* Re: Speech clarity with DECtalk 5 and Speakup.
Speech clarity with DECtalk 5 and Speakup Luke Yelavich
@ ` Jayson Smith
` Luke Yelavich
` Kenny Hitt
1 sibling, 1 reply; 4+ messages in thread
From: Jayson Smith @ UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Hi,
Ok, I'm about to open up a huge can of worms here, but... You like 4.61?
Are you the only one? I much prefer the old Digital 4.2 versions or the 4.3
version you get when you download the Dectalk software demo for Windows from
the unofficial Dectalk archive. Imho, Force ruined it with 4.61. It just
sounds different, somehow. I think 5.0 sounds more like the older versions.
They say the new Dectalk USB is supposed to sound much like the 4.2 versions
but I have not heard it yet.
Jayson.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Luke Yelavich" <themuso@themuso.com>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Sunday, August 01, 2004 5:31 AM
Subject: Speech clarity with DECtalk 5 and Speakup.
> Hi all.
> I am wondering if anybody has managed to get clearer speech output from
DECtalk
> 5 with Speakup? I love the clarity of 4.61, but I also love the
responsiveness
> of 5, compared to 4.61.
>
> Suggestions welcome.
>
> Thanks
>
> Luke
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread* Re: Speech clarity with DECtalk 5 and Speakup.
Speech clarity with DECtalk 5 and Speakup Luke Yelavich
` Jayson Smith
@ ` Kenny Hitt
1 sibling, 0 replies; 4+ messages in thread
From: Kenny Hitt @ UTC (permalink / raw)
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1168 bytes --]
Hi. I didn't use DECtalk 4.6 with speakup very long, so maybe I'm
just used to DECtalk 5.
I noticed setting the pitch in speakup to 2 for male voices and 3 for
female voices seems to make them clear and understandable.
Speech-dispatcher only has 7 voices, so not all DECtalk voices are
available. I changed the female2 voice from Windy to Rita and
now use the Rita voice. I liked Betty years ago when I ran Windows
but I can't get the Betty voice usable with DECtalk 5.
I added [:volume set 100] to the command in my dtk-generic.conf to
get the volume to the highest setting. I'll attach my dtk-generic.conf
file incase there is something different I forgot.
Hope this helps.
Kenny
On Sun, Aug 01, 2004 at 07:31:14PM +1000, Luke Yelavich wrote:
> Hi all.
> I am wondering if anybody has managed to get clearer speech output from DECtalk
> 5 with Speakup? I love the clarity of 4.61, but I also love the responsiveness
> of 5, compared to 4.61.
>
> Suggestions welcome.
>
> Thanks
>
> Luke
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
[-- Attachment #2: dtk-generic.conf --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 3540 bytes --]
# DECTalk software output module is based on the generic plugin for Speech
# Dispatcher. It means there is no C code written explicitly for
# this plugin, all the specifics are handled in this configuration
# and we call a simple command line client to perform the actual
# synthesis. Note that this is not an optimal solution, but
# it's reported to work.
#
# Please note that DECTalk software is currently *not* Free Software.
# You might want to look at Festival instead.
# GenericExecuteSynth is the shell command that should be
# executed in order to say some message. This command must
# stop saying the message on SIGKILL, otherwise it's useless.
# You can use the variables $LANG, $VOICE, $PITCH and $RATE
# which will be substituted for the appropriate value (you
# can modify this value, see other parameters).
# The command can be split into more lines, if necessary, using '\'.
# NOTE1:
# Users of previous versions of this configuration file need to rename their
# DECTalk command-line program back to `say', since speech dispatcher no
# longer installs a program with this name. Thus, the reason for
# renaming the client in the first place is gone.
# NOTE2:
# DECTalk software version 4.61 is known to occasionally stop reading,
# due to a buffering problem with the `say' program. So far, the only way
# I know of to fix this is to upgrade from DECTalk 4.61 to DECTalk 5.
GenericExecuteSynth \
"echo \"[:n$VOICE][:ra $RATE][:dv ap $PITCH][:volume set 100]\" >/tmp/dtk-speak.txt \
&& echo \"$DATA\" | fmt >>/tmp/dtk-speak.txt && say -fi /tmp/dtk-speak.txt"
# GenericStripPunctChars is a list (enclosed in doublequotes) of
# all the characters that should be replaced by whitespaces in
# order not to be badly handled by the output module or misinterpreted
# by shell.
# We need to strip `[' and `]', as these are DECTalk's
# command characters.
GenericStripPunctChars "[]"
# AddVoice specifies which $VOICE string should be assigned to
# each language and symbolic voice name. All the voices you want
# to use must be specified here.
# NOTE:
# There is a multilingual version of DECTalk software, however I
# do not have it. Thus, only the US English voices are defined here.
# If you know about the other languages, please let us know on
# <speechd@freebsoft.org>
AddVoice "en" "MALE1" "p"
AddVoice "en" "MALE2" "h"
AddVoice "en" "MALE3" "d"
AddVoice "en" "FEMALE1" "b"
AddVoice "en" "FEMALE2" "r"
AddVoice "en" "FEMALE3" "u"
AddVoice "en" "CHILD_MALE" "k"
# These parameters set _rate_ and _pitch_ conversion. This is
# part of the core of the definition of this generic output
# module for this concrete synthesizer, it's not intended to
# be modified by common users.
# The resulting rate (or pitch) has the form:
# (speechd_rate * GenericRateMultiply) + GenericRateAdd
# while speechd_rate is a value between -100 (lowest) and +100 (highest)
# You have to define some meaningful conversion for each synthesizer
# NOTE:
# Because DECTalk cannot accept float values, we must force them to be
# integers.
GenericRateForceInteger 1
GenericPitchForceInteger 1
GenericRateAdd 338
GenericPitchAdd 225
# (These values are multiplied by 100, because DotConf currently
# doesn't support floats. So you can write 0.85 as 85 and so on.)
GenericRateMultiply 262
GenericPitchMultiply 175
# Debug turns debugging on or off
# Debug 1
# DebugFile specifies the file where the debugging information
# should be stored (note that the log is overwritten each time
# the module starts)
# DebugFile "/tmp/debug-dtk-generic"
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 4+ messages in thread