Our IT team recently noticed that the page Supported voices and languages | Cloud Text-to-Speech API | Google Cloud has removed the Chirp HD voice types that had Launch stage as Preview (formerly known as Journey voices). I’m extremely concerned and have been regularly monitoring the Text-to-Speech release notes | Cloud Text-to-Speech API | Google Cloud to see if there are any plans to deprecate this voice type.
My application primarily uses Chirp-HD voices, and tens of thousands of my users absolutely love them because they provide such natural-sounding speech (they actually prefer it over the newer Chirp 3 generation). They use these voices extensively in their various tasks and projects.
If this voice type gets deprecated, I’m worried that my application won’t be able to continue providing services to my users. The quality and naturalness of Chirp-HD is crucial for our user experience, and losing it would significantly impact our service delivery.
Questions:
- Is Google planning to deprecate Chirp-HD voices?
- If so, what’s the timeline for deprecation?
- Is there any official communication about this change that I might have missed?
Any insights or official information would be greatly appreciated. Our users depend on this voice quality, and we need to plan accordingly if changes are coming.
Thank you!