Alien Speech

Windows tries to make it easy for the vast majority of individuals to use a computer through its ease of access tools. Features like speech recognition provide a great deal of comfort, and can even be used to have text read to you. The same goes for applications like Alien Speech, which also offer a few customization options.

Although modern Windows iterations come with .NET Framework as a default feature, it’s best to check whether or not it’s installed on your computer, because it’s a mandatory requirement for proper functionality.

On the visual side of things, there’s nothing quite there to make it stand out from the crowd, but visuals are not the main concern here. This simplicity lets individuals of all levels of experience quickly get the hang of things, with a couple of sliders that affect the voice, as well as a large text input field for paragraphs you want the program to read to you.

The application relies on the Windows built-in speech system in order to read text you provide. Unfortunately, the operating system has come a long way since the first computer voice, but the application can’t recognize or detect new ones, so you’re stuck with a single options, namely Microsoft Sam.

Related to voice, there are two sliders you can configure in order to adjust pitch and speed. This is also what got the application its name, but setting a high pitch and even stepping up the pace a bit can make sound impossible to comprehend. What’s more, you can only load TXT files, or paste it from the clipboard, and this can’t be done through drag and drop.

All things considered, we come to the conclusion that Alien Speech isn’t quite what you’d expect to find from a text to speech application. Sure enough, management of pitch and speed sliders can make the voice sound a little odd, but also makes it incomprehensible, while the lack of other styles leaves more to be desired.