Aligning real recordings

A recording of someone reading rarely matches its text exactly. A preacher says "Our reading today is from Mark" before starting. A narrator adds a closing line. A reader says "and" where the page says "but", or skips a word. Alignment that expects a clean, exact reading stops being useful the moment it meets one of these.

Fellowverse alignment is built for the recordings people actually make. Send the audio and the text it reads, divided into sections with your own IDs, and you get back when each section and each word is spoken.

What it takes care of

Introductions and sign-offs

Most recordings begin and end with something that is not the text: a title, an announcement, a welcome, a "thanks for listening". When a pause sets those words apart, they are found and reported separately, in droppedBefore and droppedAfter, and your first and last sections start and end where the reading does.

{
  "speechStartMs": 9090,
  "speechEndMs": 49100,
  "droppedBefore": "Psalm 23. A Psalm by David.",
  "droppedAfter": ""
}

You never trim the file first. Times stay in the file you uploaded, so your player can seek straight into the original.

Small differences from the text

Readers paraphrase, repeat a phrase, or read from a slightly different edition. Alignment matches the words it hears against the words you sent and carries on past the differences. The result reports matched, the share of your words heard as written, so you can see how closely a recording follows its text and flag the ones worth a listen.

Clean cuts

Ask for clips and each section comes back as its own MP3, cut in the quiet around it rather than at the exact instant a word ends. A clip starts cleanly and ends without clipping the last syllable, so it plays well on its own or one after another.

Finding the passage

For Bible readings you can leave the text out. The recording is heard, the passage is found from what is said, from any verse to any verse and across chapters, and each verse becomes a section with its reference and text. A reading recorded on a Sunday becomes verse-by-verse audio without anyone typing a reference.

Where it fits

The sections are yours to define, so alignment works for any recording of a known text:

• Sermons and talks against their outline or manuscript, so listeners can jump to a point.
• Liturgies and prayers, timed line by line for following along in a service or at home.
• Scripture in your own translation, sent as sections with your own verse IDs, for any edition your church reads.
• Audiobooks and lessons, by chapter, paragraph or sentence, for read-along text and study tools.
• Language practice, word by word, so a learner can hear any word again on its own.

Try it

Follow Align a recording for the requests, or Build a read-along player to put the timings to work. Then see Record once, cut many ways for what one recording can become.