23audio TELEPRINTER: The Instrument That Plays Your Text

23audio has released TELEPRINTER, an instrument plugin that plays the text you type. Each character becomes its own sound, so a word turns into a rhythm and a melody, and six built-in robot voices can read those words aloud on the notes you play. Launch pricing is $44.99, rising to $54.99 once the intro offer ends on 6 November 2026. This is a first look based on the official 23audio product page and release video, not a hands-on review.

At a glance: TELEPRINTER is a text-driven instrument. You type a line of text, then play notes, and each note reads one character in sync with your DAW. Capital letters, lowercase letters, numbers, symbols, and spaces all trigger different sounds, and spaces act as rests. It ships with 161 presets, a set of instrument voices (glass, pluck, harp, felt piano, music box, hum, and two distorted basses), and six robot voices that can read, spell, babble, or sing one syllable per note. Formats are VST3, AU, and AAX, with no standalone version. 23audio sells it directly.

What is 23audio TELEPRINTER?

Most instruments start from a keyboard or a waveform. TELEPRINTER starts from a sentence. You give it a string of text, play notes, and it reads the text one character per note in time with your song. The mapping is the whole idea: an uppercase "A" sounds different from a lowercase "a", a number sounds different from a letter, a punctuation mark sounds different again, and a space is silence. Type "DATA", play four notes, and you get four distinct hits in a row. Type a longer phrase and you get a readymade pattern that already carries its own rhythm and contour.

That one rule covers two very different jobs. For sound design, typed characters become computer chatter, alarms, glitches, and game-style blips, the kind of synthetic noise a scene or a transition needs. On the musical side, the same engine plays arps, leads, basses, plucked tones, and keyboard sounds, so a line of text becomes a usable melodic or rhythmic part rather than a novelty. A printout tape shows what is being read as it plays, and an 88-key display shows the notes, so the text and the performance line up on screen.

23audio is a new developer, and TELEPRINTER lands alongside its other early releases: the V-23 Voice Processor channel strip, a free oscilloscope called TELLYSCOPE, and a free ACX checker called Audiobook Checker, with two more tools, SOLAS and SUNBLOOM, listed as in development. V-23 is the practical, everyday mixing tool. TELEPRINTER is the creative, idea-first side of the same catalogue.

How TELEPRINTER turns text into sound

The core performance controls all exist to keep a typed line musical. LOCK holds the notes you play inside a chosen key, so a scrambled phrase still lands in scale. HOLD latches notes, so a pattern keeps reading without your fingers held down. CHORD plays a full chord from a single key, which turns one finger into a stack of characters at once. Together they let you treat a block of text like a phrase you can transpose, sustain, and harmonise rather than a fixed sample.

The mod wheel scrambles the text as it plays, and that is the fastest way to turn a static line into something that mutates. Push the wheel and the character order shuffles, so a fixed phrase becomes a generative one that keeps finding new rhythms from the same letters. It's a small gesture that does a lot, because the source stays recognisable while the pattern never settles.

Then there are the six robot voices, and they are what push TELEPRINTER past a clever sequencer. A robot voice reads your words aloud on the notes you play, and you choose how it speaks. It can read the words plainly, spell them letter by letter, babble in a word-shaped way, or sing one syllable per note. That last mode is the interesting one for music, because it turns a lyric into a pitched, roboty vocal line without recording anything. The presets lean into this with example themes like "Robot Love", "Low Power Mode", "Game dialogue", and "Data corruption", which show the span from musical to purely sound design.

For the non-vocal sounds, the instrument voices cover a usable range: glass, pluck, harp, felt piano, music box, hum, and two distorted basses. That's enough to build a lead part and a bassline from one plugin, so a typed hook and a typed sub can share the same source. The 161 presets each arrive with their own text already written, and KEEP TEXT drops your own words into any preset while keeping its sound, so you can audition your lyric or your trigger word through every character set without rebuilding a patch.

TELEPRINTER specifications

Spec	Detail
Type	Text-driven instrument plugin
Core idea	Each typed character plays its own sound; notes read the text in sync with the DAW
Character mapping	Separate sounds for capitals, lowercase, numbers, symbols; spaces are rests
Performance	LOCK (key), HOLD (latch), CHORD (chord from one key), mod-wheel text scramble
Robot voices	Six voices that read, spell, babble, or sing one syllable per note
Instrument voices	Glass, pluck, harp, felt piano, music box, hum, two distorted basses
Presets	161, each with its own text; KEEP TEXT swaps in your own words
Displays	Printout tape of the text being read, plus an 88-key note display
Formats	VST3 (Mac and Windows), AU (Mac only), AAX (Pro Tools, Mac and Windows)
Standalone	No, plugin only
System	macOS 11 or later (Apple silicon and Intel); Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
Licence	One licence covers every format on up to three of your own computers

TELEPRINTER vs iZotope VocalSynth 2

The nearest well-known reference point is also a robot-voice tool, so it's worth putting TELEPRINTER next to iZotope VocalSynth 2, the plugin most producers reach for when they want vocoder and computerised vocal textures. The key difference is where the sound comes from. TELEPRINTER generates everything from typed text and MIDI, with no audio input. VocalSynth 2 transforms an incoming vocal you have already recorded or are singing live.

	TELEPRINTER	iZotope VocalSynth 2
Type	Text-driven instrument	Vocal effect and synth
Input	Typed text plus MIDI notes, no audio needed	A recorded or live vocal (or other audio)
Robot/voice engine	Six robot voices that read, spell, babble, or sing	Vocoder, Talkbox, Compuvox, Polyvox, Biovox
Also does	Arps, leads, basses, plucks, keys, glitch and game SFX	Harmonies, formant shifts, built-in stompbox effects
Formats	VST3, AU, AAX (no standalone)	VST2, VST3, AU, AAX
Price	$44.99 intro, from $54.99	Around $199

Pick TELEPRINTER when you want roboty voices and text-driven parts and you don't want to record anything. Pick VocalSynth 2 when you already have a vocal and want to melt it into a vocoder or talkbox. They overlap on robot-voice output but start from opposite ends, so plenty of producers would happily own both. If what you want is a realistic sung voice from typed lyrics, that's a different category again, closer to a dedicated vocal synth such as Synthesizer V, and neither of these is built for that job. For more vocal-shaped instruments, the plugin database lists the current options side by side, and the TELEPRINTER card carries the quick-reference specs.

Who TELEPRINTER is for, and who should skip it

Buy it if you write sound design for games, film, or electronic music and you want synthetic voices, chatter, and glitches that react to real words rather than random noise. The character mapping means your effects can carry meaning, which matters when "ERROR" needs to read as an error.

It's also for you if you make beats and like generative, happy-accident tools. Typing a hook and scrambling it with the mod wheel is a fast route to a pattern you would never have played by hand, and the one-syllable-per-note singing gives you a vocal hook without opening a vocal session.

Skip it if you need a natural, convincing lead vocal. TELEPRINTER's voices are robotic by design, so it's the wrong tool for a believable topline. A vocal tuner like the one in our Karanyi Voicemax first look, or a dedicated vocal synth, is the better buy there.

Skip it too if your workflow has no room for an experimental instrument. This is an idea-first plugin. If you want a utility that solves one repeatable mixing problem, the same developer's V-23 Voice Processor is the practical pick instead.

How much does TELEPRINTER cost?

TELEPRINTER launched at an intro price of $44.99, rising to $54.99 afterwards. Regional launch pricing is £39.99 (from £49.99) and €44.99 (from €54.99), and the intro offer ends on Friday 6 November 2026. 23audio sells it directly, delivered as a licence code by email with no account or activation server, and one licence covers VST3, AU, and AAX on up to three of your own computers. The official page, with audio demos and the buy link, is 23audio.com. The product page lists no free trial or demo, so the audio examples are the way to preview it before buying.

FAQ

What is 23audio TELEPRINTER?

TELEPRINTER is an instrument plugin that plays typed text. Each character triggers its own sound, and each note you play reads one character in time with your DAW, so words become rhythms and melodies. Six robot voices can also read, spell, babble, or sing your text.

How does TELEPRINTER make sound from text?

You type a line of text, then play notes. The plugin reads the text one character per note, with capital letters, lowercase letters, numbers, symbols, and spaces each mapped to a different sound and spaces acting as rests. LOCK keeps notes in key, HOLD latches them, CHORD plays a chord from one key, and the mod wheel scrambles the character order as it plays.

Is TELEPRINTER a vocal synth like VocalSynth 2 or Synthesizer V?

Not quite. VocalSynth 2 transforms a vocal you feed it, and a tool like Synthesizer V builds a realistic sung voice from typed lyrics. TELEPRINTER generates roboty voices and instrument sounds from typed text with no audio input, so it sits between a sequencer and a lo-fi voice synth rather than replacing either.

What formats and systems does TELEPRINTER support?

VST3 on Mac and Windows, AU on Mac only, and AAX for Pro Tools on both platforms, with no standalone version. It needs macOS 11 or later on Apple silicon or Intel, or Windows 10 or 11 64-bit, and one licence covers all formats on up to three of your own computers.

How much is TELEPRINTER, and is there a trial?

The intro price is $44.99, rising to $54.99 once the offer ends on 6 November 2026, with £39.99 and €44.99 launch pricing in those regions. The product page lists no free trial, so the on-page audio demos are the way to preview it before buying directly from 23audio.