Open Voice Technology Wiki - User contributions [en]

ESpeak

2022-01-16T02:09:48Z

Eben: /* KDE & gnome integration (eSpeak-NG) */

== What are eSpeak and eSpeak-NG? ==
eSpeak is a compact open source (GNU GPL license) software speech synthesizer for English and other languages, for Linux and Windows. It uses a "formant synthesis" method. This allows many languages to be provided in a small size. The speech is clear, and can be used at high speeds, but is not as natural or smooth as larger synthesizers which are based on human speech recordings.

Originally known as '''speak''' and originally written for Acorn/RISC_OS computers starting in 1995, eSpeak is an enhancement and re-write, including a relaxation of the original memory and processing power constraints and comes with support for additional languages.<ref>http://espeak.sourceforge.net/</ref>

In 2010 Reece H. Dunn started maintaining a version of eSpeak on GitHub that was forked in late 2015 and renamed to '''eSpeak NG'''. The new eSpeak NG project is a significant departure from the eSpeak project with the intention of cleaning up the existing codebase, adding new features and improving the supported languages.<ref>https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng</ref>

== Advantages ==
Although it has been practically around since the dawn of time (or at least the personal computer) there are still good reasons to use eSpeak:

* It is blazing fast, audio generation is almost instant even on SBCs like the Raspberry Pi Zero
* It is very small and memory consumption is negligible on modern systems (~5MB [source?])
* It is available on basically any platform either as command line program, shared library, SAPI5 version for Windows screen-readers, etc..
* Although the voice sounds rather robotic it has a certain charm, especially if you are building little robots ;-)
* It is available in dozens of languages
* It can translate text into phoneme codes and is often used to generate new dictionary entries for other systems (e.g. STT)

== Installation ==
Debian command line tool (espeak-ng recommended):<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
sudo apt-get install -y espeak-ng espeak-ng-espeak
</syntaxhighlight>NOTE: eSpeak is often found in other projects like [[OpenTTS]] or [https://github.com/SEPIA-Framework/sepia-assist-server/tree/master/Xtensions/TTS SEPIA Assist Server] and ready to use out-of-the-box.

== Performance ==
eSpeak-NG (en):

* Test system: Raspberry Pi4 4GB
* Sentence: "Hello this is a test"
* Run-time: 0.08 s
* Real-time-factor: 0.062
...

[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]

[[Category:TTS]]
[[Category:Project]]
<references />

== '''KDE & gnome integration (eSpeak-NG)''' ==

This setup will let you read text with eSpeak-NG from '''any application''' on your system simply by pressing a keyboard command.

After installing eSpeak-ng on your system adding this line to a custom keyboard shortcut in KDE or Gnome.
<code>xsel > /tmp/speak.txt | espeak-ng -f "/tmp/speak.txt" | pkill xsel</code>
Type <code>man espeak-ng</code> in your terminal to see a list of options for this speech engine.

To stop espeak-ng we can use the following command:
<code>pkill espeak-ng</code>
'''Important:''' as these commands are run as a scrip instead of in a full shell environment its best to put the full path to each application you call, for example: usr/bin/xsel & usr/bin/espeak-ng etc.

In gnome open system settings then go to: Keyboard » Customise Shortcuts » Custom Shortcuts » + and make two new shortcuts, one to start reading using the line above and another shortcut to stop reading with the <code>pkill espeak-ng</code> command.

In KDE open system settings then go to: Shortcuts » Custom Shortcuts and make to new shortcuts one to start reading using the line above and another shortcut to stop reading with the <code>pkill espeak-ng</code> command.

Create a file for xsel to store the text you want to read. In this example this file is in the /tmp directory and is called speak.txt (but you can use a different file name and directory if you like).
'''What do these commands and switch’s do:'''
<code>xsel > my_file_name.txt</code> (over rights the text in the file with highlighted text)

<code>espeak-ng -f</code> (calls the espeak-ng tts engine to start reading a file inside the "")

<code>pkill xsel</code> (stops the computer starting a new process for xsel every time this command is run).

<code>pkill espeak-ng</code> (stops espeak-ng).

ESpeak

2022-01-16T02:06:43Z

Eben: /* KDE & gnome integration (eSpeak-NG) */

== What are eSpeak and eSpeak-NG? ==
eSpeak is a compact open source (GNU GPL license) software speech synthesizer for English and other languages, for Linux and Windows. It uses a "formant synthesis" method. This allows many languages to be provided in a small size. The speech is clear, and can be used at high speeds, but is not as natural or smooth as larger synthesizers which are based on human speech recordings.

Originally known as '''speak''' and originally written for Acorn/RISC_OS computers starting in 1995, eSpeak is an enhancement and re-write, including a relaxation of the original memory and processing power constraints and comes with support for additional languages.<ref>http://espeak.sourceforge.net/</ref>

In 2010 Reece H. Dunn started maintaining a version of eSpeak on GitHub that was forked in late 2015 and renamed to '''eSpeak NG'''. The new eSpeak NG project is a significant departure from the eSpeak project with the intention of cleaning up the existing codebase, adding new features and improving the supported languages.<ref>https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng</ref>

== Advantages ==
Although it has been practically around since the dawn of time (or at least the personal computer) there are still good reasons to use eSpeak:

* It is blazing fast, audio generation is almost instant even on SBCs like the Raspberry Pi Zero
* It is very small and memory consumption is negligible on modern systems (~5MB [source?])
* It is available on basically any platform either as command line program, shared library, SAPI5 version for Windows screen-readers, etc..
* Although the voice sounds rather robotic it has a certain charm, especially if you are building little robots ;-)
* It is available in dozens of languages
* It can translate text into phoneme codes and is often used to generate new dictionary entries for other systems (e.g. STT)

== Installation ==
Debian command line tool (espeak-ng recommended):<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
sudo apt-get install -y espeak-ng espeak-ng-espeak
</syntaxhighlight>NOTE: eSpeak is often found in other projects like [[OpenTTS]] or [https://github.com/SEPIA-Framework/sepia-assist-server/tree/master/Xtensions/TTS SEPIA Assist Server] and ready to use out-of-the-box.

== Performance ==
eSpeak-NG (en):

* Test system: Raspberry Pi4 4GB
* Sentence: "Hello this is a test"
* Run-time: 0.08 s
* Real-time-factor: 0.062
...

[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]

[[Category:TTS]]
[[Category:Project]]
<references />

== '''KDE & gnome integration (eSpeak-NG)''' ==

This setup will let you read text with mimic tts from '''any application''' on your system simply by pressing a keyboard command.

After installing eSpeak-ng on your system adding this line to a custom keyboard shortcut in KDE or Gnome.
<code>xsel > /tmp/speak.txt | espeak-ng -f "/tmp/speak.txt" | pkill xsel</code>
Type <code>man espeak-ng</code> in your terminal to see a list of options for this speech engine.

To stop espeak-ng we can use the following command:
<code>pkill espeak-ng</code>
'''Important:''' as these commands are run as a scrip instead of in a full shell environment its best to put the full path to each application you call, for example: usr/bin/xsel & usr/bin/espeak-ng etc.

In gnome open system settings then go to: Keyboard » Customise Shortcuts » Custom Shortcuts » + and make two new shortcuts, one to start reading using the line above and another shortcut to stop reading with the <code>pkill espeak-ng</code> command.

In KDE open system settings then go to: Shortcuts » Custom Shortcuts and make to new shortcuts one to start reading using the line above and another shortcut to stop reading with the <code>pkill espeak-ng</code> command.

Create a file for xsel to store the text you want to read. In this example this file is in the /tmp directory and is called speak.txt (but you can use a different file name and directory if you like).
'''What do these commands and switch’s do:'''
<code>xsel > my_file_name.txt</code> (over rights the text in the file with highlighted text)

<code>espeak-ng -f</code> (calls the espeak-ng tts engine to start reading a file inside the "")

<code>pkill xsel</code> (stops the computer starting a new process for xsel every time this command is run).

<code>pkill espeak-ng</code> (stops espeak-ng).

Mycroft Mimic

2022-01-16T02:05:44Z

Eben: /* KDE & gnome integration (mimic v1) */

[[Category:Mycroft]]
[[Category:TTS]]

==What's Mycroft Mimic==
It is a TTS system delivered with Mycroft (''by Nov 2021 it's english only''). It's available in two installation types:

*Mimic (''version 1'') runs locally on device and has an understable but not great quality. But runs on small computer devices like a Raspberry Pi. It's by default the "fallback" if other voices are not available.
*Mimic (version 2) is provided by Mycroft AI server/cloud backend infrastructure and offers a better voice quality (''english only'').

==Tips & Tricks==

===Build Mimic 1 on device===
While setting up a Mycroft device installer will ask to build Mimic 1 locally. If you initially skipped this you can also re-run dev_setup.sh with a -fm flag for "force mimic".<blockquote>./dev_setup.sh -fm</blockquote>You can do the opposite, by running flag to "skip mimic":<blockquote>./dev_setup.sh -sm</blockquote>

== Installation (mimic v1) ==

===== On Arch based distros =====
Install from the AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/mimic

===== On Debian based distros =====
<code>$ sudo apt-get install gcc make pkg-config automake libtool libasound2-dev</code>

===== On Fedora based distros =====
<code>$ sudo dnf install gcc make pkgconfig automake libtool alsa-lib-devel</code>
Mimic v1 source: https://github.com/MycroftAI/mimic1

== KDE & gnome integration (mimic v1) ==

This setup will let you read text with mimic tts from '''any application''' on your system simply by pressing a keyboard command.

After installing mimic on your system adding this line to a custom keyboard shortcut in KDE or Gnome.
<code>xsel > /tmp/speak.txt | sleep 0.3 | mimic -f /tmp/speak.txt | pkill xsel</code>
I further optimised this by adding some configuration options that change the pitch and speed of the voice:
<code>xsel > /tmp/speak.txt | mimic -voice slt --setf duration_stretch=0.85 --setf int_f0_target_mean=165 -f /tmp/speak.txt | pkill xsel</code>
Stop mimic with:
<code>pkill mimic</code>

'''Important:''' as these commands are run as a scrip instead of in a full shell environment its best to put the full path to each application you call, for example: usr/bin/xsel & usr/bin/mimic etc.

In gnome open system settings then go to: Keyboard » Customise Shortcuts » Custom Shortcuts » + and make two new shortcuts, one to start reading using the line above and another shortcut to stop reading with the <code>pkill mimic</code> command.

In KDE open system settings then go to: Shortcuts » Custom Shortcuts and make to new shortcuts one to start reading using the line above and another shortcut to stop reading with the <code>pkill mimic</code> command.

Create a file for xsel to store the text you want to read. In this example this file is in the /tmp directory and is called speak.txt (but you can use a different file name and directory if you like).

'''What do these commands and switch’s do:'''

<code>xsel > my_file_name.txt</code> (over rights the text in the file with highlighted text)

<code>sleep 0.3</code> (tells the next command to wait for 0.3 seconds)

<code>mimic</code> (calls the mimic tts engine to start speaking)

<code>-voice slt</code> (sets the voice to the slt voice)

<code>--setf duration_stretch=0.85</code> (makes it speak 25% faster (1 = normal speed and 1.5 in slower 50%)).

<code>--setf int_f0_target_mean=165</code> (makes the pitch higher and =1 would make the pitch very low).

<code>-f</code> (means read text from file)

<code>pkill xsel</code> (stops the computer starting a new process for xsel every time this command is run).

There are quite a few voices installed with Mimic, the voice slt was my favourite. Type: <code>mimic -lv</code> in terminal to see a list of installed voices. Type: <code>man mimic</code> to see all the options and switches.

Mimic is built on [https://github.com/festvox/flite flite-tts] and the commands are the same as far as I can see.

Source: https://ebenfarnworth.substack.com/p/text-to-speech-tts-on-linux

Mycroft Mimic

2022-01-15T05:59:09Z

Eben: /* Arch based distros */ spelling fix

[[Category:Mycroft]]
[[Category:TTS]]

==What's Mycroft Mimic==
It is a TTS system delivered with Mycroft (''by Nov 2021 it's english only''). It's available in two installation types:

*Mimic (''version 1'') runs locally on device and has an understable but not great quality. But runs on small computer devices like a Raspberry Pi. It's by default the "fallback" if other voices are not available.
*Mimic (version 2) is provided by Mycroft AI server/cloud backend infrastructure and offers a better voice quality (''english only'').

==Tips & Tricks==

===Build Mimic 1 on device===
While setting up a Mycroft device installer will ask to build Mimic 1 locally. If you initially skipped this you can also re-run dev_setup.sh with a -fm flag for "force mimic".<blockquote>./dev_setup.sh -fm</blockquote>You can do the opposite, by running flag to "skip mimic":<blockquote>./dev_setup.sh -sm</blockquote>

== Installation (mimic v1) ==

===== On Arch based distros =====
Install from the AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/mimic

===== On Debian based distros =====
<code>$ sudo apt-get install gcc make pkg-config automake libtool libasound2-dev</code>

===== On Fedora based distros =====
<code>$ sudo dnf install gcc make pkgconfig automake libtool alsa-lib-devel</code>
Mimic v1 source: https://github.com/MycroftAI/mimic1

== KDE & gnome integration (mimic v1) ==

This setup will let you read text with mimic tts from '''any application''' on your system simply by pressing a keyboard command.

After installing mimic on your system adding this line to a custom keyboard shortcut in KDE or Gnome.
<code>xsel > /tmp/speak.txt | sleep 0.3 | mimic -f /tmp/speak.txt | pkill xsel</code>
I further optimised this by adding some configuration options that change the pitch and speed of the voice:
<code>xsel > /tmp/speak.txt | mimic -voice slt --setf duration_stretch=0.85 --setf int_f0_target_mean=165 -f /tmp/speak.txt | pkill xsel</code>
Stop mimic with:
<code>pkill mimic</code>

In gnome open system settings then go to: Keyboard » Customise Shortcuts » Custom Shortcuts » + and make two new shortcuts, one to start reading using the line above and another shortcut to stop reading with the <code>pkill mimic</code> command.

In KDE open system settings then go to: Shortcuts » Custom Shortcuts and make to new shortcuts one to start reading using the line above and another shortcut to stop reading with the <code>pkill mimic</code> command.

Create a file for xsel to store the text you want to read. In this example this file is in the /tmp directory and is called speak.txt (but you can use a different file name and directory if you like).

'''What do these commands and switch’s do:'''

<code>xsel > my_file_name.txt</code> (over rights the text in the file with highlighted text)

<code>sleep 0.3</code> (tells the next command to wait for 0.3 seconds)

<code>mimic</code> (calls the mimic tts engine to start speaking)

<code>-voice slt</code> (sets the voice to the slt voice)

<code>--setf duration_stretch=0.85</code> (makes it speak 25% faster (1 = normal speed and 1.5 in slower 50%)).

<code>--setf int_f0_target_mean=165</code> (makes the pitch higher and =1 would make the pitch very low).

<code>-f</code> (means read text from file)

<code>pkill xsel</code> (stops the computer starting a new process for xsel every time this command is run).

There are quite a few voices installed with Mimic, the voice slt was my favourite. Type: <code>mimic -lv</code> in terminal to see a list of installed voices. Type: <code>man mimic</code> to see all the options and switches.

Mimic is built on [https://github.com/festvox/flite flite-tts] and the commands are the same as far as I can see.

Source: https://ebenfarnworth.substack.com/p/text-to-speech-tts-on-linux

Mycroft Mimic

2022-01-15T05:55:00Z

Eben: Installing mimic v1

[[Category:Mycroft]]
[[Category:TTS]]

==What's Mycroft Mimic==
It is a TTS system delivered with Mycroft (''by Nov 2021 it's english only''). It's available in two installation types:

*Mimic (''version 1'') runs locally on device and has an understable but not great quality. But runs on small computer devices like a Raspberry Pi. It's by default the "fallback" if other voices are not available.
*Mimic (version 2) is provided by Mycroft AI server/cloud backend infrastructure and offers a better voice quality (''english only'').

==Tips & Tricks==

===Build Mimic 1 on device===
While setting up a Mycroft device installer will ask to build Mimic 1 locally. If you initially skipped this you can also re-run dev_setup.sh with a -fm flag for "force mimic".<blockquote>./dev_setup.sh -fm</blockquote>You can do the opposite, by running flag to "skip mimic":<blockquote>./dev_setup.sh -sm</blockquote>

== Installation (mimic v1) ==

===== Arch based distros =====
Install form the AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/mimic

===== On Debian/Ubuntu =====
<code>$ sudo apt-get install gcc make pkg-config automake libtool libasound2-dev</code>

===== On Fedora =====
<code>$ sudo dnf install gcc make pkgconfig automake libtool alsa-lib-devel</code>
Mimic v1 source: https://github.com/MycroftAI/mimic1

== KDE & gnome integration (mimic v1) ==

This setup will let you read text with mimic tts from '''any application''' on your system simply by pressing a keyboard command.

After installing mimic on your system adding this line to a custom keyboard shortcut in KDE or Gnome.
<code>xsel > /tmp/speak.txt | sleep 0.3 | mimic -f /tmp/speak.txt | pkill xsel</code>
I further optimised this by adding some configuration options that change the pitch and speed of the voice:
<code>xsel > /tmp/speak.txt | mimic -voice slt --setf duration_stretch=0.85 --setf int_f0_target_mean=165 -f /tmp/speak.txt | pkill xsel</code>
Stop mimic with:
<code>pkill mimic</code>

In gnome open system settings then go to: Keyboard » Customise Shortcuts » Custom Shortcuts » + and make two new shortcuts, one to start reading using the line above and another shortcut to stop reading with the <code>pkill mimic</code> command.

In KDE open system settings then go to: Shortcuts » Custom Shortcuts and make to new shortcuts one to start reading using the line above and another shortcut to stop reading with the <code>pkill mimic</code> command.

Create a file for xsel to store the text you want to read. In this example this file is in the /tmp directory and is called speak.txt (but you can use a different file name and directory if you like).

'''What do these commands and switch’s do:'''

<code>xsel > my_file_name.txt</code> (over rights the text in the file with highlighted text)

<code>sleep 0.3</code> (tells the next command to wait for 0.3 seconds)

<code>mimic</code> (calls the mimic tts engine to start speaking)

<code>-voice slt</code> (sets the voice to the slt voice)

<code>--setf duration_stretch=0.85</code> (makes it speak 25% faster (1 = normal speed and 1.5 in slower 50%)).

<code>--setf int_f0_target_mean=165</code> (makes the pitch higher and =1 would make the pitch very low).

<code>-f</code> (means read text from file)

<code>pkill xsel</code> (stops the computer starting a new process for xsel every time this command is run).

There are quite a few voices installed with Mimic, the voice slt was my favourite. Type: <code>mimic -lv</code> in terminal to see a list of installed voices. Type: <code>man mimic</code> to see all the options and switches.

Mimic is built on [https://github.com/festvox/flite flite-tts] and the commands are the same as far as I can see.

Source: https://ebenfarnworth.substack.com/p/text-to-speech-tts-on-linux

ESpeak

2022-01-15T04:34:05Z

Eben: Use Espeak-ng to read text on your system from any application

== What are eSpeak and eSpeak-NG? ==
eSpeak is a compact open source (GNU GPL license) software speech synthesizer for English and other languages, for Linux and Windows. It uses a "formant synthesis" method. This allows many languages to be provided in a small size. The speech is clear, and can be used at high speeds, but is not as natural or smooth as larger synthesizers which are based on human speech recordings.

Originally known as '''speak''' and originally written for Acorn/RISC_OS computers starting in 1995, eSpeak is an enhancement and re-write, including a relaxation of the original memory and processing power constraints and comes with support for additional languages.<ref>http://espeak.sourceforge.net/</ref>

In 2010 Reece H. Dunn started maintaining a version of eSpeak on GitHub that was forked in late 2015 and renamed to '''eSpeak NG'''. The new eSpeak NG project is a significant departure from the eSpeak project with the intention of cleaning up the existing codebase, adding new features and improving the supported languages.<ref>https://github.com/espeak-ng/espeak-ng</ref>

== Advantages ==
Although it has been practically around since the dawn of time (or at least the personal computer) there are still good reasons to use eSpeak:

* It is blazing fast, audio generation is almost instant even on SBCs like the Raspberry Pi Zero
* It is very small and memory consumption is negligible on modern systems (~5MB [source?])
* It is available on basically any platform either as command line program, shared library, SAPI5 version for Windows screen-readers, etc..
* Although the voice sounds rather robotic it has a certain charm, especially if you are building little robots ;-)
* It is available in dozens of languages
* It can translate text into phoneme codes and is often used to generate new dictionary entries for other systems (e.g. STT)

== Installation ==
Debian command line tool (espeak-ng recommended):<syntaxhighlight lang="bash">
sudo apt-get install -y espeak-ng espeak-ng-espeak
</syntaxhighlight>NOTE: eSpeak is often found in other projects like [[OpenTTS]] or [https://github.com/SEPIA-Framework/sepia-assist-server/tree/master/Xtensions/TTS SEPIA Assist Server] and ready to use out-of-the-box.

== Performance ==
eSpeak-NG (en):

* Test system: Raspberry Pi4 4GB
* Sentence: "Hello this is a test"
* Run-time: 0.08 s
* Real-time-factor: 0.062
...

[UNDER CONSTRUCTION]

[[Category:TTS]]
[[Category:Project]]
<references />

== '''KDE & gnome integration (eSpeak-NG)''' ==

This setup will let you read text with mimic tts from '''any application''' on your system simply by pressing a keyboard command.

After installing eSpeak-ng on your system adding this line to a custom keyboard shortcut in KDE or Gnome.
<code>xsel > /tmp/speak.txt | espeak-ng -f "/tmp/speak.txt" | pkill xsel</code>
Type <code>man espeak-ng</code> in your terminal to see a list of options for this speech engine.

To stop espeak-ng we can use the following command:
<code>pkill espeak-ng</code>
In gnome open system settings then go to: Keyboard » Customise Shortcuts » Custom Shortcuts » + and make two new shortcuts, one to start reading using the line above and another shortcut to stop reading with the <code>pkill espeak-ng</code> command.

In KDE open system settings then go to: Shortcuts » Custom Shortcuts and make to new shortcuts one to start reading using the line above and another shortcut to stop reading with the <code>pkill espeak-ng</code> command.

Create a file for xsel to store the text you want to read. In this example this file is in the /tmp directory and is called speak.txt (but you can use a different file name and directory if you like).
'''What do these commands and switch’s do:'''
<code>xsel > my_file_name.txt</code> (over rights the text in the file with highlighted text)

<code>espeak-ng -f</code> (calls the espeak-ng tts engine to start reading a file inside the "")

<code>pkill xsel</code> (stops the computer starting a new process for xsel every time this command is run).

<code>pkill espeak-ng</code> (stops espeak-ng).

Mycroft Mimic

2022-01-14T12:49:39Z

Eben: /* KDE & gnome integration */

Mycroft Mimic

2022-01-14T12:47:11Z

Eben: Added mimic KDE and gnome instructions