The recordings
- Spoken reading and Sephardic chant: Rabbi Dan Be’eri, from his Tanakh narration and cantillation on the Internet Archive (for example Tanakh Narration and Tanakh Cantillation, Beeri, one item per book). Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
- Ashkenazi chant: Asael, from his recordings for the Vayavinu Bamikra project of Hebrew Wikisource, on Wikimedia Commons (the whole set). Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0.
Neither reader is affiliated with Kol Aliyah, and neither endorses it.
What we changed
Each portion is cut from these recordings, with short fades and one loudness level per recording. Where a recording peaked too hard, the clipped peaks are repaired (Asael’s). Nothing is re-sung or re-voiced. The changed recordings are shared under the same licence, CC BY-SA 3.0.
Download the recordings
The reading packs, the changed recordings with their word timings and text, are free to download here, with no account and no restrictions beyond the licences.
- Pack index (placeholder, live at launch): https://packs.kolaliyah.app/v1/index.json
A full download list, portion by portion, comes at launch.
Where no recording exists
The blessings, and some Haftarah readings, are in a synthesised voice made from the developer’s own recordings, because no recording of them exists. The app says so on the screen.
The Hebrew text
Miqra according to the Masorah (MAM), as distributed through Sefaria, under CC BY-SA 4.0. The app shows it word by word with its own transliteration, and with the chant marks and vowels switched on and off; those changes are ours, under the same licence.
The test and the type
The test listens on the phone with OpenAI’s Whisper model, run by whisper.cpp, both under the MIT licence. Type: Frank Ruehl CLM and Stam Ashkenaz CLM from the Culmus project (GNU GPL v2 with the font exception) and EB Garamond (SIL Open Font License); see the font licences. The same notices, and the sources of each portion, are on the Licences screen in the app.