tweaked in many ways. Apart from that, you can choose from over 75 languages and 570 voices from across the globe in the Listnr database.

Let's go over the steps to use Listnr TTS in your TikTok videos:

How to add TTS from Listnr to Tiktok

When sourcing TTS narration from third party services like Listnr, we need to first get the TTS speech file.We can then merge the TTS audio with recorded video in TikTok. And finally, add the TTS text to the video as per our requirement.

1. Get TTS narration from Listnr

Open Listnr.tech and go to the TTS editor on the home page. There you can add your text in the text box. After composing your text, you can choose the language and voice style for the TTS narration from the voice menu.

2. Key in the appropriate controls in the TTS engine

Listnr also allows tinkering with the speech speed and pronunciation of native words. Moreover, you can also add pauses of specific lengths to add weight and emphasis to the keywords. These options are found at the top of the editor window.

3. Hit the render button

Tap on the “convert” button at the bottom, followed by the “play” button to listen to the narration. You may tweak the TTS settings however many times you want before hitting the download button. A WAV download is preferable to an mp3 due to its high quality.

A quick tip - TTS engines are not able to get the correct pronunciations for certain native words. To circumvent such mishaps, you will have to misspell the particular word to make the TTS work. It is mainly a trial and error process, but you get the hang of it pretty quickly.

Lastly, download and save the TTS narration locally on your smartphone.

4. Record the video in Tiktok

Open the TikTok app and film your desired video that will go with the TTS narration. The video may be 15sec, 1min, 3 min, or 10 minutes. Also, keep the length of the TTS narration in mind while recording the video. It is beneficial to limit the video length to around the same as the narration length since we will be merging these two in the end.

5. Add the narration over the Tiktok video

After the video is ready, tap on the sounds icon at the bottom to open up the sound selector window. Browse through your locally saved sound files and find your TTS narration that you created in the first step.

Select and add the audio file to the video. Find the perfect starting point for your TTS narration and move the audio file there along the video length.

6. Add desired text

Open the text editor by pressing the ‘Aa’ (text) icon and feed your text. Ideally, it should be the same as what the TTS voice narrates, but there are no strict rules here. You can stray away and add different text explaining or elaborating on the video concept.

7. Edit to fit and apply the formatting

Finally, our TikTok video is ready with the right TTS narration and text. You can give the finishing touches by adding text formatting and funky effects to the video. One last detail to check is if the video overshoots the TTS narration audio. Simply trim the video to fit the TTS voiceover, and you are good to go!

TTS is rapidly transforming how we create and consume content. The implications of this will be far-reaching in marketing, advertisement, education, and entertainment.

The prospects are virtually endless with how TTS can be used in videos. So let your creativity take over and go all out!

We at Listnr wish you a happy exploration ahead. Join us now to avail exciting offers and take your TikTok game to the top with our cutting-edge TTS engine and dedicated audio player.

FAQs

How do I change the text-to-speech accent?

A TTS engine has many different voice styles and accents to choose from. Listnr supports over 570 voices and 75 different languages across the globe. The accent will change when switching between different AI voice actors.

Tiktok natively offers five distinct voice actors with their vocal profiles and accents, apart from being male or female. You can try these voice actors in the app to alter the accent.

Where can I find text-to-speech?

On the TikTok app, you can find text-to-speech options in two ways. The first is while writing a text on your TikTok video. A ‘speaking head’ icon should appear at the bottom of the screen. Press it to activate the text-to-speech module.

The second way is to click on the written text box. On clicking, you will be presented with three options - Text to Speech, Set Duration, and Edit. Tap on text-to-speech to launch the TTS generator in TikTok.

How do you use Chinese text-to-speech?

TTS generators like Listnr provide TTS narrations in many languages from across the world.

To access Chinese TTS through Listnr, open the Listnr TTS editor page and drop down the ‘voice’ menu to change the language to Chinese.

How do you change TikTok text-to-speech to females?

Switch over from the default voice actor to Eddie or Jessie in TikTok to access the female voice. Tiktok has five TTS voice actors, out of which three are male and the other two female.

Listnr offers over 570 unique male and female voices for each language from its global voicebank.

What is the best free text-to-speech?

The best free text-to-speech is one that is easy to learn and use. There are many TTS generators in the market that provide similar features. Choosing one that provides a clear interface and contains a large bank of voices and languages is crucial.

Is Google TTS free?

Google TTS comes bundled up along with the Google Cloud Platform. It is free to use up to a certain number of characters. Post that, you will have to buy the subscription package to convert more text into speech.

What is the Samsung text-to-speech engine?

Samsung TTS is a proprietary system application that performs TTS translations on smartphones. You can use it in many world languages and several voice styles, including male and female speech.