Wavosaur has released VST Speek, a freeware VSTi plugin instrument based on the SAM vocal synthesis software for the legendary Commodore 64 home computer.
VST Speek is a free vocal synthesis VST plugin for recreating the old skool robotic text to speech we all love. Choose a preset, type any text and let’s speak!
VST Speek is available for free download via Wavosaur (2.6 MB download size, ZIP archive, 32-bit VSTi plugin format for Windows).
Old school speech synthesizers are loads of fun! A couple of years ago, I needed some old school robotic vocals for a track and I searched everywhere for a freeware VST plugin or any form of free software to generate such sounds. Back in the day, there were several free apps for Windows which could be used to convert text to speech, however they didn’t come even close to the lovely gritty sound generated by the programs from the 80s.
After testing all of these Windows applications, I realized that there was no substitute for the real deal, so I settled with the brilliant ST Speech software running on an Atari ST emulator on my Windows machine. I was pretty happy with the results, however it would have been so much easier to have a VST plugin which could generate this type of sound inside the DAW.
VST Speek finally fills that void in the freeware VST plugin scene. Based on the original code of the Software Automatic Mouth (SAM) voice synthesizer for Commodore 64, this free plugin is as close as you can get to the synthesized speech of the 8-bit era. It sounds great (as great as a lo-fi instrument can sound) and is dead easy to use. The interface is nice and clean and the instrument also responds to MIDI messages. This means that you can tweak the synthesis parameters while the instrument is speaking, or even use the pitch bend wheel on the speech. Good stuff!
Once again, a big thank you goes to BPB reader Irion Da Ronin for sending over the link to this great piece of free software. Thank you so much for all the support!
Video Demo
Check out the VST Speek demo video:
