From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail-gx0-f220.google.com (mail-gx0-f220.google.com [209.85.217.220]) by speech.braille.uwo.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id E9C0610BFD for ; Fri, 5 Jun 2009 14:43:03 -0400 (EDT) Received: by gxk20 with SMTP id 20so261111gxk.17 for ; Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:43:03 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from :user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=QIfpohIeLy9fHdSLJvX7Z2wwxFGGVsgdhbc1k446q6k=; b=Km1hxMLKB4RPUOremkwE+hAmgDzJWhoO7Xl8OIKU1E20UcKbISX0yv7T3KZJqHCzTN VSwSKpZhYuTRBvKSOv97poON9ArVNLoCjPSz1QMhgJzuUwupl1gvB2pb5rFvHRzx7pPk POcDoxK6u1ycoYoXIJl2jgK9JLnExvTOTtW+0= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references :in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=Ni1iwF0eN5OXMYmPEccSaKxcuFc1ucqZ8X1r9eUKmbVAaEJp3R2pHKiEJnxNq6V8ES doadq+CNtV9Vg+1u6ICfUzqF6snUJPmBBV5w6Le/QBqjC5Pmzc0dNK287TmJ3FEmb+rw Xzt4S9qYwl2FYZzCsAJP6imFsErnJWN66MFg0= Received: by 10.90.82.8 with SMTP id f8mr3155835agb.30.1244227383432; Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:43:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from ?192.168.1.2? (c-76-22-142-84.hsd1.tn.comcast.net [76.22.142.84]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 7sm534050agc.47.2009.06.05.11.43.02 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:43:02 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <4A29673A.9000406@gmail.com> Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:43:06 -0500 From: farhan Khan User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1pre) Gecko/20090528 Shredder/3.0b3pre MIME-Version: 1.0 To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." Subject: Re: speakup using different synths with software speech? References: <5D1286E147AA4F92B17EDF969017C6CF@tdsdev> <20090531185400.GB10058@localhost.localdomain> <20090531192320.GA25139@linux1> <20090531195859.GA5899@grml> <036101c9e24a$63683200$6400a8c0@quan> <4A241922.7070204@baechler.net> <1243888309.19200.14.camel@orchid.sented-plants.local> <4A24F34F.8020601@baechler.net> <4A254839.5070706@aim.com> <4A27B01F.50203@baechler.net> <4A28475A.7010009@aim.com> <4A290006.5000506@baechler.net> In-Reply-To: <4A290006.5000506@baechler.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-BeenThere: speakup@braille.uwo.ca X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.12 Precedence: list Reply-To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." List-Id: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 18:43:04 -0000 Hello, having a mixer would fix a lot of your soundcard problems. I normally use headphones when I edit anything though. The soundcards I have in my machine are a soundblaster 24bit, and the delta 2496. The soundblaster is for all the useless sound like screenreaders, windows sounds whatever. The delta does all the music and editing stuff. On 6/5/2009 6:22 AM, Tony Baechler wrote: > All, > > There still seems to be misunderstandings on what I'm trying to say. > Again, I really don't mind paying a reasonable amount for software > speech, assuming I can afford it. The problem is that I've never yet > heard software speech that I liked. The other problem is that I don't > like using non-free software but I don't think I could get used to > ESpeak. My favorite voice is the hardware DEC-talk Express. I can > use it to read books, email, work on my other Linux boxes, etc. I can > listen to it for hours without growing tired of it. It has a very > fast speech rate while still being understandable. It doesn't have a > muffle like most software synths, specifically the software DEC-talk. > It can easily be customized to have the exact pitch and inflection I > want. When I bought it, it was around $1200 US and is still worth it, > even though the price dropped since then. I understand that the USB > version isn't as flexible. I've tried many different sets of speakrs > for software speech, but all either have too much bass, a muffle or > static. Probably the best for reading was Realspeak but it was very, > very slow. I've even tried software speech on a high-end stereo > system. That did help, but it still wasn't as good as my old DEC-talk > Express. I guess my next favorite would be the Trippletalk, but it > mispronounces things and has other problems, like stuttering and a > fairly small text buffer. One really great thing about the DEC > Express is that if I'm reading and the power goes out, it stores at > least two screens of text in its buffer, so it will keep reading for a > few minutes. > > As I said, I'll look at Voxin. Perhaps it's not as bad as I think. I > know speakers do have a lot to do with it and it's partially what I'm > used to, but what I really want is to just use my hardware > synthesizers. Software speech is enough of an issue for me that I > have put off really exploring Orca. > > Also, one thing not mentioned here is my other reason for not leaving > Windows. That is a lack of GUI audio software. I'm surprised that no > one else has pointed this out, but a really big problem with software > speech and audio production is that you don't want speech in your > recordings. Even if you have multiple sound cards or a good > multichannel card, a good microphone will still pick up software > speech, I know from experience. Even if you use headsets, it's still > very inconvenient when you're doing restoration and editing to hear > speech in your ears at the same time as the sound you're concentrating > on. I work with old time radio shows which have many pops and > clicks. It's hard to hear the disc noise with speech chattering away > in my ears. On the other hand, with hardware speech I can't hear it > at all with a headset on, but at least I don't have to repeat the same > half second of sound multiple times because the speech wouldn't shut > up. That's the problem I'm having now on a Windows machine with only > software speech. I'm sure there's an easy solution, but the volume of > all software synths seems to dominate all other sound, even if the > volume is lowered. > > Michael Whapples wrote: >> As for voxin, if you weren't pleased by eloquence, you are unlikely >> to be pleased with voxin as it uses IBM viavoice which sounds the >> same as eloquence (or at least very close, I think the voices are >> very slightly different). >> >> As for contributing to espeak, you could suggest how it could sound >> better, it may not require altering the actual code it may be a >> matter of altering the voice files. I don't mean it in a bad way, but >> you seem to be hard to please with speech output, it may help if we >> knew what makes a voice good to you. > > _______________________________________________ > Speakup mailing list > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup >