Software synth

[-]

Hi,

I'm new to speakup. Reading on the web speakup was originally used with a
hardware synth such as dectalk. Is there now a software synth available?

Is there a choice of voices if a software synth exists? Where on the web
can one read more about one if it exists? Are there examples of voices to
hear?

Thanks,

Dan

XB

[Kyle]

Most distros that ship Speakup use the Espeak synthesizer available at
http://espeak.sourceforge.net/
These distros usually include Espeak packages along with a connector
called Espeakup, which sends Speakup's output to Espeak. Vinux also is
reported to use a connector called Speechd-up, which rather than
sending Speakup's output to Espeak, instead sends it to speech-
dispatcher, but by all accounts, speechd-up is no longer developed,
although I could be wrong on that point. Hope this helps.
Sent from my single board computer

[c***@ccs.covici.com]

speechd-up is working fine for me and I use it because I want speech
dispatcher to use speakup-r to read a whole buffer and stop where I left
off, I don't think if I use espeakup that will work.

Post by Kyle
Most distros that ship Speakup use the Espeak synthesizer available at
http://espeak.sourceforge.net/
These distros usually include Espeak packages along with a connector
called Espeakup, which sends Speakup's output to Espeak. Vinux also is
reported to use a connector called Speechd-up, which rather than
sending Speakup's output to Espeak, instead sends it to speech-
dispatcher, but by all accounts, speechd-up is no longer developed,
although I could be wrong on that point. Hope this helps.
Sent from my single board computer
_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup

[Tony Baechler]

Post by -
I'm new to speakup. Reading on the web speakup was originally used with a
hardware synth such as dectalk. Is there now a software synth available?

Yes, several. As Kyle stated, ESpeak is the most popular, but there is also
Festival. If you want to use something other than ESpeak, you'll need
Speech Dispatcher which can be a bear to configure. Also, using the
speechd-up connector apparently has more latency than espeakup. Even though
most people don't seem to like the ESpeak voice quality, it remains the best
free, open source software synth available. Gnuspeech is in early
development, but can't talk by itself; it must first write to a .wav file.

Post by -
Is there a choice of voices if a software synth exists? Where on the web
can one read more about one if it exists? Are there examples of voices to
hear?

As Kyle stated, espeak.sf.net is the official ESpeak homepage. I don't know
if there are voice demos or not. A good way to try it without having to
install and configure a Linux distro might be my BATS live test CD. BATS
stands for Baechler Access Technology Services and specializes in low cost
support for the beginning to intermediate Linux user. We also offer VPSs
and domain registrations. Here are the download links:

32-bit: http://classicradio.us/iso/livetest32.iso
64-bit: http://classicradio.us/iso/livetest5.iso

Here are the login accounts:

Username: user
Password: user

Username: root
Password: root

Please test the CD images and let me know how they work for you or if you
run into problems. They both use ESpeak with the espeakup connector. The
default voice is UK English, but this is configurable. ESpeak supports many
languages with various degrees of completeness.