How to add voice-overs to TikTok

Replacing the original sound of your TikTok videos with pre-made voice-overs can elevate your content on this social media platform to its rightful place.

Forget about Instagram. Forget about Snapchat. TikTok is taking over the internet by storm. Everybody is on it—from angsty teens to adults in their 40s and 50s. Yet, being authentic and original with so many users isn’t getting any easier. To set yourself apart from the rest, you must create video content that’s fresh and easily recognizable. Luckily, we know what to do.

Besides thinking about hashtags and the content itself, you must focus on audio editing, as it adds that next dimension to your TikTok videos. And although you can do that by simply pressing the record button and speaking, singing, or mumbling sounds, you can also use artificial intelligence. Yep! With voice-over tools—TTS apps—your videos will be something else entirely.

Why do you need voice-overs in TikTok videos?

Voice-overs can help to provide additional information or context for the video content. For example, if a creator is showing a cooking recipe, a voice-over can provide instructions or tips that may be difficult to convey solely through text or visuals.

Additionally, voice-overs can help to create a more engaging and dynamic video. By providing a voice-over narration, creators can add personality, humor, and emotions to their content, which can capture the viewers’ attention, keeping them engaged throughout the video.

Furthermore, TikTok videos are often short and fast-paced, and a voice-over can help to convey information more efficiently within the limited time frame. Voice-overs can also be used to add a narrative element to a video, such as in storytelling or vlog-style content.

Step-by-step guide on adding voice-overs to your TikTok videos

One of the reasons why the TikTok app continues to flourish is that it’s easy to use, and it doesn’t require lengthy tutorials for new users to understand all of its options. Nevertheless, here’s a quick step-by-step guide on how to add voice-overs to your videos.

Getting started with TikTok voice-over

Firstly, you’ll need to open the TikTok app on your mobile device. Once you do so, click on the “+” icon in the center of the bottom menu to start creating a new video.

Record or upload the video

Next up, you’ll be ready to record your video. As usual with these apps, you should long-press the red record button at the bottom of the screen.

Access the voice-over feature

Once you've recorded your video, tap on the checkmark to go to the editing screen. At the bottom of the screen, you'll see several options, including the Voiceover button. Tap the Voiceover feature to start recording your voice-over. A new screen will appear where you can adjust the volume and select the starting point for your voice-over.

Start recording your voice-over

To start recording, tap on the red record button at the bottom of the screen. Begin speaking into the microphone on your device to record your voice-over. You can stop and start recording as needed by tapping on the record button.

Enhance voice-overs with voice effects

Once you've finished recording your voice-over, you can adjust the volume and trim the audio as required by dragging the sliders at the bottom of your screen on the editing page.

Save and publish

When you're happy with your voice-over, tap Save to return to the main editing screen. From there, you can add any additional effects, background music, or filters in the video editor, or simply tap on Next to move on to the caption and share screen. Add your caption, hashtags, and any additional information you want to include, and then tap on Post to share your video with the rest of the TikTok community.

How to use text-to-speech for voice-overs on TikTok

Video editing on TikTok is pretty much perfect. You can do all sorts of effects to enhance your video and make it of the highest quality. In fact, TikTok also possesses a text-to-speech feature that can narrate your recorded video. Here’s how to use it.

• Tap on the Text-to-Speech feature located at the bottom of the text editing screen;
• Choose the language and the text-to-speech voice that you want to use;
• Tap on the Play button to hear the text-to-speech in the selected voice;
• If you're satisfied with the voice, tap on the checkmark to save it to your video;
• Adjust the timing of the text-to-speech by dragging it to the desired location on the video timeline.

Text-to-speech options for TikTok voice-overs

Of course, TikTok isn’t a text-to-speech app in its essence. It’s a social media platform that offers many video-editing features, including turning written words into speech. As such, the results of its TTS experimentation might not be of the highest quality. Nevertheless, you can always count on native text-to-speech tools, with the following few being the best.

Resemble AI

Resemble provides AI-generated text-to-speech and voice cloning services. Users can create custom voice personas or clone existing ones by uploading audio samples and selecting from a range of natural-sounding voices.

The platform also offers various tools and features, such as voice effects, translation, and real-time voice synthesis, to enhance the quality and flexibility of the generated voices. Resemble can be used for a wide range of applications, such as marketing, customer service, and education.

Nova.ai

Nova offers pretty much everything TikTok offers in its video and audio editing aspects, but enhanced further, making it a unique set of tools. Its main selling point is the text-to-speech feature, which offers dozens of TTS voices and subtitling options.

You can use it to edit your original video before posting it on TikTok or any other social media platforms, such as Instagram or Snapchat. It’s simple to use, works on different platforms, and you can first try it out for free before becoming a premium user.

Speechify

Lastly, we have Speechify. Speechify is one of the best TTS apps out there. It offers dozens of text-to-speech voices that speak dozens of languages, and all have both male and female versions. It works on iOS as well as Android devices, making it suitable for everyone.

All of Speechify’s voices are natural sounding, almost to the point that it’s impossible to distinguish them from real human speech. You can edit them in various ways, including tone, pitch, reading speed, and much, much more.