[DECtalk] Some DECtalk history and what I think we can and can't reasonably do

Wed Aug 3 15:42:16 EDT 2011

Okay as an update listen to the to wave files separately not back-and-forth
listen to one we waited a few minutes listen to the other. See if you agree
were getting closer, one of course is what you sent me

On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 1:43 PM, ebruckert Bruckert <edbruckert at gmail.com>wrote:

> agreed
>
>
> On Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 1:38 PM, Alex H. <linuxx64.bashsh at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> **
>> I, too, hope that HLsyn eventually will be a viable option and we could
>> use the old method or HLsyn if we wanted, maybe for reading long texts and
>> so on. It's a great idea and theory but just isn't mature enough at this
>> point.
>>
>> Alex
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 8/3/2011 1:13 PM, ebruckert Bruckert wrote:
>>
>> There's always two sides to a coin, if DECtalk hadn't been purchased it
>> would have died. And since there was no money from anyone to work on
>> handicapped applications, we had to do what our customers want it or go
>> home. I recognize that the HLsyn work did not yield the hoped-for results
>> and perhaps someday it can with what we learned in our failures. But it was
>> a decision based on the best knowledge we had at the time and in fact also
>> with Dennis Klatt's work. The problems that occurred with the HL sin version
>> aren't of any interest to me because the version put out was in early one
>> and it's not the right time to pursue trying to perfect HLsyn. S
>> On all I can do is my best.
>>    As to the person that mentioned the idea of putting meaning into the
>> text. DECtalk actually has the ability to do some marketing and adjustment
>> to train achieve that by hand. Automating the system to do that is deal
>> beyond our knowledge and capability. Understanding what is being conveyed is
>> extremely extremely difficult for a computer. A simple example;"You did
>> that." Depending on which word you emphasize most there are three different
>> ways of saying this very simple sentence with dramatically different
>> meanings.
>>
>>
>>  Wed, Aug 3, 2011 at 12:07 PM, Alex H. <linuxx64.bashsh at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Well, to us,, we never really heard later versions of DT, only the
>> classics from the 90's, so forgive us if we compare the new attempts to
>> prior versions - it's not like we have a huge library of source code to just
>> browse at will and endless samples of every version.... so... yeah.
>>
>> Wanna know what's been wrong with the samples and attempts posted to this
>> list a few months ago for the sapi dectalk? I'll tell you.
>>
>> The voices were clipping and squawking, and all the voices sounded like
>> they had a speech problem. Perfect Paul wasn't perfect as most of us have
>> heard before. The voices themselves sound not like DECTalk at all, they also
>> drop out in volume, just like a human cuz it's using HLsyn to make it sound
>> more natural.
>> I've heard DT 4.2cd, 4.3, 4.4, 4.61, 4.62 and 4.64. But since you've
>> pointed out before that version numbers don't matter to speak, is this even
>> important anyway or are we just listening to the same code with minor tweaks
>> to get the various versions we know?
>>
>> Disable HLsyn in the new product, and it'll suck less. I like forment
>> based synths, not ones that try and sound human, because I and others are
>> used to classic forment non-HLsyn versions of DECTalk. True that HLsyn is
>> still formant but it's trying to sound real and have human articulation, and
>> knowing that I can understand why this version sounds different. It's just
>> not what we're used to, that's all. Some Joe Blow off the street who has
>> never heard synthesized speech can't understand Eloquence from DECTalk from
>> Espeak anyways, so this point of understanding speech is a moot one.  They'd
>> be better off using Cepstral or some human-sampled synths and wasting their
>> hard drive space. This is being targeted at a relatively small group of
>> people who have used DECTalk before and like it, so i think we're safe
>> there. I'd consider giving HLsyn another shot if it was completed. But as
>> always, corporate America screws everyone over in the end, and that was the
>> case with Dectalk. So much so, that Fonix wanted to make FonixTalk and
>> specificly try and make it sound human. The result sucks.
>>
>>
>> Alex
>> On 8/3/2011 11:17 AM, ebruckert Bruckert wrote:
>>
>>    First of all let me make you aware that I use DragonDictate, as I can't
>> see very well and proofreading is quite painful so you'll have to forgive
>> and interpret from mistakes the DragonDictate may make. It
>>    I was taught about form and speech synthesis by Dennis Klatt, and by
>> reading but before my involvement with him I knew next to nothing. One of
>> the questions in the early days was could you achieve higher intelligibility
>> by super articulation and do better than natural speech. What testing
>> revealed was really two things. At normal speaking rates the answer always
>> seem to be that the closer you matched to real speech the better the
>> intelligibility at higher speaking rates above that which humans could
>> normally achieve things were little different and I'm not going to go into
>> the specifics of what we did to make things better at high speed other than
>> to say they were based on knowledge of speech perception.
>>      The second thing we learned is that listening to a synthesizer has a
>> very fast but steep learning curve. Somewhat analogous to learning to
>> understand a person with a strong dialect or speech impediment. One of the
>> problems we encountered is that people often preferred the version they were
>> used to over any succeeding version. But actual tests did not support the
>> preference.
>>      One example is the way tilt was done inside DECtalk. The original
>> mechanism was a crude approximation of spectral tilt. Dennis before he died
>> developed a much more accurate (meaning matching human production) tilt
>> filter that was not able to be incorporated to a later date. As a point of
>> interest Dennis was so dedicated that he last modified the DECtalk code 3
>> days before he passed away. So the spectral tilt was changed and this
>> changed what you might consider the tone control on an old radio or record
>> player. That is just one of many reasons why DECtalk change slightly over
>> the years.
>>       The 5.0 DECtalk Incorporated the work of Prof. Ken Stevens who was
>> Dennis is blessed MIT and close friend. The 5.0 code unfortunately did not
>> yield the expected results, but we did learn a lot from the attempt. This
>>        there are even some changes to DECtalk that would change the way it
>> sounds from any particular version, such as Intonation that I am unwilling
>> to revert because I know for a fact that they caused loss of information. So
>> my goal is very simple I am working to create a very functional intelligible
>> DECtalk to put back out, I am unwilling to try and make it sound exactly
>> like any given person wants to. I have been through this before and the year
>> is very sensitive and if you directly comparing two versions side-by-side
>> you not testing anything but whether did the same and that is an exercise in
>> futility. T
>>
>> Any specific issues I can address. Secondly as a word of warning to
>> listeners providing feedback. The other thing we've learned is that
>> listeners are excellent at deciding that something is not right, but are
>> absolutely terrible at exactly pinpointing the problem. The reason for this
>> is quite simple people judge the output as speech which it only kinda is, by
>> this I mean that a synthesizer can make mistakes that humans cannot possibly
>> do and as a consequence can't possibly recognize. An example of this is that
>> after so many years of working with it I have learned to hear a foreman
>> that's moving too rapidly, but most people cannot hear it. This is because
>> to make life easy we try to lead nor stuff that's not important in our
>> language, such as the nasal lifestyles in French or the retro flex ours in
>> American English which is Sheehan have a heckuva time hearing.
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Sent via Thunderbird.
>>
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>>
>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Sent via Thunderbird.
>>
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>
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