Voice banking and a cloned voice: keeping your own voice through ALS or throat surgery

Your voice is part of who you are. People recognize it on the phone before you say your name. When an illness like ALS, or surgery or treatment of the throat, may take it away, many people want to know one thing: can I keep it? Increasingly, the answer is yes, at least in part, if you record it in time.

Voice banking and message banking

Two ideas often get mixed up. Voice banking means recording enough of your natural speech that a synthetic version of your voice can be built, which can then say anything that is typed or tapped. Message banking means recording specific phrases in your own voice, such as a greeting, a nickname, a family joke or “I love you,” to be played back exactly as you said them. Many people do both.

The ALS Association's voice and message banking guide explains that voice banking lets people with ALS create a synthesized version of their natural speaking voice, so the voice coming from a speech device sounds similar to their own. It adds an important caution: voice banking is most successful when speech is clear and easily understood, so check with a speech-language pathologist about whether you are a good candidate, and understand that the process takes time and energy.

When to start

The honest answer is: sooner than feels necessary. Recording takes energy, and it goes best on a good day, with a voice that still sounds like you. For ALS, that often means soon after diagnosis. Before planned surgery on the throat or voice box, ask the surgical team and the speech-language pathologist how much time there is before the operation, and use it.

Throat surgery and laryngectomy

Some treatments for throat and voice box cancer change speech for a time or for good. The American Cancer Society describes three ways people can learn to speak again after the voice box is removed: a tracheoesophageal puncture (TEP), which it calls the most common way surgeons try to restore speech; an electrolarynx, a battery-operated device held at the corner of the mouth or against the neck; and esophageal speech, learned with training. A speech-language pathologist trained in this work plays a major role in learning any of them.

Those take time. In the days and weeks in between, typing and tapping give a voice right away, and a cloned voice recorded before surgery can make those words sound like you. ExpressAgain for head, neck and throat covers this period.

How the cloned voice works in ExpressAgain

In Settings, you record the person speaking, or upload a recording, and ExpressAgain creates a personal voice from it. The recording is sent to the voice service that builds the voice and is not stored by us. Cloning needs a signed-in account. Voice setup can take a little time, and until it is ready, phrases speak in a clear built-in voice automatically, so the person is never without a voice. The cloned voice walks through it.

Once it is ready, the cloned voice speaks the phrases and the sentences built on the Communicate page, so “I love you” sounds like the person, not a machine. The voice lives with the account, so signing in on another device brings it along. Speed, pitch and volume can be adjusted in voice settings.

Tips for a good recording

• Record in a quiet room, away from fans, televisions and echoing walls.
• Choose a time of day when the voice is strongest and energy is good.
• Speak naturally, the way you talk to family, not the way you read aloud at school.
• Rest between takes. It is fine to spread recording over several sessions.
• Ask a family member to handle the device so the speaker can focus on speaking.

Bank the messages that matter

A synthetic voice can say anything, but some words are worth keeping exactly as they were said. Record the nicknames, the prayers, the way you say goodnight. The ALS Association's guide also suggests using a voice memo app to record personal messages in your own voice. In ExpressAgain, family voices can be kept in the Love Bucket, where the patient replays notes and voice messages any time.

Phrases for ALS and for the throat

Both conditions have their own mode in ExpressAgain, chosen in the guided setup, and each opens its own phrases first. The ALS and Parkinson's mode's library covers needs right now, breathing support (the BiPAP, the mask, the cough assist), moving and the body, medicine timing, eating and swallowing, equipment, decisions and planning, and talking and the voice, including please use my voice and I want to bank my voice. ExpressAgain for ALS has more.

The Head, Neck and Throat mode's library covers breathing and the airway (the trach, the stoma, suction, humidity), swallowing and eating, the mouth and throat, pain from 0 to 10 and where it hurts, treatment, talking again, and appearance and feelings. The cloned voice, tap-to-speak and the sentence builder work in every mode.