DEV3 Echolace – AI Transcription & Text-to-Speech SaaS with Gemini AI Admin Tools (Next.js)

Echolace is a transcription and text-to-speech service that you host yourself, built by DEV3 Technologies on Next.js 16, React 19, TypeScript, Tailwind 4 and MongoDB, with a separate Node worker that processes jobs. Each customer gets a workspace with a minutes balance. People upload or record audio, get a transcript with speakers and word timings, correct it in a waveform editor, export it, and turn scripts into voiceovers. You, the operator, sell plans and minute packs and run the platform from an operator panel. The demo shows fictional workspaces: a research lab, a podcast team, a learning company and a support desk.

How the AI works, plainly: every AI feature runs on a built-in simulated engine. Transcripts of the 12 bundled sample recordings come from their known scripts, other uploads get a clearly marked placeholder transcript, summaries and translations are produced by deterministic rules, and the voice is a synthetic tone voice. Real providers are bring-your-own-key and off by default: an OpenAI-compatible speech and text API, a local Whisper.cpp server or the espeak-ng binary. No provider, key or minutes are included, and provider costs are yours. A workspace setting can force simulated mode even when a provider is configured.

No live demo: 37 screenshots and two video tours show the marketing site, the editor, subtitles, voiceovers, the workspace pages and the operator panel. This product is a web application: there are no mobile apps.

For people who transcribe

• Upload or record audio and video; formats the browser can decode are accepted, and more with ffmpeg on your server. Import by URL is guarded against private addresses.
• Transcripts with speaker labels you can rename, word-level timestamps, confidence shading and paragraphs.
• A waveform editor: click a word to seek, the current word highlights during playback, find and replace, merge or split speakers, strike filler words, revision history with restore and comments.
• Exports: TXT, DOCX, PDF, SRT, VTT and JSON.
• Subtitles studio with line-length and timing rules, SRT/VTT import and manual edit.
• AI tasks: summary, chapters, key points, action items and quotes, plus translation of transcripts and subtitles. Output carries a "Simulated" badge.
• Voiceovers: script to audio with voice, speed and pauses, multi-voice dialogue, WAV export (MP3 with ffmpeg).
• Library: folders, tags, search across every transcript, custom vocabulary, and read-only share links with a player and optional expiry.

For the operator

• Plans, minute packs and metering: minutes are reserved when a job starts, settled when it finishes and refunded when it fails or is cancelled, with a ledger and a reconciliation check.
• Operator panel: overview, workspaces, users, driver settings with a cost table, voices, plans and packs, abuse reports and audit log.
• Workspaces and roles: owner, admin, editor and viewer, with a team page, API keys, a REST API with OpenAPI, and webhooks.
• Setup wizard, demo data, installer lock, and a documentation page in the download. Payments are simulated until you connect your own gateway (Stripe and Razorpay adapters included).

Good to know

• Starting codebase for a transcription service, not a finished business. Extended licence needed to sell the service to paying customers.
• Uploads only: no live or real-time transcription, no meeting bots, no voice cloning, no phone or IVR.
• Needs MongoDB 6+ (replica set, a single node works) and two long-lived Node processes: the web app and the worker. ffmpeg is optional and is not bundled.
• Uploads through the API are buffered in memory up to the plan cap; set a matching body limit on your reverse proxy.
• Back up your APP_SECRET and your storage folder.
• All people, workspaces and recordings in the demo are fictional; the sample voices are synthetic tones, not real speech.

Gemini AI admin tools

Add your own GEMINI_API_KEY after purchase (the product ships with it blank and never uses ours) to switch on suggestion-only AI actions that you preview and edit before accepting: summarise a recording, draft a follow-up email, next best actions, tag and route, flag risks, ask the library in plain English, suggest search phrases, polish a voiceover script, clean up a vocabulary list, explain usage, draft share messages, and platform actions for operators (explain figures, triage abuse reports, suggest driver setup). Personal data is redacted before every call. Gemini is also selectable as the text driver for summaries, chapters and translation. A Google Translate language switcher sits in the site header and app top bar. Google bills your own key.