SpellSynth Manual
Type a word on the keypad — or tap TYPE to use your keyboard.
Tap ▶ SAY to hear it spoken aloud.
Open Settings (⚙) and pick a vintage voice.
1 · The basics
SpellSynth looks like a pocket spelling toy. The green VFD display at the top shows what you type and what it's saying. Below it is the A–Z keypad with a ⟵ delete key and (in Free Play) a SPACE key. The MODE bar switches between the four modes, and the gear (⚙) opens Settings, where you choose your voice and replay the tutorial. A RECENT row remembers what you've played this session — tap a chip to hear it again.
2 · Free Play — words, phrases & numbers
Free Play is the heart of SpellSynth: type anything and hear it spoken back. It now handles single words and whole phrases.
Typing
Use the on-screen keypad, or tap TYPE to switch to your device keyboard (handy for punctuation or longer text). Tap SPACE between words to build a phrase.
Speaking it
Tap ▶ SAY. A single word plays straight through; a phrase is read word-by-word, and the display cycles to each word as it plays.
Numbers & contractions
Numbers are spoken as words — "I have 2 cats" says "two". Contractions are kept intact, so "don't" and "we'll" sound right instead of being spelled out.
GAP, SHARE & RECENT
The GAP slider tunes the pause between words from 50 to 500 ms. SHARE renders the current word or phrase to a 16-bit / 24 kHz WAV you can save or drop into a DAW. Everything you play lands in the RECENT row for one-tap replay.
3 · Spell · Mystery · Say It
Spell
SpellSynth says a word — you spell it on the keypad. Three mistakes and it reveals the answer, then moves to a new word.
Mystery Word
The classic hidden-word game. Pick letters until the word reveals itself; six wrong guesses ends the round.
Say It
Listen-and-repeat practice. Hear the word spelled letter by letter, then say it aloud. Great for pronunciation.
Mystery and Say It draw from the built-in dictionary plus any custom words you add, which stay on your device.
4 · The four voices
Pick a voice in Settings. Each is applied to every word you hear — bundled or live-typed — and cached separately, so switching is instant after the first play.
Default
Clean system speech with no retro processing — for when you just want clear pronunciation.
1968 Odyssey
Deep-baritone monotone with a slow, deliberate cadence. A nod to late-60s sci-fi computer voices.
1978 LPC
The original Speak & Spell character — a 10-pole LPC vocoder driven by the actual TMS5220 chirp. Buzzy and unmistakable. Cleaned up in 1.2.6 for even loudness and no glitches.
1986 DECtalk Style
Fixed-pitch impulse synthesis, modelled on the Klatt-style voice that defined Hawking's computer. Deliberate and emphatically computery.
Any word beyond the 500+ bundled words falls back to on-device speech, routed through your chosen voice and cached to disk. Nothing leaves your device.
5 · Tips for parents & classrooms
- Type this week's spelling list into Free Play and let kids hear each word.
- Add custom words for Mystery and Say It — they persist on the device.
- Fully offline after install: no account, no ads, no data collected, nothing links out to the browser.
6 · The AUv3 instrument for musicians
SpellSynth doubles as an AUv3 instrument — the same voice engine inside any Audio Unit host.
Loading it
Open a host (GarageBand, Logic Pro, AUM, Loopy Pro, Cubasis), add an instrument track, choose AUv3 Instrument, and pick SpellSynth.
Library vs Letters
A LIBRARY / LETTERS switch chooses behaviour. In Library, a text field plays any word as a single retro sample (unknown words fall back to spelling). In Letters, the A–Z keypad plays one letter per tap.
MIDI
Note On/Off with three velocity curves, pitch-bend up to ±12 semitones, sustain (CC 64), and aftertouch routable to any parameter. 14 MIDI-Learn targets save with the preset. The Letter Map plays A–Z on notes 60–85, so you can sequence spelling in your DAW, and the Stutter syncs to host tempo.
Presets & parameters
Eight factory presets — Default, Robot Voice, Tape Warp, Telephone, Tempo Stutter, Classic 1978, Hawking 1986, Odyssey 1968 — plus your own via the host. 19 parameters cover pitch, speed, bit-crush, sample-rate, filter, envelope, LFO, stutter and voice character.
7 · Help & troubleshooting
No sound?
Check the ring/silent switch isn't on silent and the volume is up. If another audio app is active, restart SpellSynth.
Your version
Open Settings (⚙) — the build is shown at the bottom. This manual covers v1.2.6.
Still stuck, or have an idea? See the Support & FAQ page or email zhiii0x@gmail.com.