How to get the stress on a name right every time it is spoken
Tell Vizard Agent which syllable carries the stress and that it has to be right in every occurrence. It generates the name on its own in several spellings, measures the pitch of each syllable to see which reading it actually produced, and then either fixes every instance or recasts to a voice that says the name correctly to begin with.
What do you type into Vizard Agent?
Mark the stress and then say "every time" in the same message. The first tells Vizard Agent what sound to produce, and the second tells it a spot fix on the opening line is not the job. Mark the syllable in capitals, with an accent or with a rhyming word. Repeating the spelling does not help, since the spelling produced the wrong reading.
Prompt
What does Vizard Agent actually do?
In many languages the stressed syllable is not decoration: put it in the wrong place and you have said a different word. Stress is pitch and length on a syllable, both measurable, so "it still sounds wrong" becomes "the second syllable is lower than the first" and the next attempt has a target. In the session behind this article it:
- Generated the name on its own in several spellings and measured the pitch of each syllable to see which reading came out.
- Tried a primer word the voice already stressed correctly, stretched the stressed syllable and tested a voice from a related language.
- Cloned a voice that produced the name correctly, recorded the name six times in it, once per occurrence, and spliced it into all six places.
- Re-spliced the last one from a different take when it did not sit.
- Built both versions, one spliced and one in a single clean voice, then tested the phrase in five different voices and measured the syllables in each.
- Recorded the full narration in the voice that said the name correctly, because splicing leaves a seam at every occurrence.
When does this not work well?
Some voices simply cannot place the stress where you need it, and pushing them produces something worse than the original error, a lurch or a shout on the syllable. Recasting is usually quicker than winning that argument. Names from another language are harder too, because the voice may lack the sounds, and every spliced fix leaves a seam.
Common questions
Will it fix every occurrence? Yes, if you say so. Vizard Agent finds them all first.
What if the voice cannot do it? Vizard Agent tests others on the same phrase.
Is splicing acceptable? It works, but Vizard Agent will offer a clean single-voice version too.