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I'm using the Read Aloud feature, and the "female" voice changed its tone when it hit this one paragraph. I don't think there's anything special about the text, but the voice changed to sound emotionally elated. Why is it doing this, when I never hear it use emotion anywhere else?
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I'm also a novelist who listens as a form of proofing. Just today, the female voice changed. Such emotion! How do I return to a flatter voice? We are not imagining the change.
I was having the same issue, but when I turned off this option, the female voice no longer switched during paragraphs. Maybe it will work you all too.
I guess the bottom line is that Read Aloud is (whether MS acknowledge it or not) still a beta feature, Not Ready for Prime Time, so some bugs are to be expected. This is unfortunate, but certainly the whole concept of the feature is a very complex one.
Thank you so much for the help and transparency, Suzanne! I know they play around with these things. As someone else mentioned, this might have even leaked through a patch. Not sure if you can speculate, but do you suppose it’s possible they’re beta testing the voice to gauge for consumer reaction?
There are only 2 options available on the mobile app. The female option voice was changed for what appears to be no good reason at all. Now we're stuck with weird reading voice girl.
Yes the issue for me is the mobile app as well. I was able to change my language preference to Canadian English in Windows 11, and that Read Aloud voice is decent. But the preference hasn’t carried over to the mobile app. Stuck with weird reading voice girl is right.
I'm a big user of Edge's read aloud for PDFs over the years and I've learned some things through experience. First is that Clara, the Canadian, is the best. It's not the most natural sounding but it has the least quirks and is very easy on the ears. When I'm in a mood for entertainment I'll use a South African voice but I never use the American voices. Second is that what voice you get depends on your internet connection. The natural voices are processed in the cloud, so your text is sent up and the audio is sent down. If you go offline or if your connection is laggy, you'll experience shifts to the older voice with the same name. The new ones have the lilt everybody here hates, which is a clear sign that we're all old as the valley girl inflection has become normal in much of the country below a certain age. The new voices are very good; at times I forget it's not a person reading an audio book. It's the accent I don't like, which is why I choose foreigners.