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VoiceTest.readme
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1996-08-21
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7KB
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142 lines
Short: Narrator setting test program.
Author: mbarlow@pacific.telebyte.net (M. L. Barlow)
Type: util/misc
Date: 21 Aug 1996
Description: This is a simple bare-bones utility for testing 14 of the
programmable settings of the OS-2.04 Narrator.device. The primary
function intended for this program is the determination of the "optimum"
voice settings, especially those new settings introduced with OS-2.
This program differs from others of this type in that it runs
continuously on preset internal text, the first 40 or so sentences from a
now public domain novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Thus, the user can focus
on adjusting the parameters without re-entering text. A scrolling display
shows the exact values of the settings in use. 14, full-height, simple
sliders are provided which correspond to the scroller, top to bottom, left
to right. The program will attempt to load the "clean 8" or "pearl 8" fonts
or use the "topaz 8" font as a last resort.
The default voice settings are the soft and hard voice options I use
in WreadFiles 5.1. Clicking on the "VoiceTest" Gadget alternately resets
to one of these settings. The MALE/FEMALE gadget toggles the sex. The
current sex is displayed. Pot adjustment is rather tricky. Clicking seems
to work better than dragging. Multitasking has to be shut down while each
pot is being read to prevent system conflicts.
The standard Amiga voice seems to have a "telephone" sound quality. Thus
the first preset used has base-boost, treble-cut vocal formant (vocal tract
resonance) amplitude settings to counteract this effect. Also the formant
frequencies have been spread farther apart to get a wider frequency range.
The fricative amplitude was boosted to increase intelligibility. The
second preset has near standard default settings. I recommend 6 inch
diameter, minimum, hi-fi speakers to off-set the tinny quality of the
voice.
The documentation provided by Commodore in the ROM Kernel Manual states
that "good speech representation requires up to five formants, but only the
lower three are required for intelligibility. The pre-V37 narrator had
only three formants, while the V37 Narrator has five formants for a better
sounding voice." [RKM Devices, 3rd Ed, pp150.] Note that software controls
are provided for only three formants. The Narrator does not appear to be
properly balanced to produce a realistic female voice. When female is
selected "only the formant targets are changed. The user must still change
the pitch and speaking rate to get a [more] correct sounding voice." [RKM
Devices, 3rd Ed, pp137.]
SoftVoice, http://www.webcom.com/tts/, states that "The Commodore Amiga
had an early SoftVoice text to speech system known as the 'narrator.device'
included in its operating system." They are now selling an SVTTS
(SoftVoice Text-To-Speech) system for Windows 95 that seems to sound better
than the Amiga system. Their product for the Mac was MacinTalk©.
Program Controls:
The parameters are as follows:
1. pitch: Baseline pitch in Hertz
2. sampfreq: Audio sampling frequency
3. rate: Speaking rate (words/minute)
---
(OS-2.04 Narrator (V37) required for the following sliders to appear)
4. A1adj: Formant 1 amplitude adjustment in decibels
(crackles if (A1adj+AVbias)>1
5. A2adj: Formant 2 amplitude adjustment in decibels
6. A3adj: Formant 3 amplitude adjustment in decibels
---
7. F1adj: Formant 1 frequency adjustment in 5% steps
8. F2adj: Formant 2 frequency adjustment in 5% steps
9. F3adj: Formant 3 frequency adjustment in 5% steps
---
10. F0enthusiasm: accent controlled pitch modulation factor
(values greater than 32 can produce a crying effect)
11. articulate: Transition time multiplier
12. F0perturb: Amount random pitch modulation (perturbation).
---
13. AVbias: Vowel amplitude bias
14. AFbias: Fricative amplitude bias
Programmers set these values by entering them, and pointers to the
translated "ARPAbet" phonemes to be spoken and command code (CMD_WRITE) to
be performed and other required data and flags, in a ram data table,
(struct narrator_rb in C) that has been allocated and initialized by an
OpenDevice function call. Then DoIO, BeginIO, or SendIO is called,
referencing the table.
Only the first three of these parameters can be set by the "say"
command. For use with "say", set the A-adj, F-adj, A-bias, and F0perturb
controls to zero. Set articulate to 50.
As this is a self-contained function, there is no normal reason to refer
to the Workbench or other screens while this program is being used. There
are two options provided by the system to access other screens. You can
use left-Amiga-N and Left-Amiga-M to flip back and forth between screens.
You can also use Left-Amiga-Left-Mouse to drag any screen down to reveal
the one behind (on any system that provides true Amiga screen support).
For example, if you wish to watch SnoopDos while this program is running,
put Snoopdos at the top of your Workbench screen and left-Amiga-left-mouse
drag that screen down to reveal the VoiceTest screen behind.
Warning: This is experimental software. It has not been tested with
other system configurations. Use at your own risk. Use when valuable
data is ram-resident is not advised [as a general principle with any
software of this type]. A Snoopdos log of this program should not show
any Write accesses except to CON: (scroller window).
<>MLB<>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Recent Modifications: (8/96)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Added F0perturb, AVbias, and AFbias sliders.
Grouped Pre-OS2.0 settings together.
Added Narrator and Translator Version extraction.
Added listing Narrator and Translator versions to scroll-bar.
Added SetAccent(American) if Translator version>41 and if all previous
calls in the session were successful.
Added function to reconfigure slider display for pre OS2.0
Changed the TitleGadget from a "nameplate" to an active gadget.
Added a function to alternately reset the sliders to WreadFiles Presets
and to clear and refresh the TitleGadget.
Modified the Intuition handler to call the function above.
Modified Narrator setup to read all pots in a single block rather than
interleaving each read with a write to console.
Replaced Old Newspaper text and GEnie text snips with ERB adventure text.
Broke up some of the longer sentences into shorter segments for better
response.
Added ID numbers to scroller data and corresponding sliders.