Re: Different espeak voice families don't seem to work

[Tim Cross <theophilusx@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Raman can probably clarify, but I think the probolem is due to limitations with the available voices for espeak. The original TTS synth used for emacspeak was the dtk-exp, which supported a range of different voices. The ViaVoice synth also supports a number of voices. However, other synths have less variety. Emacspeak tries to vary things using pitch changes etc when the underlying synth does not support as many different voices.

It is also possible that since espeak is under active development that the way it responds to changes or its range of voice variables has also changed since the time espeak integration was done. 

One thing you can try is to see, using just espeak from the command line, how much variation you can get with different voices. It is possible that the mapping from emacspeak voices to espeak voices could be refined/improved. A new version of espeak was released a week or so ago. I might try and do the same if time permits. I'm not sure if Raman uses espeak, so it may be down to those of us who use it to try and test and possibly refine voice mappings.

Tim

On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 7:45 AM, Alastair Irving <alastair.irving@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Hi All

I'm running emacspeak 33 with espeak 1.44.05.  I've just been customizing various voices by customising variables like voice-bolden-settings.  I discovered that if I change the family between Paul, Harry and Betty, then there is no change to the speech.  as a test, running
(dtk-speak-using-voice voice-womanize-1 "This is a random string")
Then the only change to the default voice is the pitch increase, and a female voice is not used.

It seems that all 3 voice families are being mapped to the same voice in espeak.  Is this a known bug, or am I missing something?

Many thanks

Alastair Irving

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from the emacspeak list or change your address on the
emacspeak list send mail to "emacspeak-request@xxxxxxxxxxx" with a
subject of "unsubscribe" or "help".