Voice Lab
Product Design
COMPANY
Replica Studios
PRODUCT
Blending voices in Voice Lab
ROLE
Lead Product Designer ✦ Product Owner
YEAR
2024 – 2025
Replica Studios had already earned the trust of leading game studios, filmmakers, and immersive storytellers for its high-fidelity AI voice technology. But while the platform offered a growing library of premium voices, one creative limitation kept surfacing:
“If I want to be able to create a voice that sounds like my character,
not just pick one that’s close?”
Voice Lab was our answer to that question. Built for creators, not machine learning engineers, it offered a way to design entirely new AI voices that are custom-tailored to fit a character’s personality, narrative role, and emotional arc.
Prompt for Voice Lab
Blending Voices in Voice Lab
MY ROLE
As Lead Product Designer, I was responsible for the end-to-end design of Voice Lab, from early concept, wireframes, prototypes, to production launch, working closely with the CEO, CTO, machine learning, and engineering teams.
Also, as a co-product owner, I helped establish the roadmap and create detailed product tickets for the engineering team with User Stories, Requirements, Acceptance Criteria, Designs, Prototypes, etc.
My contributions also included:
Designing an intuitive tool balancing creative freedom and technical complexity
Using research and customer insights to shape the product vision and priorities
Supporting non-technical users with helpful suggestions, previews, and guidance
Considering ethical voice design principles in every step of the design process
Doing testing and quality assurance on the product
Producing art and marketing assets for Voice Lab
DESIGN APPROACH
Where existing tools were technical and rigid, we envisioned Voice Lab as a creative playground, a place where writers, animators, and designers could experiment, iterate, and truly own their characters’ voices.
Prompt-based customization
We introduced natural language input as a creative onramp. Users could describe the voice they wanted, for example, “a stoic space captain with a hidden softness,” and receive AI-generated voices that matched their intent.
Voice blending and tuning
Creators used curated presets to guide the performer’s accent and speech cadence, while also controlling the tone and timbre of the voice through a flexible voice blend. These references acted as “vocal mood boards,” helping fine-tune the voice’s style and delivery with precision.
Real-time iteration
We built in fast previewing and side-by-side comparison tools so users could audition multiple voice variants before selecting their final match, cutting iteration time from days to minutes.
Ethical by design
All voices were trained using licensed data from professional actors, with full commercial rights and revenue share built in. We treated ethical scaffolding not as an afterthought, but as a design pillar.
Custom Voice Blends
Voice Lab example prompts
Adjusting performance pitch + pace
Adjusting voice blend weights
OUTCOME + REFLECTION
Voice Lab unlocked a new level of creative control for studios and storytellers alike.
Accelerated character development, reducing voice prototyping time from weeks to hours
Enabled bespoke voice creation, moving beyond library selection into expressive, purpose-built AI voices
Supported responsible innovation, balancing creative freedom with voice actor protection and transparent usage rights
What started as a power-user feature quickly became a strategic differentiator, strengthening Replica’s position as not just a voice provider but a full-stack creative solution.
Designers, writers, and actors could shape voice performances together in a transparent, expressive space.