Emacspeak And Software Dectalk

[Tim Cross <tcross@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I use the software dectalk at home and the dectalk express hardware
synth at work. 
I purchased the 6.41 versin when it was first made available and then
the version 5 when it came out. 

After fixing some minor problems with the tcldtk.c file and the
dtk-soft script, version 5 is now working and working a lot better
than version 641 use to (volume better, responsiveness problems under
Debian are gone). 

I also use various other software synths and have a working, but buggy
version of Cepstral's speech server working with emacspeak. 

While I really like the quality of the Cepstral voices, a single voice
costs about the same as the dectalk software and the dectalk has
multiple voice support. I also find Cepstral's voice does not work as
well at high speaking rates - it loses clarity at higher speeds while
the software dectalk seems better at handling higher speeds.

All in all, I think the sftware dectalk is probably the best value for
a clear and versatile software speech synthesizer for
emacspeak. Nothing seems to havve the clarity and reliability of Via
voice, which I miss very much. I would not like to see support for the
software dectalk dropped. 

Raman, can I ask what do you use for a software synthesizer or do you
only use hardware synths?

Tim



>>>>> "tvr" == T V Raman <tvraman@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

 tvr> I'd like to conduct a brief survey on the Emacspeak list to see
 tvr> if it is worthwhile to continue the support for Software
 tvr> Dectalk. The Dectalk has been my favorite TTS engine for a long
 tvr> time, but the reason I'm asking is to see if the number of users
 tvr> it has justifies the time investment.

 tvr> Last I checked around the time of the DTK 5.0 release John
 tvr> Oelfke of Fonix indicated that they had less than 25 software
 tvr> Dectalk customers for Emacspeak --- and if that is indeed the
 tvr> number, I for one think it's time to drop it.

 tvr> If you are interested in seeing Software Dectalk support
 tvr> continue in Emacspeak, please follow-up to this note so you get
 tvr> counted --- with answers to the following:

 tvr> 0) Do you use the software Dectalk with Emacspeak?  1) When did
 tvr> you buy it (approx date)

 tvr> Please follow-up to this note so that your message goes to both
 tvr> the emacspeak list and John Oelfke And if there are indeed a
 tvr> very small number, I can safely drop support for it. This is of
 tvr> course not to discourage other folks who may want to pick up
 tvr> maintaining that code going forward independent of what we find
 tvr> out as we count up the numbers.


 tvr> --Raman

 tvr> -- Best Regards, --raman

      
 tvr> Email: raman@xxxxxxxxxxx WWW: http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/
 tvr> AIM: TVRaman PGP:
 tvr> http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/raman-almaden.asc IRC:
 tvr> irc://irc.gnu.org/emacspeak

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