Re: rfc on voices tutorial [long]

["Robert D. Crawford" <rdc1x@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for all the info.  In reading through your mail, I think I might
need more clarification on a couple of points... just to be sure that I
understand things correctly.

"T. V. Raman" <raman@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> 0) Emacspeak defines a number of voice overlays such as
>     voice-bolden, and voice-lighten
>     that can be applied to a given voice to change what it sounds
>     like.

Let me make sure I understand this.  I have a voice, such as "Paul".
let's say that all of Paul's default settings are 0.  Just to keep this
abstract, let's say that there are 5 settings,a through e .  So, here
is a list of Paul's settings

Paul (a0 b0 c0 d0 e0)

Now, we have an overlay called bolden that sets a to 5, c to 5 e to 5.
Now paul's list looks like this"

Paul (a5 b0 c5 d0 e5)

Now, I notice that there are overlays called "voice lock overlay.  Does
this overlay only affect the noted dimension, and if this is the case,
then it must be applied at the end of the process, right?  This is the
cascading part, right?

As a bit of an aside, the first overlay I came to in the customize
buffer says that it sets dimension 0 to 8.  I thought dimension 0 was
for the family.

> 2) For each such overlay there is a corresponding
>     <overlay-name>-settings variable that can be customized via
>     custom.

So, we have voice-bolden-settings that contain the  particular settings
that will apply to a voice.  The variable voice-bolden is just a list of
the particular voices that voice-bolden-settings gets applied to.
Therefore, on my system I have no voice settings applied  to gnus level
1 citations, so I could use a cons in my .emacs file to add that to my
voice-bolden list, right?

> Unset values (nil) show up as "unspecified" in the customize
> interface.

I seemed to have a bit of a problem setting unspecified variables.  Any
time I tried to change the field I was told that it was read-only.    I
have not had a chance to read the customize docs.  Is this something
that is covered in there?

>
> 4) Do not directly customize voice-bolden and friends, instead
>     customize the corresponding voice-bolden-settings, since that
>     ensures that all voices that are defined in terms of
>     voice-bolden get correctly updated.

Given my question a few paragraphs up, it seems that I might not
understand the voice-bolden variable as I think.

>
> 5) Discovering what to customize:
>     Command emacspeak-show-personality-at-point (bound by default to
> C-e M-v) will show you the value of
>     properties personality and face at point. 

Wow!  How did I miss that one.  Seems as if I went from Texas to New
York via Los Angeles.

> I'll answer your question about changing the overall voice in a
> separate message.  Notice however that since the system is designed to
> apply changes as overlays to a given voice, changing the default voice
> family will *change* everything, 

That was the type thing I was looking for.  I am glad that you made
the point of the other voices being sub-standard, though.  I am sure I
would have figured that one out

What a shame, though.  I was hoping for a sexy female voice to read me
the news in the am.

> which on today's TTS engines wont
> sound very good. The dirty secret among all TTS engines is that the
> default male voice is the one that is best tuned, 

Male voices are simpler.  There are not as many overtones and they are
not, generally speaking, very melodic.


Thanks again for your response.  I am in the process of making the
additions you mention and thought I should get more clarification.

rdc

-- 
------------============************0************============------------
Robert D. Crawford                                      rdc1x@xxxxxxxxxxx

I dote on his very absence.
		-- William Shakespeare, "The Merchant of Venice"
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