[DECtalk] happy birthday to Snoopi Botten

[Tyler]

Hello, Dectalk community! Today is Snoopi Botten's birthday. As many of you know, Snoopi 
has made quite a contribution as far as making Dectalk sing is concerned. He's been programming 
Dectalk, it seems, for much longer than most members of the community; since the late 1980s! I 
don't know of anyone else who used Dectalk to sing because he didn't have his own voice. Stephen 
Hawking (the real Stephen Hawking, not MC Hawking from that online show Song Fight) used a 
synthesizer (at one time it actually was Dectalk) to talk because he didn't have a voice of his own. But 
people using synthesizers to make up for the voice they don't have is becoming quite common. But to use that 
synthesizer to sing? Not nearly as common. Snoopi Botten is truly innovative. That is why, 
during the Black Friday Deal, I bought all the mp3 albums, including Dectalk 101, 
even though I already learned most of it from my Dectalk 4.3 manual. But I decided that an audio 
tutorial read by the synthesizer it's about adds another dimension to the Dectalk experience. When the 
synthesizer is reading about changing the voice rate, you can hear the voice rate change, rather than just 
reading about it, trying to imagine it, and then going to your Dectalk window you got from The Flame of 
Hope, Grossgang or Bluegrass Pals, and testing it out. In Dectalk 101, it's all 
done, and when you're ready to program, you'll already know (basically) what it will sound like. I say 
basically because I personally prefer programming Dectalk 4.3, the copy I got off 
Bluegrass Pals. Snoopi did this in 4.4, so there may be vocal differences. Of course, being 
the Christmas season, I will play the Spirit of the Holidays album a lot. Thank you, Snoopi, for 
making an extremely positive impact on the speech synthesis community. People who find your music 
who like synthesizers will definitely love it. The Christian music and testimonies add a lot more 
of a positive dimension to your work. Remember, God is always with you!
Yours truly and phonemically,
Tyler Zahnke, signing as:
Tyler Z