[arm-allstar] developing voice packs for ASL/HamVoIP

[Mike Sullivan]

I’m personally not a fan of the default pack either. I think if the dead
space on each end was cut out it would make a drastic difference. I’m all
for testing out different packs.

Mike

On Wed, Oct 23, 2019 at 11:34 "Patrick Perdue via ARM-allstar" <
arm-allstar at hamvoip.org> wrote:

> Hi all:
>
>
> I'm a new allstar/hamvoip user, but I am not new to Asterisk itself.
>
> I just put a node together a couple of days ago using a Raspberry Pi 3,
> URI-X, and a Motorola Radius SM50 VHF radio.
>
> I managed a few Asterisk PBXs several years ago, and one of the first
> things I did on a new install was replace the Allison Smith voice
> prompts. I just don't like them. They're too slow and emphasized.
>
> So, I came up with the idea  of lazy building voice packs using TTS
> engines on Mac OS, since this can be scripted  using the "say" command.
>
> Thus, I wrote a bash script that creates an empty directory tree with
> rpt, wx, letters, phonetic, and digits, using a variable for a base
> directory.
>
> The script then reads a | (vertical bar) delimited text file with a list
> of prompts and filenames in a while loop, using the number of lines in
> the text file as the number of times to run the loop.
>
> The text format looks like this:
>
> This is a prompt to be spoken.|/rpt/something-to-say|
>
> It's too hot in here.|/wx/not-cold-enough|
>
> Column 1 is the prompt, and column 2 is the path minus the base
> directory, or file extension.
>
> These columns are then passed as arguments to "say" in the appropriate
> places, with output to $BASEDIR/$IO2, where $IO2 is the rest of the path
> as specified by column 2 of the current line read from the text file.
>
> As say only outputs in aiff or m4a, I call SoX to convert *.aiff
> recursively to 8 khz ulaw, trimming silence at the ends of files
> generated by the TTS engine, dropping the volume to 70%, with high pass
> at 300hz and low pass at 3600hz.
>
> This all works great. I have some additional voices plus the ones that
> come with Mac OS, and, since I'm using bash, it would be easy enough to
> adapt this for use with command line TTS options in Linux, but, let's
> face it, there really aren't many good ones there, unless you like
> eSpeak or Festival.
>
> The most tedious part is writing out a list of all the possible things
> that ASL/hamvoip will say. There are a ton of files from the original
> pack that I'm sure will never be used (business development comes to mind.)
>
> So, my questions are thus:
>
> 1. Is there a definitive list somewhere of only the files specifically
> used by rpt and scripts from hamvoip? If I don't have to write out every
> single prompt from the original sound pack just to make sure nothing
> breaks, that would be great, and save a lot of space as well. It would
> still be faster than recording them all myself in my project studio, I
> guess...
>
> 2. I am using ulaw rather than GSM, because I don't really care about
> disk space, and it sounds sooooooo much better than GSM, even over the
> radio. Of course, this means that any of the hard-coded scripts in
> /usr/local/sbin should be wholesale find/replaced ulaw=gsm. While I'm
> fine doing this for my own use, I assume this will break pretty hard
> when there are updates. I want to generate a few packs with different
> voices, and make them generally available for anyone who, like me, wants
> an Allison replacement. For ease-of-use, should I just go against
> everything I hold dear as an audio engineer, and generate GSM files, or
> should I also offer ulaw with the warning that more work is required to
> implement them?
>
> 3. Would there be any interest in voice packs by anyone on this list
> besides me? My biggest reason, other than I just don't like Allison's
> voice, for creating these in the first place, is that the original pack
> is just so slow. I've cut the time by more than half with a test pack
> using acapella Wil, without really losing anything. I think I'll slow it
> down a little more, but the difference is amazing. It cuts back on TX
> time, especially good with simplex nodes, gets the info across more
> concisely, etc.
>
>
> 73
>
> de
>
> KE4DYI
>
> Node 50368
>
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