hardware or software synths

hardware or software synths

[Lexi A]

Hi.

 

I will hopefully be going to University and I have applied for the DSa.
They are asking for information about Speakup and linux and I need to know
which would be the best synthisiser to use and which suppliers in the UK
sell.  I have read something about the keynote gold, would a braillenote
apex double up as a synth for Speakup?  Any help on  where I can get one of
the supported synths would be great

Thanks

 

Re: hardware or software synths

[acollins]

Hi.  It would probably be easier and less expensive to go with a
software synth.  The reason is that finding machines that have isa
serial ports these days is almost imposible, and speakup as of right now
does not work with either pci or usb serial ports.  Espeak is a software
synth that comes with most Linux distroibutions, and is easy to use. 
And of course, the price is right.  I don't know if the Braille Note
emulates either the Keynote Gold, or some other supported synth.  My
guess is probably not.  If you can find a machine with standard isa
serial ports, then probably a litetalk, a Braille 'n Speak, or a Dectalk
Express would be good hardware choices.

Gene Collins

>Hi.
>
> 
>
>I will hopefully be going to University and I have applied for the DSa.
>They are asking for information about Speakup and linux and I need to know
>which would be the best synthisiser to use and which suppliers in the UK
>sell.  I have read something about the keynote gold, would a braillenote
>apex double up as a synth for Speakup?  Any help on  where I can get one of
>the supported synths would be great
>
>Thanks
>
> 
>
>_______________________________________________
>Speakup mailing list
>Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: hardware or software synths

[Kyle]

I would personally recommend using Speakup with software speech. Most distributions with Speakup now come up talking using eSpeakup, which pipes the text to be spoken to eSpeak. My only other recommendation, especially if you will be using multiple machines with varying configurations, would be to carry a USB headset or other sound device that you can trust to work with Linux. For some strange reason, some onboard sound still comes up muted, so it's best to have something that you can be sure will always play sound unmuted out of the box. Hope this helps.
~Kyle
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RE: hardware or software synths

[Lexi A]

Hi Kyle 
Thanks for the Info.  I'll let my DSA assessor know.


-----Original Message-----
From: Speakup [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca] On Behalf Of Kyle
Sent: 23 July 2012 13:04
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: hardware or software synths

I would personally recommend using Speakup with software speech. Most
distributions with Speakup now come up talking using eSpeakup, which pipes
the text to be spoken to eSpeak. My only other recommendation, especially if
you will be using multiple machines with varying configurations, would be to
carry a USB headset or other sound device that you can trust to work with
Linux. For some strange reason, some onboard sound still comes up muted, so
it's best to have something that you can be sure will always play sound
unmuted out of the box. Hope this helps.
~Kyle
-- 
Kyle is a droid.
The whole world knows it
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_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: hardware or software synths

[Karen Lewellen]

Hi,
Something else no one seems to reference in these discussions is sound 
quality speech wise.
Believe the ability to understand your speech, a  matter of personal 
taste, carries in price consideration in a major way.  Likewise other 
uses you will want to make for your sound card.
I prefer hardware speech to software, and personally would need two 
sound cards if I went with software speech.
Just my take,
Karen

On Mon, 23 Jul 2012, acollins@icsmail.net wrote:

> Hi.  It would probably be easier and less expensive to go with a
> software synth.  The reason is that finding machines that have isa
> serial ports these days is almost imposible, and speakup as of right now
> does not work with either pci or usb serial ports.  Espeak is a software
> synth that comes with most Linux distroibutions, and is easy to use.
> And of course, the price is right.  I don't know if the Braille Note
> emulates either the Keynote Gold, or some other supported synth.  My
> guess is probably not.  If you can find a machine with standard isa
> serial ports, then probably a litetalk, a Braille 'n Speak, or a Dectalk
> Express would be good hardware choices.
>
> Gene Collins
>
>> Hi.
>>
>>
>>
>> I will hopefully be going to University and I have applied for the DSa.
>> They are asking for information about Speakup and linux and I need to know
>> which would be the best synthisiser to use and which suppliers in the UK
>> sell.  I have read something about the keynote gold, would a braillenote
>> apex double up as a synth for Speakup?  Any help on  where I can get one of
>> the supported synths would be great
>>
>> Thanks
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Speakup mailing list
>> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>

Re: hardware or software synths

[Hart Larry]

I completely agree with Karen, speech is generally a quite individual item. 
For some of us, just because it talks, doesn't mean its understandable, but 
some like it as fast as it will go.
If you want something in software which will practicly sound like JAWS running 
IBM TTS, last time I ran that here some years ago the volume would not increase 
past a certain level.
I myself have a DecTalk USB, but there are certainly issues.  As far as e-speak 
or festival, I  would just about say, they are not understandable.
Hope all of our suggestions will asist you in finding what works best.
Hart

Re: hardware or software synths

[Kyle]

It is more practical, higher quality and more easily understandable to use software speech with a USB sound device these days, unless you are guaranteed a machine with a serial port and just happen to have an old hardware speech synthesizer laying around somewhere that you either already purchased or someone let you have on the cheap. It will take a bit of extra work to get all non-speech sounds playing through onboard sound and only speech playing through the USB device, but the price to do this is somewhere between 5 and 10 dollars rather than 50, 100 or even 1000 dollars or more, depending on the hardware synthesizer you happen to be able to purchase that is old enough to support a standard serial port. To be honest, although it is good to have hardware speech, especially since it comes up talking much earlier in the boot process, there just isn't a market for dedicated hardware speech at any price for any OS. There is, however, still a rather large market for USB headsets and
other similar devices, which can be purchased for as little as about $3 and certainly no more than $50, and these have the attitional advantage of being usable on any machine that has a USB port.
~Kyle
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The whole world knows it
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Re: hardware or software synths

[Kyle]

While I agree regarding the standard FestVox voices that come with Festival, it does offer a framework that allows much more understandable voices to be installed and used instead. Also, I find eSpeak to be of much higher quality, easier to understand, available at a much lower price and much better maintained than IBMTTS, ViaVoice, TTSynth, Voxin or whatever they're calling that old broken down Jaws voice these days, and that's completely putting aside for the moment that both Festival and eSpeak are completely free and open source, meaning that you have the freedom to fix what you don't like about them. Pico is also open source, although from what I understand, there is a bit of a problem making new voice data or something. Festival and eSpeak are open source, including their voice data, which is impossible to find on any hardware synthesizer at any price.
~Kyle
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Re: hardware or software synths

[Jason White]

Kyle  <speakup@braille.uwo.ca> wrote:
>While I agree regarding the standard FestVox voices that come with Festival,
>it does offer a framework that allows much more understandable voices to be
>installed and used instead. Also, I find eSpeak to be of much higher quality,
>easier to understand, available at a much lower price and much better
>maintained than IBMTTS, ViaVoice, TTSynth, Voxin or whatever they're calling
>that old broken down Jaws voice these days, and that's completely putting
>aside for the moment that both Festival and eSpeak are completely free and
>open source, meaning that you have the freedom to fix what you don't like
>about them. Pico is also open source, although from what I understand, there
>is a bit of a problem making new voice data or something. 

The sources of the voice files are available but the tools to convert them to
binary files exist only as MS-Windows executables. these don't include the
machine learning algorithms needed to build new voices.

there is a need for better-quality free/opens-ource speech synthesis software.
Either someone will write it, or someone will release a previously proprietary
system under an open licence.

Re: hardware or software synths

[Kyle]

As for new high quality open source voices, there is hope. Google TTS as used in Android 4.0 is available under the Apache license and uses BSD licensed voice data provided by the Nagoya Institute of Technology. I'm not sure about the tools to create new voices, but this could become another option, since I would guess that getting the voices running on Linux shouldn't be difficult. I am guessing that the latest Google voices should be just as free, and from what I have heard, they sound even better, and are likely some of the best voices in terms of quality and responsiveness currently available So yes, new open source speech synthesis tsoftware is being created, and the existing software will also be improved. We won't only have Festival, eSpeak and Pico forever. In fact, it shouldn't take long at all to have something even better.
~Kyle
-- 
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The whole world knows it
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Re: hardware or software synths

[Jason White]

Kyle  <speakup@braille.uwo.ca> wrote:
>As for new high quality open source voices, there is hope. Google TTS as used in Android 4.0 is available under the Apache license and uses BSD licensed
>voice data provided by the Nagoya Institute of Technology. I'm not sure about the tools to create new voices, but this could become another option,
>since I would guess that getting the voices running on Linux shouldn't be difficult. I am guessing that the latest Google voices should be just as free,
>and from what I have heard, they sound even better, and are likely some of the best voices in terms of quality and responsiveness currently available So
>yes, new open source speech synthesis tsoftware is being created, and the existing software will also be improved. 

Do you have details of the source repository for the new Google synthesizer?

With luck, it should be relatively easy to check out the sources, and I'm sure
there are people on the list who will be sufficiently interested to resolve
any compilation issues.

Re: hardware or software synths

[Samuel Thibault]

Jason White, le Wed 25 Jul 2012 00:36:57 +0000, a écrit :
> Kyle  <speakup@braille.uwo.ca> wrote:
> >As for new high quality open source voices, there is hope. Google TTS as used in Android 4.0 is available under the Apache license and uses BSD licensed
> >voice data provided by the Nagoya Institute of Technology. I'm not sure about the tools to create new voices, but this could become another option,
> >since I would guess that getting the voices running on Linux shouldn't be difficult. I am guessing that the latest Google voices should be just as free,
> >and from what I have heard, they sound even better, and are likely some of the best voices in terms of quality and responsiveness currently available So
> >yes, new open source speech synthesis tsoftware is being created, and the existing software will also be improved. 
> 
> Do you have details of the source repository for the new Google synthesizer?

git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/external/svox.git

> With luck, it should be relatively easy to check out the sources, and I'm sure
> there are people on the list who will be sufficiently interested to resolve
> any compilation issues.

It's not just compilation. It's reverse-engineering the lingware formats
to be able to convert from speech source into the binary format used by
the application (what is called "compilation"). Not impossible since we
have the source of the application reading the binary, and the speech
source is really source, not blobs, but quite involving, because that
means understanding the whole thing.

To give a bit of history, what happened is that google bought this
synthesizer from a company, but apparently they didn't get the source
for the compiler.

Samuel

Re: hardware or software synths

[Kyle]

As far as I know, the Google synthesizers are part of the Android 4.0 and 4.1 source trees. Sorry, at the moment, I am unable to confirm this, but if they're anything like Pico, this should be true. Hope it helps.
~Kyle
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Re: hardware or software synths

[Jason White]

Samuel Thibault  <speakup@braille.uwo.ca> wrote:

>git://android.git.kernel.org/platform/external/svox.git

Sorry, I didn't ask the question clearly enough - I was already aware of Svox
Pico and its limitations.

I meant the sources of the new Google TTS mentioned earlier in the thread as
provided in Android 4.0 and 4.1 - an entirely new synthesizer as I understand
it. I don't know whether these sources are available.

With apologies to Samuel and others for the confusion - the question still stands.

Re: hardware or software synths

[Kyle]

For a less limited SVox Pico experience, I have written PicoSpeaker, which can be made to work with Speech-dispatcher using a generic module configuration.
http://picospeaker.tk
I recently made some changes to the speech output to hopefully make it sound better.

As for the new synthesizers in Android 4.0 and 4.1, the sources should be in their respective Android source trees, also available from android.git.kernel.org. Sorry, but I don't have a direct link or git repo for either of these at the moment, but hopefully this will help a little.
~Kyle
-- 
Kyle is a droid.
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Re: hardware or software synths

[Marcel Oats]

I would personally recommend using Speakup with software speech. Most 
distributions with Speakup now come up talking using eSpeakup, which 
pipes the text to be spoken to eSpeak. My only other recommendation, 
especially if you will be using multiple machines with varying 
configurations, would be to carry a USB headset or other sound device 
that you can trust to work with Linux. For some strange reason, some 
onboard sound still comes up muted, so it's best to have something that 
you can be sure will always play sound unmuted out of the box. Hope this 
helps.
~Kyle
-- 
Kyle is a droid.
The whole world knows it
This e-mail shows it.
_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: hardware or software synths

[Marcel Oats]

I would personally recommend using Speakup with software speech. Most 
distributions with Speakup now come up talking using eSpeakup, which 
pipes the text to be spoken to eSpeak. My only other recommendation, 
especially if you will be using multiple machines with varying 
configurations, would be to carry a USB headset or other sound device 
that you can trust to work with Linux. For some strange reason, some 
onboard sound still comes up muted, so it's best to have something that 
you can be sure will always play sound unmuted out of the box. Hope this 
helps.
~Kyle
-- 
Kyle is a droid.
The whole world knows it
This e-mail shows it.
_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: hardware or software synths

[Jason White]

Marcel Oats  <speakup@braille.uwo.ca> wrote:
> My only other recommendation, 
>especially if you will be using multiple machines with varying 
>configurations, would be to carry a USB headset or other sound device 
>that you can trust to work with Linux. For some strange reason, some 
>onboard sound still comes up muted, so it's best to have something that 
>you can be sure will always play sound unmuted out of the box. 

This should also give you more reliably good audio quality than what comes out
of a typical laptop speaker. Not every machine has speakers attached of
reasonable quality either, so if you're using other peoples' systems, bringing
your own audio hardware (preferably a USB headset) makes good sense simply as
ensurance of reasonable audio quality.

RE: hardware or software synths

[John G. Heim]

Marcel Oats  <speakup@braille.uwo.ca> wrote:
> My only other recommendation,
>especially if you will be using multiple machines with varying 
>configurations, would be to carry a USB headset or other sound device 
>that you can trust to work with Linux. For some strange reason, some 
>onboard sound still comes up muted, so it's best to have something that 
>you can be sure will always play sound unmuted out of the box.


Last time I checked, linux didn't automatically switch the default sound
device from an internal sound card to a USB headset. Has this changed? 

Re: hardware or software synths

[Jason White]

John G. Heim <speakup@linux-speakup.org> wrote:

>Last time I checked, linux didn't automatically switch the default sound
>device from an internal sound card to a USB headset. Has this changed? 

No. You still have to set it, and that's probably how it should be.

This can be done from the shell in either Alsa or PulseAudio (for the latter,
use pacmd or write a ~/.pulse/default.pa file).

Re: hardware or software synths

[John Heim]

From: "Jason White" <jason@jasonjgw.net>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, December 26, 2012 11:21 PM
Subject: Re: hardware or software synths


> John G. Heim <speakup@linux-speakup.org> wrote:
>
>>Last time I checked, linux didn't automatically switch the default sound
>>device from an internal sound card to a USB headset. Has this changed?
>
> No. You still have to set it, and that's probably how it should be.

Well, how are you going to set it if you don't have sound?

I disagree that this is the way it should be. You plug a USB headset iinto a 
Windows machine and you get sound through the USB headset. Then you can 
start narrator with a keystroke and you are (sort of) good to go.

I'm not saying linux should do it just because Windows does it. I'm saying 
linux should do it because it works. Well, it works for blind people at 
least.