Fine-tune how your audio sounds by adjusting loudness, pace, pitch, and pauses within your script using Voice Cues in WellSaid Studio and Caruso (Legacy) Projects. Apply cues to your entire script or emphasize key phrases, important lines, or natural pauses.
What Are Voice Cues?
Voice Cues allow you to manually adjust how specific words, phrases, or sentences are delivered.
You can use Voice Cues to:
- Slow down or speed up speech
- Increase or reduce volume
- Raise or lower pitch
- Add intentional pauses
This gives you more control over tone, emphasis, and pacing without rewriting your script.
Available Voice Cues
Verbal Cues
Loudness: Adjusts how loud or quiet a word, sentence, or phrase is spoken.
Pace: Controls how fast or slow a word, sentence, or phrase is spoken.
Pitch: Raises or lowers the tone of the voice.
Non-Verbal Cues
- Pause: Adds a shorter or longer pause where there is a comma or period between sentences.
Visual Indicators
When a cue is applied, the selected text appears underlined in a corresponding color:
- Loudness: Green
- Pace: Yellow
- Pitch: Purple
- Pause: Red
- Multiple cues: White underline with a tooltip showing applied values
These indicators remain until the cue is removed.
Emotional Presets
Need a place to start? Apply one of the following presets to your section.
- Happy
- Excited
- Calm
- Stern
- Serious
- Secretive
Emotional presets can only be applied to full sections. Learn how to apply and adjust emotional presets.
Add Voice Cues to Your Script
Voice Cues are built into WellSaid Studio and Caruso (Legacy) projects.
- In WellSaid Studio, select a voice for your section.
- In the section header, open the Model/Style drop-down and select a Caruso voice.
- Highlight the text you want to adjust. The right sidebar will automatically display the available cues.
- Select from the Emotional presets or use the Fine-tune sliders to adjust loudness, pace, pitch, or pause.
Bulk Cues
Bulk cues let you apply the same performance settings—such as speed or emotional presets—across many sections at once, saving time and ensuring consistency.
Apply Bulk Cues
- Select the sections you want to update.
- Open Bulk Cues in the sidebar.
- Adjust the cue settings or apply an Emotional Preset to apply them across all selected sections.
- Click Play to generate the sections to preview the changes.
Preview Edits
After adding or adjusting cues:
- Click Play to generate a take.
- Listen to the result.
- Edit your cues as needed.
- Generate another take.
Tips and Tricks
- Voice Cues may sound different depending on the selected voice. Each voice has a unique vocal range, so the same loudness cue applied to one voice may sound different when applied to another.
- Cues applied to full sentences are often more natural than those applied to single words. If a cue isn’t producing the desired effect, try adjusting the length of the selected text.
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Get more dramatic results by combining cues. Here are a few combinations to try:
- Add loud + slow cues on a call-to-action
- Use quiet + fast cues to shift emphasis
- When using Bulk cues, apply to your script first, then fine-tune each section if needed.
- When in doubt, tinker. Preview your changes, adjust settings, and test different combinations to find the combination that works best for your script. The more you play, the more you'll learn what works best for your voiceovers.
FAQs
Q: Why did my Cues disappear when I switched the voice?
A: Cues can only be added to sections with Caruso voices; switching from a Caruso voice to a Standard voice will remove your Cues.
Q: I checked Select all, but why didn't I get the right sidebar automatically for Bulk cues?
A: When selecting all, every section must use a Caruso voice to use the Bulk cues option. Update sections from Standard voices to Caruso voices, and use the Select all option to apply Bulk cues.
Q: I apply Bulk cues; where did my previous cues go?
A: Bulk cues will replace any existing cues. You can fine-tune individual sections after applying Bulk cues to your script.
Q: I added a new section - why didn't my Bulk cues apply to it?
A: Bulk cues will not automatically be added to new sections. You will need to add Cues to the new section.
Q: I want to add an extra pause at the end of my section. Can I use a pause cue?
A: Pause cues cannot be added to the final period of a section.