CueBuddy - Voice Teleprompter
Scan with your phone to download
A teleprompter has three core parameters: scroll speed, font size, and window position.
Scroll speed is the one that drives people crazy. Too fast, you can't keep up. Too slow, you're waiting. And even when it's "just right," it can still feel like wrestling a machine.
Here's how to get it dialed in.
First, Understand What You're Adjusting
Most teleprompter apps use WPM — Words Per Minute — to control scrolling.
But Chinese and English "words" are different. An English word averages about 5 letters. A Chinese word is 1–3 characters. So Chinese WPM usually maps to characters per minute in practice.
Quick reference:
| Speed (char/min) | Feel | Good for |
|---|---|---|
| 150–180 | Slow, unhurried | Tutorials, educational content, anything requiring thought |
| 180–220 | Moderate, natural | Daily talking-head, vlogs, personal sharing |
| 220–260 | Fast, energetic | Snappy short-form content |
| 260+ | Very fast | Professional broadcasting, specific stylistic choices |
Numbers are just reference points. Actual speaking speed varies with content difficulty, emotional state, and honestly, how much coffee you've had.
How to Find Your Baseline Speed
Don't guess. Measure it. Three steps:
1. Find a short passage — about 100 characters — that you're comfortable with. 2. Record yourself reading it at your most natural, relaxed pace. 3. Check the recording length. Use the formula: characters ÷ seconds × 60 = your baseline speed.
Example: 100 characters in 28 seconds → 100 ÷ 28 × 60 ≈ 214 characters per minute. That's your baseline.
Plug that number into your teleprompter's speed setting. Then fine-tune ±20 from there until you find the rhythm where you're neither chasing nor waiting.
CueBuddy supports precise WPM adjustment down to single digits. Start at your baseline, shoot a 15-second test, tweak, test again. Repeat until it feels right.
Matching Scroll Speed to Content Type
Different content demands different speeds.
Tutorials / Educational: Drop 10–15%. Your audience needs time to digest. You need time to think. Fast-scrolling text means you finish one sentence before figuring out how to explain the next.
Storytelling / Vlogs: Baseline speed. Stories don't need rapid-fire delivery. Natural rhythm wins. You can even go 5% slower to leave room for tonal variation.
Opinion / Commentary: 5–10% faster than baseline. A slightly quicker pace adds energy and punch. But not so fast your mouth can't keep up.
Product intros / Sales: Depends. Features and specs at baseline. Deals and urgency at 15% faster to create momentum.
You can also vary speed within a single video. Start slow to build trust, baseline for the core, accelerate for the call to action. CueBuddy supports real-time speed adjustment during recording — gesture controls or Bluetooth remote — so you can adapt on the fly.
AI Voice Tracking: The Scroll-Speed Anxiety Killer
If you've tried tuning and it still feels off, the problem probably isn't the speed number. It's that fixed scroll speed as a mode doesn't fit you.
Human speech isn't constant. You slow down on key points, speed up on familiar ground, pause when you need to think. Fixed scrolling doesn't care about any of that. It marches at one pace. You spend the whole take accommodating it.
AI voice tracking (one of CueBuddy's core features) takes a different approach. No preset speed. It listens in real time. You speak, it scrolls to match. You pause, it waits. You speed up, it keeps pace.
Voice following uses Apple's Speech framework and matches recognition results to the script. Availability, network use, and response time vary by device, system, language, and environment, so test the actual setup before an important recording.
3 Signs Your Scroll Speed Is Too Fast
If you notice any of these during recording, drop the speed:
1. Shallow breathing. Gaps between sentences keep getting shorter because the text isn't giving you time to inhale. 2. Swallowed word endings. "Let me show you how this works" becomes "Let me show you how this—" Not a slip. The scroll speed is pushing you past your syllables. 3. Tight expression. Furrowed brows, pressed lips, missing smile. Your face is telling you: "I can't keep up."
Drop 10%. Instant difference.
2 Signs Your Scroll Speed Is Too Slow
1. You start adding padding. "This feature is great" becomes "This feature is, um, I think, you know, really quite great actually." You're filling space because the text hasn't arrived yet. 2. Impatience. You're mentally urging the prompter to "come on, come on." That irritation seeps into your tone. Your audience can feel it.
Add 10%. Fixed.
There's no universal magic number for scroll speed. The pace that feels perfect on a good day might feel rushed when you're sleep-deprived. That's normal. What matters is knowing how to adjust, and when.
If you'd rather not spend five minutes tweaking parameters every time you shoot, AI voice tracking is the path of least resistance. Let the machine adapt to you, not the other way around.
Try the free online teleprompter first
If you are solving script, pacing, line-memory, or filming workflow issues, open the browser teleprompter first and test the script there. Use the CueBuddy app when you need a stronger mobile recording workflow.
Start your next recording with CueBuddy
Try the free teleprompter workflow first, then open CueBuddy if you need stronger recording and camera workflows.