Sounded.com mixes real narrator with digital voice for hybrid first

Audiobook producer Sounded.com is to release what it described as the “first hybrid audiobook” using traditional studio narration alongside artificial voice.

The audiobook, Metaphysical Sherpa. Misunderstood Mystic, was written by US-based author and music producer Nick Mirisola, who then approached Sounded.com to contribute to the audio version, using its TrueVoice technology. Within the audiobook, 80% of it is narrated by Mirisola in a studio, 19% is made up from a digital replica of professional voice artist Gill Mills, and 1% is narrated using a digital replica of US professional voice artist Paul Stefano.

The audiobook is a biography chronicling Mirisola’s life journey. Mirisola planned to release the audiobook alongside his new album “Metaphysical Sherpa: Dirty Fractal Sacrament”, but at the last minute one of the voice artists hired for a studio recording pulled out. Sounded.com was contacted in April by Mirisola to work on the project.

David Brown, chief technical officer at Sounded.com, said: “The hybrid audiobook we produced for Nick Mirisola is yet another showcase of Sounded’s production capabilities. Through our ethical voice replication model working with TrueVoice narrators, and with our proprietary audiobook production platform, we were able to not only produce a hybrid audiobook, but we did so in record time, and created a new model for production and release”.

The audiobook, MetaPhysical Sherpa. Misunderstood Mystic, is exclusively available on Sounded.com.