How do I select a premium voice for my CoughDrop account?

CoughDrop offers premium voice options for those users who have a paid account.  Through a partnership with the Acapela Group, CoughDrop makes Acapela Voices available to download and use with the CoughDrop AAC program. These voices provide additional options for communicators and include child, teen, and adult voices as well as voices from many different languages.

Each paid account has the option to download two (2) premium voices at no additional cost.  These voices can be added to multiple devices as long as they are accessed through the same CoughDrop account.

Premium voices are ONLY available for download on iOS, Android, and some Windows devices.  You CANNOT load a premium voice on a laptop or desktop computer.  

If you have questions about whether a premium voice can be used on your device please contact us.  

Why Choose a Premium Voice?

While most devices will provide several voice options, there are some devices which have very limited or even no built-in voices (for example, some Kindles).  We want to be sure that CoughDrop users can still generate speech on their device even if the device itself does not offer a synthesized voice.

CoughDrop also understands that a child or teen may feel that an age appropriate voice better fits their needs and those voices are rarely available on device speech lists.

In addition, for users who speak a language other than English, it is nice to have in-app voice options so that users do not have to just hope for the appropriate voice to be provided on their specific device.

Downloading & Setting a Premium Voice for Use

If you have decided a premium voice is the right option for your AAC communicator, you will first need to download the selected voice onto the device.  The voice selected is a device specific setting so it will need to be adjusted on each individual device used by your communicator.

First, open the drop-down menu under your username and select "preferences" from the menu.  

Next, scroll down the preferences page to find the "device preferences" section near the bottom.  Hit the "premium voice" button.

This will open the menu of available premium voices.  You will notice a download arrow button with a file size next to each voice.  Hit that button to download that voice onto your device.  Remember, CoughDrop gives you two (2) premium voices per paid account without any additional cost.

If you do not see the arrow download buttons next to the premium voices it means that premium voices are not available on the device you are using.  Premium voices can only be used on iOS, Android, and some Windows devices.  

Once you have downloaded the desired voice on your device, you will notice a star (*) next to that voice.  This indicates that your account has access to this premium voice.  The voice can be loaded onto multiple devices as long as they are using the same CoughDrop account.

Finally, to select the premium voice as the set voice option for this device, open the "select a voice" menu by hitting that button and then select the downloaded premium voice from the list.

Be sure to save your preferences at the bottom of the page before you navigate away from these settings.

See Also

• How do I find additional voices/languages in CoughDrop?
• How do I use CoughDrop with languages other than English?
• How do I use my device for modeling with a CoughDrop user I supervise?