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

Wed Oct 23 19:22:04 EDT 2019

I am all for testing as well. 

Joe
Kd2nfc 

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 23, 2019, at 7:03 PM, Danny K5CG via ARM-allstar <arm-allstar at hamvoip.org> wrote:
> 
> If we're not concerned about disk space whynot use wav files. They play just fine and are easier to manipulate with tools like sox.
> 
> Danny
> K5CG
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "ARM Allstar" <arm-allstar at hamvoip.org>
> To: "ARM Allstar" <arm-allstar at hamvoip.org>
> Cc: "Patrick Perdue" <borrisinabox at gmail.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2019 2:44:45 PM
> Subject: Re: [arm-allstar] developing voice packs for ASL/HamVoIP
> 
> I thought about just time compressing and/or chopping the existing pack 
> a bit, but most of it is GSM, so no good way to do that losslessly. Yes, 
> it's raw data, so you could literally just truncate the ends, but... 
> nah, not worth it.
> 
> 
>> On 10/23/2019 3:18 PM, "Mike Sullivan via ARM-allstar" wrote:
>> 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
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> 
>>> ARM-allstar mailing list
>>> ARM-allstar at hamvoip.org
>>> http://lists.hamvoip.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/arm-allstar
>>> 
>>> Visit the BBB and RPi2/3 web page - http://hamvoip.org
>> _______________________________________________
>> 
>> ARM-allstar mailing list
>> ARM-allstar at hamvoip.org
>> http://lists.hamvoip.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/arm-allstar
>> 
>> Visit the BBB and RPi2/3 web page - http://hamvoip.org
> _______________________________________________
> 
> ARM-allstar mailing list
> ARM-allstar at hamvoip.org
> http://lists.hamvoip.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/arm-allstar
> 
> Visit the BBB and RPi2/3 web page - http://hamvoip.org
> _______________________________________________
> 
> ARM-allstar mailing list
> ARM-allstar at hamvoip.org
> http://lists.hamvoip.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/arm-allstar
> 
> Visit the BBB and RPi2/3 web page - http://hamvoip.org