beanA Bean guide for families
Their everyday words. Your own voice.
By Gorse Bush Studios · October 9, 2026
Bean lets you use an AAC app with your own voice by recording individual words and phrases. A parent, caregiver, or another familiar person can make recordings for the tiles the family uses.
Record words one at a time
- Open Settings → My Recordings and start a voice.
- For the word shown, tap Record, say the word or phrase, and tap Stop.
- Listen to playback. Re-record if you want another take, or continue to the next word.
- Name the voice when you finish, then select it in Settings → Voice.
You can pause the setup and return later. Speak naturally and leave a little quiet space around the word. Bean automatically trims extra quiet time at the beginning and end when it can identify the sound. It keeps pauses within the phrase.
Hear the full word
Listen back to each take so the beginning and ending are clear. Quiet or noisy recordings may remain untrimmed. A Trim Quiet Time switch lets you use the full take if you prefer. Trimming removes quiet edges; it does not separate speech from background noise.
Keep using words you have not recorded
You do not need to record the whole vocabulary before using Bean. When your recorded voice is selected, missing recordings use your chosen system voice. This also applies to newly added custom tiles.
Update a word from its tile
With a custom voice selected, touch and hold a tile to record or re-record its audio. This makes it easy to replace a take or add a recording for a new photo tile without working through the entire vocabulary again.
Individual recordings, saved locally
This feature plays clips you record; it does not clone a voice or generate new speech in that person’s voice. Saved recordings work offline and stay on your device. You can export them with your tiles and pictures using Settings → Export & Import. You choose where to save or share the backup.
Choose what fits: Recorded and installed system voices are both options. Bean’s recorded clips play at their original speed; the Speaking Rate setting applies to system speech. Visit Bean support for more help.