diff --git a/speech/google/cloud/speech_v1/gapic/transports/speech_grpc_transport.py b/speech/google/cloud/speech_v1/gapic/transports/speech_grpc_transport.py
index 62a9116c2843..de2e9294e1a7 100644
--- a/speech/google/cloud/speech_v1/gapic/transports/speech_grpc_transport.py
+++ b/speech/google/cloud/speech_v1/gapic/transports/speech_grpc_transport.py
@@ -90,7 +90,10 @@ def create_channel(cls, address="speech.googleapis.com:443", credentials=None):
             grpc.Channel: A gRPC channel object.
         """
         return google.api_core.grpc_helpers.create_channel(
-            address, credentials=credentials, scopes=cls._OAUTH_SCOPES
+            address,
+            credentials=credentials,
+            scopes=cls._OAUTH_SCOPES,
+            options={"grpc.max_receive_message_length": 256 * 1024 * 1024}.items(),
         )
 
     @property
diff --git a/speech/synth.metadata b/speech/synth.metadata
index 3165226cd1d5..ae6fc4e75587 100644
--- a/speech/synth.metadata
+++ b/speech/synth.metadata
@@ -1,19 +1,19 @@
 {
-  "updateTime": "2019-06-14T12:31:03.692038Z",
+  "updateTime": "2019-06-17T08:38:08.782762Z",
   "sources": [
     {
       "generator": {
         "name": "artman",
-        "version": "0.25.0",
-        "dockerImage": "googleapis/artman@sha256:ef1a98ab1e2b8f05f4d9a56f27d63347aefe14020e5f2d585172b14ca76f1d90"
+        "version": "0.26.0",
+        "dockerImage": "googleapis/artman@sha256:6db0735b0d3beec5b887153a2a7c7411fc7bb53f73f6f389a822096bd14a3a15"
       }
     },
     {
       "git": {
         "name": "googleapis",
         "remote": "https://github.com/googleapis/googleapis.git",
-        "sha": "c23b68eecb00c4d285a730a49b1d7d943cd56183",
-        "internalRef": "253113405"
+        "sha": "7b58b37559f6a5337c4c564518e9573d742df225",
+        "internalRef": "253322136"
       }
     },
     {
diff --git a/speech/synth.py b/speech/synth.py
index 162248a005aa..11baa4d0632c 100644
--- a/speech/synth.py
+++ b/speech/synth.py
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# Copyright 2018 Google LLC
+# Copyright 2019 Google LLC
 #
 # Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 # you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@
 # Generate speech GAPIC layer
 # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 for version in versions:
-    library = gapic.py_library("speech", version, include_protos=True,)
+    library = gapic.py_library("speech", version, include_protos=True)
 
     # Don't move over __init__.py, as we modify it to make the generated client
     # use helpers.py.
@@ -55,6 +55,16 @@
     r"from google.cloud.speech_\1.gapic import speech_client as speech_\1",
 )
 
+# Set the maximum received message size to 256 MiB, the default of 4 MiB is
+# often insufficient in practice.
+s.replace(
+    "google/cloud/speech_v1/gapic/transports/speech_grpc_transport.py",
+    r".*scopes=cls\._OAUTH_SCOPES.*",
+    """\g<0>
+    options={"grpc.max_receive_message_length": 256 * 1024 * 1024}.items()
+    """,
+)
+
 # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 # Add templated files
 # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------