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Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 9:23 am
by futures_untold
What is Text-to-Speech?

Text-to-speech programs allow you to type in text and create a spoken word audio sample. They usually have different 'voices' to choose from, and allow you to alter the speed and pitch the words are spoken at.

Here's a Google search for text-to-speech synthesiser.

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Programs

Two good ones are AT&T Labs Natural Voices and Cepstral Text-to-Speech.

You can use their online demo's which both allow you to save a wav file to disk.

Rivaling Microsoft Sam, Macs also have a built in text to speech program. (I'm unsure what it is called...PC user here.)

FL Studio has a text-to-speech plugin built right in! ---> http://flstudio.image-line.com/help/htm ... 0Synth.htm

Image

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Techniques

You may find it takes some tweaking to get the voices sounding right. Try editing the pitch and speed of the voice, and spelling words how they sound. Unusual placement of punctuation can also alter the tone and inflection of the voices, so try placing commas and full stops in different places to see if it improves the clarity of the pronunciation.

Entering one word at a time can often yield more natural results. with each word as its own sample, you can use your sequencer to adjust the timing between words more asily.

Many effects can be used to make the results of a text-to-speech synthesiser sound better. These include using chorussing, reverb, pitchshifting, timestretching and compression.

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Text-to-Speech vs Real Voice Actors

If you have a microphone, it will sound a lot more natural if you can record real people.

Writing a script before recording often helps actors to deliver better results. Try roping your mates and family into being voice actors for you. :)

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 10:03 am
by gnome
Good stuff. You have recently been answering all my questions

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 10:26 am
by futures_untold
Glad to hear that! :)

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 10:35 am
by wub
AT&Ts one doesn't let you enter swear words :(


(NB: I know swearing is neither big nor clever)

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 10:50 am
by Basic A
:lol:

Right, right, get this one... seriously...

Open FL's text to speech...

Set note to whatever you choose...

voice to male...

now type.... yoy yoy yoyoyoyoyoyoyoy

Now resample

Now pitch down a full octave...

Now bitcrush. 8)

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 10:58 am
by paravrais
Another thread of win from you man! are all of these going to be added to the production bible at some point cos we don't want all of this great information to get lost in the nexus of dsf back pages..

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 10:58 am
by futures_untold
^^ Yes ^^ ;)
Basic A wrote::lol:

Right, right, get this one... seriously...

Open FL's text to speech...

Set note to whatever you choose...

voice to male...

now type.... yoy yoy yoyoyoyoyoyoyoy

Now resample

Now pitch down a full octave...

Now bitcrush. 8)
Nice! haha :)

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Tue Jul 20, 2010 1:39 pm
by deadly_habit

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 1:14 pm
by gnome
http://www.sitepal.com/ttswidgetdemo?mId=36631391.3
Check this one out. You can even add breathes

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 1:45 pm
by Depone
Im loving the original badman Atari ST Speech

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 3:28 pm
by sully_harmitage
^^
is there anything that sounds like that on a modern platform?

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 7:33 pm
by Depone
sully.harmitage wrote:^^
is there anything that sounds like that on a modern platform?
just get one of the many atari emulators, and search for the patch. twas easy last night, annnnd im on a mac

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Sun Jul 25, 2010 8:08 pm
by sixth sense
http://www2.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php

edit: someone might of posted this on already

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Mon Jul 26, 2010 10:30 am
by sully_harmitage
Depone wrote:
sully.harmitage wrote:^^
is there anything that sounds like that on a modern platform?
just get one of the many atari emulators, and search for the patch. twas easy last night, annnnd im on a mac
atari emulators are not good for my blood pressure or mental well being.
this does the trick though!!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1942830/stspeech.exe

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 7:59 am
by Ldizzy
Basic A made me laugh for 3 minutes straigt. do u take donations?


Mac Os built in Text-to-speech is actually called text-to-speech, but the crookers have turned its coolest voice into a hipster phenomenon :(

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 8:23 am
by jaydot
This thread could be verry interesting

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Wed Sep 15, 2010 9:45 am
by Ldizzy
jaydot wrote:This thread could be verry interesting
Soundcloud

1. Create a .txt file. no other extension will work... again this is for mac.

2. In it, put your text-to-be-read.

3. Save it somewhere logical and note down its path.

4. Open your text to speech window in the system preferences menu and choose your favourite voice.

5. Open Terminal and type in :

say -f "...txt" -o "...aiff"

the ''...'' are to be replaced by the exact location of your file on the harddrive and the destination path of your aiff file.

6. press enter, you robot-laboring motherfucker

Soundcloud


good innit?

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 12:53 am
by Xince
Is there anything on the VST side?
I'm too lazy to record from a software into my DAW.

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 9:45 am
by mthrfnk
Xince wrote:Is there anything on the VST side?
I'm too lazy to record from a software into my DAW.
You'll go far.

Re: Text-to-Speech Programs

Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 4:04 pm
by rockonin
I've used the Google Translate text to speech tool in a song. Shame you cant choose different voices.