Text-to-speech settings: who is read, what is skipped, who goes first?
Have your chat read aloud on stream, and tune it with filters, a profanity list, gift priority, speed and queue settings.
Read aloud (text-to-speech) reads chat messages on your stream. While you handle the camera, play a game or fight a PK, you do not need to read the chat off the screen. But not every message should be read. This article explains how to choose who is read, which messages are skipped and how the order is decided.
Which languages are read?
Read aloud reads in Turkish. Messages written in Azerbaijani are read too. Messages in other languages are skipped.
If your stream has viewers who write in other languages, keep this in mind: their messages still appear in the chat; they are simply not read aloud.
Who is read?
The first decision is whose messages get read. The options are:
- Everyone: messages from everyone in the chat are read.
- Moderators only: messages from people with a moderator badge are read.
- Super fans: only your super fans' messages are read.
- Fan club: fan club members are read from a minimum level you choose, between 0 and 50.
In a busy stream, "Everyone" can fill the queue quickly. Raising the fan club level at those moments is an easy way to keep reading for your most loyal viewers.
Filter the messages
After choosing who is read, you can filter the messages themselves:
- Messages that @-mention someone: skip messages viewers write to each other.
- Commands: commands such as !song pass without being read.
- Length: up to 150 characters are read per message.
- Profanity filter: a default list comes ready, and you can add your own words.
You can add any word you do not want heard on your stream to the list, not only swear words. The list is specific to your stream.
Priority, queue and speed
Messages from gift senders get priority. When the chat is busy, a viewer who sent a gift is not stuck behind dozens of waiting messages.
Messages waiting to be read are collected in a queue that holds up to 15 messages. If you do not want a message read, press Skip.
Three settings shape how the reading sounds:
- Reading speed: how fast messages are read.
- Volume: how loud the reading is.
- Pause between messages: the gap between two messages.
Raising the volume a little on a stream with music, or lengthening the pause on a calm chat stream, is a good place to start. You will find the right settings after trying them over a few streams.
A suggested starting setup
If this is your first time, you can work in this order:
- Leave who is read at Everyone and watch how fast the queue fills in the first minutes.
- Turn on skipping @-mentions and commands.
- Add words that come up on your stream and that you do not want heard to the profanity list.
- If the queue keeps filling up, narrow reading to the fan club or super fans.
Control during the stream
You can turn read aloud on and off from the Live cockpit; the Reading tab in the control center is there for that. Every message in the event feed also has its own read-aloud button.
If you prefer the keyboard, assign turning reading on or off, skipping and clearing the queue to your number keys. See our num-pad hotkeys article for details.
Read aloud is also what speaks when you thank PK supporters with one tap. We cover that in our thanking PK supporters article.
