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Listen to Michael York's testimonial for this project

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Respeecher Gives Voice to Michael York in Healthcare Initiative

Limited only by one’s imagination, creative partners are achieving breakthroughs with voice cloning technology across various fields, including entertainment, education, and healthcare.

Michael York’s illustrious career extends over 50 years in film, theatre, radio plays, and more recently in voiceover narration for audiobooks, documentaries, and animation.

York’s grace, charm, and wit are well-remembered in such classic films as Cabaret, Logan’s Run, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and Austin Powers.

We had the honour of helping to deage York's voice for a meaningful healthcare project - so it would still render his unique vocal quality, signature tone, and cadence.

"How very grateful I am to Respeecher for giving my words and work a whole new lease on life. The technique involved is as ingenious as it is amazing, and promises an unlimited future for all those involved in voice work. With Respeecher, history comes almost miraculously alive again. I heartily and thankfully endorse this great product." 

- Michael York

Michael-York-amyloidosis-awareness-Respeecher-voice-cloning

Some Numbers

 

2 months

to deliver the project

60 minutes

of source training audio used

1 minute

of audio content created

Why did York turn to voice cloning?

About 10 years ago, however, York’s health began to suffer from bone marrow cancer and an under-diagnosed condition called amyloidosis. This rare disease represents one class in a growing list of protein misfolding disorders. It’s a similar kind of illness which accounts for other commonly known degenerative conditions like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

As a result of misfolded proteins accumulating in the body, different organs can be affected with life-threatening consequences. In York’s case, he was fortunately able to receive expert treatment and keep his health condition in check.

One of the common symptoms of amyloidosis, though, is swelling of the tongue, which makes it more difficult to speak clearly. York said in an interview at the time: “I lost my voice completely. Which, for an actor, is a bit alarming. Now it’s sort of back.”

With his health recovering, York offered his vocal talent for a nonprofit educational initiative to promote awareness of amyloidosis. A short animated film was produced to help physicians, medical students, patients, and their support network to better understand and care for the insidious disease.

Though his narrator voice by then was somewhat raspy, York’s spirit nonetheless shined through and hearkened back to his golden voice of yesteryear.

The project has since been of wide-reaching service among conferences, universities, clinics, meetings, and communities worldwide. Within the last year, because medicine and science are continually improving, it became necessary to update the animated film with new dialogue.

Respeecher-Gives-Voice-to-Michael-York-Austin-Powers-in-Healthcare-Initiative-voice-cloning-film-industry

Initially, the nonprofit team hoped to record York’s additional voiceover to make the edits. But it quickly became clear that the new audio was not going to be an effective match with the original narration.

As well, there was no viable prospect of finding another actor who could impersonate York’s unique vocal quality, especially in the production time available. And, of course, existing text-to-speech software certainly would not be able to mimic York’s signature tone and cadence.

When we were approached to update an educational video with new voiceover narration from legendary actor Michael York, our options were limited.

For almost a decade, Mr. York has been managing a health condition that has impaired his beautiful, mellifluous voice. Enter, stage right, the heroic efforts of Respeecher's amazing team!

It's been said, famously, that any sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic. Truly, given our creative constraints, Respeecher was uniquely able to pull a rabbit out of a hat.

Their source/target conversion of Mr. York's speaking voice demonstrably opens doors for the entertainment, education, and healthcare fields. Suffice it to say, it was an absolute honor to collaborate with Respeecher.

Their brilliant accomplishment and timely delivery have allowed our humble project to be a success, exceeding our expectations for what's even possible.

Tim-Jones-Emmy-Award-Winning-Animation-Producer-Michael-York-amyloidosis-awareness-Respeecher-voice-cloning

Tim Jones, Emmy Award Winning Animation Producer

Results

Because of the ongoing global pandemic, a member of the production team recorded 60 minutes of source training audio, along with the new dialogue pickups, at a home studio.

Respeecher then created an AI model to match the source voice with York’s target voice, using raw data from the animated film’s original recording session from long ago.

Listen to the source voice:

Listen to the converted voice:

 

With regards to the voice cloning, York offered his kind congratulations.

Indeed, Respeecher continues to pioneer and innovate voice cloning technology, such as fine-tuning its capacity to manage seamless source-to-target conversion of language accents.

As we broaden and strengthen our platform, we look forward to working with individuals and studios to extend the longevity of their talented voice careers.

Moreover, we’re already living in the future. Whether because of disability, trauma, or other health conditions, we can help to recreate and reinvigorate an ailing or lost speaking voice.

Increasingly, people who are no longer able to communicate will be able to do so using a voice synthesizer, even controlled by their minds. We only have to imagine the possibilities. But that’s another story, for another time.

Bravo to the entire team for a quite extraordinary achievement! The quality of the re-worked passages is indistinguishable from the original.

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Michael York

Reviews

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Reid Hoffman

LinkedIn Co-founder, Microsoft Board Member, Investor, Podcaster

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Bear Grylls

TV presenter and adventurer

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Jennifer Trent

Head of Post Production at Blumhouse

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Halsey Burgund

Co-Director In Event of Moon Disaster

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Ryan Steelberg

President and co-founder of Veritone

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David Romberg

Media, Communication & Film Studies, Muhlenberg College

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Abigail Savage

Sound Designer and Supervisor, Actress

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Tim Jones

Emmy Award Winning Animation Producer

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Michael York

Actor, Producer

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Joseph López Osorio

Marketing Technology Director, DDB Latina

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Edgardo Rivera

President & CEO, DDB Puerto Rico

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Joshua Madoff

Composer, Actor

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James Tumminia

Producer & President at Italus Films

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Sophie Robinson

Director, 141 Productions

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Steve Isaacs

EVP, Legion Creative

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Derek Kedell

Producer, Renegade Animation, Inc.

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Jacob Mosler

Line Producer, Religion of Sports

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Bev Standing

Voice Over Actor & Coach

Respeecher also matched my voice to Scott’s professional reading of the Impromptu text. The end result is a nearly perfect audio artifact with amazing intonation. It sounds flawlessly human—though a bit less of a match to “my” voice than the Vall-E recording—and most importantly, similarly didn’t require multiple days of my time to record. If we hadn’t prioritized releasing an early version to show folks what that sounded like, the Respeecher team was confident that with more iterations we could have gotten it near-perfect.
We worked with Respeecher to recreate my voice in Ukrainian to as part of our education initiative ‘BecomingX Ukraine’. The technology is phenomenal and the result is astounding – I never thought I’d hear myself speaking fluent Ukrainian! Well done and thank to all the team for all your incredible work you are doing. We’re forever grateful and proud to partner with you.
We used Respeecher to de-age the voice of a well-known actor in one of our movies. We were nervous that it wouldn’t work very well since the actor is in her 80s and we needed to de-age her down to mid-forties. Even though there was such a huge age jump, the end result from Respeecher was amazing, and added a level of authenticity to our movie. Everyone from our director through our entire post team was excited to work with Repeecher. Hopefully we will be able to do so many more times in the future.
We worked with Respeecher on a film called ‘In Event of Moon Disaster’ first shown at the Amsterdam Documentary Film Festival 2019. They helped us create a synthetic voice of Richard Nixon to bring to life a never-read contingency speech in case the Apollo 11 mission went badly. We created a highly realistic film, in a large part due to their work. ‘In Event of Moon Disaster’ shows the creative possibility of voice replacement technology as well as highlighting just how realistic deepfake technologies can be, acting as a civic engagement project for the public along with contextual and educational resources.
For Veritone, the most important thing is ensuring our clients get access to technology without compromising on the ability to protect, the delivery speed and quality, and in this case, of the generated content. Respeecher's technology meets both requirements and has a proven track record of working with tier one projects.
When I approached the team at Respeecher with a very sensitive and personal documentary project, I didn't know what to expect. I’m happy to say that it has been an amazing experience. They are extremely professional, ethically minded and are genuinely passionate about bringing their innovative technology to the world. Their approach to the voice cloning process is highly personal and transparent. As a documentarian, it was important to me that the approach was ethical and human focused. The Team at Respeecher delivered on their promises and I could not be happier with the results.
Respeecher is a remarkable tool for Sound Editors. It delivers very high-fidelity recreations of a target voice, with transparent performance-matching of its source. It blows text-to-speech out of the water! The effect is uncanny and incredibly effective and I can imagine a whole slew of uses going forward. I am very excited to have discovered Respeecher, and it will be my go-to for voice recreation in the future, without question.
Respeecher's source/target conversion of Mr. York's speaking voice demonstrably opens doors for the entertainment, education, and healthcare fields. Suffice it to say, it was an absolute honor to collaborate with them. Their brilliant accomplishment and timely delivery have allowed our humble project to be a success, exceeding our expectations for what's even possible.
I am very grateful to Respeecher for giving my words and work a whole new lease on life. The technique involved is as ingenious as it is amazing, and promises a great future for all those involved in voice work. With Respeecher, the quality of the re-worked passages is indistinguishable from the original. History comes almost miraculously alive again. I heartily endorse this product.
Discovering Respeecher was the highlight of our project. They agreed to work with the task even when our training data was not of the best quality. The result was fantastic, and the level of detail was just outstanding.
Working with Reespecher was a unique experience. Their attentiveness to detail and dedication to this project allowed us to reconnect with one of our lost narration idols in Puerto Rico "Manuel Rivera Morales" on a new level. It gave his family and PR a glimpse of what could have been if he was still alive and narrating all sorts of Olympic sports games. It was truly magical to see this project come alive.
Working with Respeecher has been incredible. Their team was meticulous and patient, walking us through the process of developing an accurate model... and the final result was nothing short of miraculous. It really sounds like we’re hearing our (deceased) subject speaking again. Something I never would have thought was possible.
From the introduction to Respeecher’s innovative and state-of-the-art products to the thorough and quick technical support, I immediately felt that I found the perfect partner and technology for my projects’ needs. During our discussions, the team offered other creative options that assured me we were on the same page and had my project’s success as a top priority. The Respeecher team members are consummate professionals.
Making a film which was so sensitive we needed a company who understood the sensibilities and ethical issues we were dealing with. From the first meeting with them, Respeecher acted with respect and professionalism, delivered what we wanted brilliantly, efficiently and to spec.
When Legion Creative took on the challenge of bringing MTV’s Kurt Loder back to his mid ’90s glory for the Showtime original Yellowjackets, we needed a resource to bring his voice in line with his de-aged visual appearance. Respeecher worked quickly, with clear communication and helped us achieve the time-warping magic we were looking for.
Using the Respeecher technology as a powerful filter for our recorded dialogue allowed us to quickly solve a voice-over challenge that could have completely derailed our production timeline and set us back several months. Their easy-to-use online web interface allowed us to resolve our problem in a matter of weeks and with very minimal impact on our overall schedule. Their friendly staff were extremely responsive to our feedback and provided excellent guidance on the use of the amazing technology.
Respeecher brought the voice of WILT CHAMBERLAIN sonically back to life allowing Wilt to posthumously narrate his own documentary series GOLIATH [Showtime & Paramount+]. Our experience working with their team was a pleasure from start to finish. They embraced the creative challenge of building a practically perfect replication of Wilt's voice from hours of archival to carefully match the narration led by our voiceover actor's performance of Wilt's own words selected from his books. Their technicians paid fastidious attention to detail and contineud to work with our directors feedback to adjust the nuance of Wilt's voice until it was seemingly flawless. The Estate of Wilt Chamberlain authorized our team to create a 3-hour series documenting his extraordinary life; so naturally it was a huge relief when we shared the final WILT converted VO narration and received a unanimous approval from his family. Thank you again to Respeecher! Your professionalism, commitment to detail and excellence surpassed our expectations. Your nuanced work brought Wilt's voice back to life will be cherished in GOLIATH eternally.
Working with Respeecher has provided me to control of where my voice is used, the opportunity to provide consent to my voice being used and receveing compensation.
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