[DECtalk] DecTalk can speak Italian, but it's rediculous!!!

[Raymond Grote]

"DECtalk 4.6 does not use recorded samples of humans.  For that matter,
neither does DECtalk 5.0.  In fact, no version of DECtalk does this."
>From what I can gather from the Fonix site, they are working on, or have
finished, a new synthesis engine that is supposed to be able to sound better
than Dectalk.
And when I was saying about recordings of humans rather than using formant
synthesis, I was referring to the general population of newer synths, not
necessarily newer Dectalk. I haven't been able to hear what Fonix has done
recently, so I cannot say from experience)
Force computers forced Dectalk to sound bad, that's how I see it.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "GUI Access" <guiaccess at covad.net>
To: "DECtalk Discussions" <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 12:22 PM
Subject: Re: [DECtalk] DecTalk can speak Italian, but it's rediculous!!!


At 1:24 PM -0700 8/22/2008, Raymond Grote wrote:
>Ah, that's why Dectalk 4.6 sounded so different?
>I'd love to see what Dectalk would've sounded like now if they hadn't
>replaced it. Why do people always have to use recorded samples of humans
>now, just to create something natural that has virtually no flexibility?
>This is why I just test synths now, I'm not that serious about them. Maybe
>one day the average person will be able to freely create his/her own tts
>voices in a way that is accessible with a screen reader! Probably going to
>be a long wait though...


DECtalk 4.6 does not use recorded samples of
humans.  For that matter, neither does DECtalk
5.0.  In fact, no version of DECtalk does this.
DECtalk is a formant based text-to-speech system.
DECtalk 4.6 sounds different because Force
Computers "improved" the phoneme and the vocal
tract portions of the synthesizer.  I use the
term "improved" very loosely because I don't feel
the results were an improvement at all.

Fonix tried to undo some of the improvements that
Force Computers introduced but there are still
known bugs in the VTM.  I've always suspected
that all Fonix ever received was the Force
Computers' 4.61 source code and that anything
earlier is lost.  Otherwise it would have been
trivial to restore the D.E.C.-sounding voices.

GUI Access


>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "piotr machacz" <pitermach at gmail.com>
>To: "DECtalk Discussions" <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
>Sent: Friday, August 22, 2008 2:41 AM
>Subject: Re: [DECtalk] DecTalk can speak Italian, but it's rediculous!!!
>
>
>well. It's not something complete but here's how the voice of dectalk
>was changing.
>in v 4.3, the voices wer nice and the singing was cool close to a human.
>in 4.4, the voices went through some modefications but they kept their
>sound normal, but when singing the phonemes have more metalic robotic
>sound.
>in 4.6, simply to say when force computers took dectalk over, rediculus!
>every thing was rediculus, the voices wer synthetic, the whispering
>wendy decided to speak not whisper etc.
>
>On 8/22/08, Arnaud <arnaudb at netcava.net> wrote:
>>  french is also completly ridiculous, it's like a german teenager trying
>>  to speak french at school.
>>
>>  also looking for phonems dt references for french....
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  --------------------
>>  Arnaud de Bonald - Paris France - WeBlog: http://www.echo-on.org
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>  Talksina a écrit :
>>>  Hi.
>>>  I found the software in DecTalk archive, it's called
>>>  dectalk4.6.4.zip, there is also the Italian speaking demo!
>>>  The voice is very very rediculous
>>>  but it's fun!
>>>  Now...someone has the multi-language phoneme reference? Thanks!
>>>  I'd try to have fun with this new toy, who cares if it's rediculous,
>>>  right excuse to play rediculous songs!
>>>
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>>>
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