Hiring a voice tracker vs AI voice tracks
If you are looking for voice tracks for radio, you have two ways to get them: pay somebody to record them, or generate them. This page is an honest comparison of the two — the arithmetic, what each one actually gives you, and where each one falls down. Written by a broadcaster who has done both.
Hear AI voice tracks →What you are actually buying
A voice track is one recorded presenter link, placed between two songs. That is the unit. Everything else — the hourly rate, the monthly subscription — is just a different way of paying for the same object.
So the comparison is not "human or AI". It is: how many voice tracks do you need, how often, and what is each one worth to you.
The arithmetic nobody does upfront
Most stations underestimate the volume, because they think in shows rather than in links. Here is how it actually adds up. Fill in your own numbers.
A single four-hour show, five days a week, at four links an hour, is already 80 voice tracks a week. Cover mornings and evenings seven days a week and you pass 200. Cover the whole schedule and you are into the thousands per month.
Now apply whatever rate your talent charges — per hour of finished audio, per show, or per month. The number is rarely the problem for one show. It becomes the problem the moment you want the second one, then the weekend, then the overnights.
This is the real finding: hiring a voice tracker is usually affordable for the show you care most about, and almost never affordable for the twenty hours a day nobody is presenting. That is the gap, and it is why most stations end up with silence in it.
Side by side
| Human voice tracker | AI voice tracks | |
|---|---|---|
| Best possible quality | Higher. A good presenter has taste, timing and real reactions. | Very good, and consistent. It will not have a bad day, and it will not have a great one either. |
| Cost per link | Fixed per link. Scales linearly — 10× the hours is 10× the cost. | Flat monthly. The 500th link costs the same as the first. |
| Turnaround | Their schedule. Usually daily, sometimes with a lag. | Generated for the hour, every day, automatically. |
| Playlist awareness | Complete, if they are given the log and take the time. | Complete by construction — it reads the log before writing. |
| Availability | Holidays, illness, other clients, leaving. | Continuous. |
| Local knowledge | Real, if they are local. This is the hardest thing to replace. | Weather, local news and dates — but not the personal knowledge of a town. |
| Listener relationship | A name people know and write to. | A consistent presence, not a relationship. |
Where a human voice tracker still wins
Let us be clear about this, because it matters more than any sales argument.
- Your flagship show. The morning, the drive, whatever carries your station. A named host with listeners and a town to talk about is not something to automate.
- Anything with real listener interaction. Calls, messages, requests, competitions.
- Local knowledge that is not in any database. The roadworks everybody complains about, the bar that closed, the football result that matters here.
- A voice your audience already knows. Continuity is worth paying for.
Where AI voice tracks win
- The hours nobody is presenting. Overnights, weekends, the gaps between shows, the holiday weeks. Here the alternative is not a human — it is a jukebox.
- Volume. Once you need hundreds of links a week, the arithmetic stops working for hourly rates.
- Consistency. Every link is on the ramp, at the right level, every day.
- Multi-station groups. Every market gets its own voices and its own local content from one system.
- Coverage you can switch on today and turn off next month without a conversation.
The answer most stations land on
Not one or the other. Human voice tracking where it counts, generated voice tracks for the rest.
Keep your presenter on the show that carries your name. Let the system cover the eighteen other hours that are currently music with nobody talking. Your air staff keeps its work and its audience, and your station stops sounding abandoned at three in the morning.
That is also, incidentally, our own rule: we will not supply the service to a station whose stated intention is to replace an existing team of human presenters. It is in our terms.
If you are choosing a system
Whatever you decide, judge any AI option on the same five points a good voice tracker delivers without thinking about it:
- Does it read your actual log, or produce generic liners?
- Does it land on the ramp, or over the vocal?
- Does it have material beyond the song titles?
- Does it repeat itself across four hours?
- Is the voice processed like the rest of your air chain?
More detail on each: AI voice tracking for radio — how it works. If what you want is the on-air side rather than the production side, see AI DJ and AI radio host. And if you are learning the craft itself, we wrote the working guide: how to voice track a radio show.
Where it plugs in
AI voice tracks are delivered into the automation software you already run: StationPlaylist and RadioDJ today, RCS Zetta in early access, WinMedia and mAirList in progress. Nothing changes in your music scheduling.
Try it on your own playlist for 14 daysCommon questions
Is it cheaper than hiring a voice tracker?
For one show, often not — a freelancer covering four hours a day can be very reasonable. For full coverage, it is not close: the subscription is flat while the hourly rate is not.
Can I use both?
That is the normal setup. You configure which hours are covered and leave the rest to your team.
Will listeners notice the difference?
On a single link, rarely. Over four hours, it depends entirely on how the system is built — repetition and bad placement are what give it away, not voice quality.
What does it cost?
From $99 a month per station for one daily show, up to full 24/7 coverage. See the full pricing.