Food & bev. Body care. Toys. These are some of the categories most popular with content creators who want to expand into products not directly connected to their social media accounts.
But Quackity‘s not entering any of them. Instead, his first major project is a real-time translation app aimed at helping streamers reach international audiences without learning to speak other languages.
The Minecraft YouTuber who was once part of Dream SMP has re-emerged after nearly three years of radio silence on his home platform to drop Dababel, which can translate conversations in real-time, while copying the original speaker’s voice.
Subscribe for daily Tubefilter Top Stories
That’s what sets it apart from other real-time translation services. Plenty of other real-time translation apps have been around for years, so Dababel’s claim that it’s the “first ever universal text and voice translation tool” is a little bit dicey. But it does make itself unique with voice replication.
And Quackity knows that: To promote his app, he got Breaking Bad actor Luis Moncada to sit down with his son, who only speaks English. Using Dababel, the two were able to have their first conversation in Spanish.
The clip lingers on Moncada as he cycles through surprise and delight, listening to Dababel’s recreation of his son speaking. “That’s amazing,” he says. “You’re going to make me cry. You gave me his voice, in Spanish. It touched my heart.”
View this post on Instagram
All that heart-touching isn’t free, though–not for laypeople or streamers. Dababel has Conversation Mode, used for two people to talk back and forth, as well as Universal Mode, which allows for translation of both livestreams and VODs. Both of these, along with a Play Mode where users can hear their own voice in different languages, cost “credits” to operate.
Users get those credits by paying for subscriptions, which start at $9.99/week for individuals and up to $139/week for businesses.
Dababel’s website encourages creators to get in touch directly and says it offers a plan “tailored” for them that “includes all Dababel services, with higher limits and content-focused features.” There’s no pricing listed publicly.
That could be because Dababel doesn’t seem quite ready to roll out wide for streamers yet. Dexerto reports the app currently supports PC integration with communication platforms like Discord and Zoom, allowing live translation in calls (and, presumably, bigger broadcasts like those held in Discord’s Stage Channels). But support for OBS, the most-used streamer broadcasting software, isn’t available yet.
Also worth noting: The app’s website claims it lets users “speak any language instantly,” but right now only offers translation in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Japanese, or Korean. That’s two claims that aren’t quite as impressive as they first appear, so keen creators may want to keep that in mind.
Our take? People all over the world watch content, and platforms and creators are both increasingly looking to connect with audiences in different languages. YouTube has done this for VODs through things like subtitles and dubbing, but before Dababel, no solution had been designed for livestreamers.
Will this be the one? Maybe! It’s pretty pricey and currently offers just six languages. Its website doesn’t mention utilizing AI, but considering the real-time voice recreation, Dababel is almost guaranteed to be running on some sort of generative artificial intelligence, which might put some users off. But if it can add more languages and wrap into OBS with real-time, accurate translations that work, we can see streamers embracing it to reach regional audiences they otherwise would never have been able to speak to.
