LJ Speech
Don’t want to install LJ Speech? Drop the file here.
The first 20 minutes of any recording are transcribed free: a recording up to 20 minutes transcribes in full, a longer one is previewed, and a pack from $6 (500 minutes) transcribes the rest and opens every export, and credits never expire.
24h single-speaker English audiobook corpus — the canonical TTS baseline.
Best for single-speaker neural TTS baselines (Tacotron, FastSpeech, VITS, etc.). Pricing: free.
What it is
LJ Speech is 24 hours of single-speaker English read speech from public-domain audiobooks. Every modern English TTS paper trains on it. Public domain.
Watch out for: Public domain (LibriVox / pre-1923 books) · 24h · single female speaker. Cite: Ito & Johnson, 2017.
Install / use
from datasets import load_dataset; ds = load_dataset('keithito/lj_speech')What people actually do with LJ Speech-style transcription
The tool is the means. These are the jobs — each one priced at published rates, each one wired up on its own page.
Features
| Speaker diarization | No |
| Word-level timestamps | No |
| Streaming / real-time | No |
| Languages supported | 1 |
| HIPAA eligible | No |
LJ Speech vs Whipscribe
| Feature | LJ Speech | Whipscribe |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Open source | Transcription APIs |
| Pricing | free | $6–$24 one-time packs (credits never expire) · first 20 minutes free |
| Speaker identification | No | Named in the summary, key quotes and chapters |
| Word timestamps | No | Yes |
| Streaming | No | No |
| Languages | 1 | 99 |
| Platforms | Web, HuggingFace | Web, API, MCP |
Alternatives to LJ Speech
Frequently asked about LJ Speech
Is LJ Speech free?
Yes. LJ Speech is free and open source.
Does LJ Speech work on Mac, Windows and Linux?
LJ Speech runs on Web and HuggingFace. It is not listed for other platforms; check the vendor for anything beyond Web and HuggingFace.
How do I install LJ Speech?
Download the installer for your platform from the vendor. No terminal needed.
How many languages does LJ Speech support?
LJ Speech lists 1 languages.
Does LJ Speech identify different speakers?
No. LJ Speech does not label speakers; a conversation comes back as one continuous text. If you need speaker labels, that is a separate tool or a different service.
Does LJ Speech give word-level timestamps?
No — LJ Speech produces segment or sentence timing only, so subtitle cues can land mid-word.
Can LJ Speech transcribe live audio?
No — LJ Speech works on finished files, not a live stream.
Is LJ Speech HIPAA compliant?
LJ Speech does not claim HIPAA compliance. For PHI, run it on infrastructure you control or choose a service that will sign a BAA.
What are the limitations of LJ Speech?
Public domain (LibriVox / pre-1923 books) · 24h · single female speaker. Cite: Ito & Johnson, 2017.
Who is LJ Speech best for?
Single-speaker neural TTS baselines (Tacotron, FastSpeech, VITS, etc.).
Does LJ Speech run offline?
LJ Speech runs on your own machine — it is open source, so nothing leaves the computer unless you configure it to.
Who makes LJ Speech?
LJ Speech is made by Keith Ito.
What kind of tool is LJ Speech?
In this directory LJ Speech is filed under dataset as a open-source tool.
What are the alternatives to LJ Speech?
There is a side-by-side page at /tools/ljspeech-alternatives comparing LJ Speech with the closest tools in the same category on price, platform and features.
Can I automate LJ Speech-style transcription without running it myself?
Yes. If what you want is transcripts rather than the tool itself, Whipscribe does the same job as a hosted API: submit a file or URL, poll a job id, pull the result as txt, json, srt, vtt or docx. $0.012 a minute — about $0.72 an audio hour — bought as credits that never expire. The automation recipes on this site show it wired to Drive folders, Zoom recordings, S3 buckets and no-code platforms.
Whipscribe is a hosted transcription service. If you want transcripts without running infrastructure, paste a URL or drop a file in the form below — you'll have a transcript in seconds.
Transcribe your recordings
Running LJ Speech yourself? Send the same file here and compare the transcript. Transcribe any language, any recording · Transcription services from $0.29 an hour · Transcribe from any meeting or recording platform · How to transcribe, step by step
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Long recording to get through?
One file up to 10 hours, as an upload or a link: see how to transcribe an MP3 of any length, how to transcribe a podcast and the SRT generator.
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