* hardware or software synths
@ Lexi A
` acollins
` (3 more replies)
0 siblings, 4 replies; 21+ messages in thread
From: Lexi A @ UTC (permalink / raw)
To: speakup
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
^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread* Re: hardware or software synths hardware or software synths Lexi A @ ` acollins ` Karen Lewellen ` Kyle ` (2 subsequent siblings) 3 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: acollins @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. 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 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths ` acollins @ ` Karen Lewellen ` Hart Larry ` Kyle 0 siblings, 2 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Karen Lewellen @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. 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 > > ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths ` Karen Lewellen @ ` Hart Larry ` Kyle ` Kyle 1 sibling, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Hart Larry @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. 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 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths ` Hart Larry @ ` Kyle ` Jason White 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Kyle @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. 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 -- Kyle is a droid. The whole world knows it This e-mail shows it. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths ` Kyle @ ` Jason White ` Kyle 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Jason White @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: speakup 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. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths ` Jason White @ ` Kyle ` Jason White 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Kyle @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. 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 -- Kyle is a droid. The whole world knows it This e-mail shows it. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths ` Kyle @ ` Jason White ` Samuel Thibault ` Kyle 0 siblings, 2 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Jason White @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: speakup 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. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths ` Jason White @ ` Samuel Thibault ` Jason White ` Kyle 1 sibling, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Samuel Thibault @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. 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 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths ` Samuel Thibault @ ` Jason White ` Kyle 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Jason White @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: speakup 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. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths ` Jason White @ ` Kyle 0 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Kyle @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. 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. The whole world knows it This e-mail shows it. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths ` Jason White ` Samuel Thibault @ ` Kyle 1 sibling, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Kyle @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. 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 -- Kyle is a droid. The whole world knows it This e-mail shows it. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths ` Karen Lewellen ` Hart Larry @ ` Kyle 1 sibling, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Kyle @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. 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 -- Kyle is a droid. The whole world knows it This e-mail shows it. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths hardware or software synths Lexi A ` acollins @ ` Kyle ` Lexi A ` Marcel Oats ` Marcel Oats 3 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Kyle @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. 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. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* RE: hardware or software synths ` Kyle @ ` Lexi A 0 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Lexi A @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: 'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.' 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 This e-mail shows it. _______________________________________________ Speakup mailing list Speakup@braille.uwo.ca http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths hardware or software synths Lexi A ` acollins ` Kyle @ ` Marcel Oats ` Jason White ` Marcel Oats 3 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Marcel Oats @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. 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 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths ` Marcel Oats @ ` Jason White ` John G. Heim 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Jason White @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: speakup 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. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* RE: hardware or software synths ` Jason White @ ` John G. Heim ` Jason White 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: John G. Heim @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: 'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.' 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? ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths ` John G. Heim @ ` Jason White ` John Heim 0 siblings, 1 reply; 21+ messages in thread From: Jason White @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: speakup 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). ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths ` Jason White @ ` John Heim 0 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: John Heim @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. 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. ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
* Re: hardware or software synths hardware or software synths Lexi A ` (2 preceding siblings ...) ` Marcel Oats @ ` Marcel Oats 3 siblings, 0 replies; 21+ messages in thread From: Marcel Oats @ UTC (permalink / raw) To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. 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 ^ permalink raw reply [flat|nested] 21+ messages in thread
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hardware or software synths Lexi A
` acollins
` Karen Lewellen
` Hart Larry
` Kyle
` Jason White
` Kyle
` Jason White
` Samuel Thibault
` Jason White
` Kyle
` Kyle
` Kyle
` Kyle
` Lexi A
` Marcel Oats
` Jason White
` John G. Heim
` Jason White
` John Heim
` Marcel Oats
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