2008-06-26 12:40:35

Hi, A while ago I struggled to get the dectalk voices to convers with each other. One of you helped me with that. I recently heard that a friend of mine programmed DecTalk to sing. I would like to do that as well, but he says he won't share his secret with me. I have tried many things on my own, but I must admit, I think this one might be tricky. Please help?

To know, and not to do, is not to know.

2008-06-26 14:32:30

hi,
i have some knowledge about this.
before you can do anything you need the dectalk demo app.
if you don't have it tell me and i'll be glad to send it to you.
to make conversations using differend voices it's easy.
for example
[:nh] will use the "huge harry" voice.
np is paul, nb is betty, nr is rita, nf
is frank, nd is dennis, nu is ursula, and nk is kit.
and there is also nv which uses the "user defined", voice.
more about defining voices later.
an example of a conversation would be:
[:np] how are you, harry?
[:nh] fine.
to define a voice you can apply different parometers.
like
[:dv ap 100] will set the pitch to 100.
or [:dv pr 0] will set the "pitch range" (intonation) to 0, making the voice sound like robot.
here is a list of parometers that i know:
pr, pitch range.
br brethyness.
ap, average pitch.
la, some thing like ruffness but i don't know it's name in dectalk.
gf, sets the force of f's and s's.
if set to 0 then you will hear no s's or f's. for example the word
jaws for windows  will be spoken jaw or window.
there is also the [:dv save] command which saves the defined voice under the [:nv] so that yoo don't need to repeat the defining each time.
for singing, it's a bit complicated.

first type:
[:ph on] this will activate phonemes.
then for example
[aa<1000,1>aa<1000,5>aa<1000,8>]
will first sing an  aa in c, then another aa in e, and finally last aa in g.

to make words you join phonemes together.
i'm not the best at that but i'll try to make out hello.
[hxehlao]
to make it sing you specify first the time then the pitch.
like this
[l<1000,1>] this will sing an l, lasting 1000 mili seconds (1 second,) using ppitch 1.
the valid pitches are 1 through 37.
it's really hard to explain.
here is a nice site

http://www.pdaudio.net/ from here go to "dectalk page"
there you will find some links. one of the most helpful site is the
"unofficials dectalk page"
you will find a "how to" guide where you will find the musical scale, a quick start guide and the list of phonemes with examples.
it's most easy to experiment if you have problems understanding that all. that's what i did.
also look for the topic "dectalk archive?"
find the links there and when you enter the archive go to
software.
get the dectalk 4.3.
when you downloaded it, go to "text," the text files there are verry helpful.



sorry for a bit not helpful text.
ps. ask damien sadler who developped "dectalk scripter" it has the demo program included and it can make some thinngs easier.
hth and regards, peter.
ps 2, sorry for the loooooooooooooooooooooong post.

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2008-06-26 15:15:20

Hi, and thanks for your help. I'm sure that I will come right.

To know, and not to do, is not to know.

2008-07-21 01:44:54

how do I make multyple dectalk Voices talk at the same time?

2008-07-23 14:04:02

as far as i know you have to mix multiple files. like,
to have paul and betty say o my god!
you'de create a file with the paul voice saying o my god!
then with betty same thing, and at the end mix both files.
there is no syntaks for multiple voices, but as i said it's doable by mixing.

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