2018-05-27 19:59:16

But I've heard macintalk songs made by you. What did you set the pmod to, when you made that?

2018-05-27 21:07:29

He didn't use the PMOD parameter. He used the MacinTalk native tune commands, you only use that for the non singing voices like Alex and Fred, but others like Good News, Bad News, Cellos, and Pipe Organ already can sing, but they're restrictive in terms of what you can make them sing, and thus the tune format will not work on those voices.

2018-05-27 21:20:18

Ok, so what are they, and how/where can I use, and lern them?

2018-05-28 04:04:31

Here's a document from Apple that describes the MacinTalk tune format.
https://developer.apple.com/library/con … uning.html

2018-05-28 17:33:25

And if you ever write tunes, here's a tip. Always, always assign a pitch to any voiced sound, even voiced consonants. If you don't assign a pitch, Macintalk will use the default pitch for the voice to process that phoneme, which could result in glitches in the song as it reverts to the default pitch while it's playing. You generally can get away with not assigning pitches for unvoiced consonants such as s and t, though.

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2018-05-29 02:53:58

you must also assign a start and end pitch, not just a start. And if you are going to make a transition from one note to another on either side of a consonant, I would highly recommend to do the pitch ramp on the consonant, to avoid possible blips in pitch when the next note hits. This is a more complex version of the input system to DECtalk, in DECtalk you can use 1-37 to signify musical notes, or you can also specify values in Hertz, 50-550 or something, to do exact frequency, be ware it will ramp from one to the next since there's no start and in so. Also the only voices the tune method will work on are macintalk non-singing voices, such as fred, alex and victoria, among others, though it is best to do it with the pure formant voices, fred, junior, ralph etc, since doing it with concatinative synthesis produces some rather interesting glitches. Also trying to go to ridiculous values of pitch, at least with formants, usually causes it to just mute and squeak, but with alex it yeeps at you at ridiculous pitches. The range for pmod I'm pretty sure is 0-127, have never used any decimals. Also if you try to use tune method with vocalizer, it just straight out reads your input text.

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2018-05-29 12:39:47 (edited by Slender 2018-05-29 12:44:42)

Yeah, different synthesizer, different commands, and Vocalizer's commands are complicated because they require you to generate a specific low level character, escape or 0x1b (hex) for them to be processed, and that character can't easily be printed and most software strips it out. Here's the character, though, surprisingly the forum accepts it, though I wonder what it looks like visually.  As far as I know there is no tune method available for Vocalizer anyway.

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2018-05-31 13:01:18

Ok, thanks guys.
Well, now, hopefully, the last question.

What exact software will I need to make Dectalk sing. I find out, how to use Dectalk with NVDA using the add-on, but what can I download to write songs for Dectalk, using the good old Dectalk sound, without any software.
I'm connected to the Dectalk Archive btsync folder, and I've also searched grossgang.com, but there are many things, and I don't know, which one of them I'll exactly need.

2018-05-31 15:17:39

In the DECtalk archive there are speak windows for various DECtalk versions in the software and manuals folder. You can make the NVDA addon unblock DECtalk speech commands so it can sing, but this isn't recommended do to the way NVDA sends text.

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2018-05-31 15:21:04

Yes, I've also found the speak windows for Dectalk, but which one is the "normal" Dectalk sound, and does they work properly in Windows 7?

2018-05-31 15:24:46

Yeah, they do. And what do you mean by normal DECtalk sound?

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2018-05-31 16:03:17

I assume, that the various versions of Dectalk sound different. Which version is the most comonly used, for example in all the various things in the Dectalk Archive, or in the songs from grossgang.com? I've heard various people saying, that the newer version isn't good and so on.

2018-05-31 16:16:56 (edited by Slender 2018-05-31 16:21:04)

You're probably refering to DECtalk version 4.61 and above. When Force Computers acquired DECtalk, they changed it to the point it sounds almost nothing like the original, and it isn't liked by most DECtalk people, myself included. The most common version of DECtalk used in most productions is usually 4.60 and below, the most authentic being 4.3, though I don't recommend 4.40 as vibrato is broken in that version and it is slightly out of tune, however this is fixed in 4.41.

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2018-05-31 19:08:57

Ok. Now, I've unpacked the Dectalk portable 4.60, and runned gwdec32.exe, in the first place, it worked with SAPI 4, but after I mooved it to another location, and runned the file again, it doesn't work anymore. Isn't it possible?

2018-05-31 20:33:40

I don't think so. That file has to be in the same location since gwdec32 is the license.

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2018-05-31 20:51:11

Now I copied it back to the original location, and runned the file again, but it still doesn't work, and I think it never will work again. I'll try it out on a virtual machine later.

2018-06-02 00:25:03

Ok, now I've heard Dectalk 4.60, and I personaly don't think it sound classic. I've also heard Dectalk 4.30, and it was diffeneterly the version I was searching for. So, because it looks like I can't get it for SAPI 4 or SAPI 5, I've downlloaded the Speak Window. I can fine type text and convert to a wave file... but how do I get the text read aloud in the program. I can't figure it out. I can't press F5, I can't press tab, and I can't find it in the menubar, so what to do?

2018-06-02 05:22:04

Object navigate to the first unlabeled button in the window.

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2018-06-02 08:18:09

Well thanks.

2018-06-10 11:05:54 (edited by akse0435 2018-06-10 11:15:37)

Hi,
Now, I've downloaded the 7z from grossgang.com with lots of Dectalk Speak Windows, here, to try some more Dectalk versions, and because I've heard that most of them could export as wave-files. The thing about exporting as wave-files is right, but a lot of the Speak Windows doesn't work on my computer, for example 4.41, 4.51 and 4.60. When I try to open them, I get the folowing error, copied from 4.41:
---------------------------
Speak cannot be started.
---------------------------
TTS startup failed

Error = 4

Exiting out of application
---------------------------
OK   
---------------------------


What can I do to get it to work?

Edit: There is also a file in the Speak Window called say.exe.
Nothing happended, when I hit enter on the file, but I tried to run it by opening command line, and entering cd c:\dectalk441, and then, say.exe. And then, I got the message: No more Dectalk license units found.
Do tose Speak Windows need a license. I have no problems with for example 4.3 or 4.40.

Best regards:
Aksel Christoffersen

2018-06-11 03:51:05 (edited by Slender 2018-06-12 02:37:24)

Code 4 means the synthesizer is unlicensed. You may need to install the DECtalk SDK, found in the DECtalk Reader 1 ISO file. Edit: apparently that doesn't work, I've have to see what's going on here. Edit 2: these versions require GWDEC32.EXE to run. It can be downloadedhere. To get them to work, just run the file. It's normal for it to not show a window when it's run, it's suppose to run in the background.

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2018-06-11 17:27:23

I've also found that running GWDEC32.exe also works as well.

2018-06-11 20:40:08

But that file isn't included in the speak windows.

2018-06-11 22:09:01

It is in post 46, it was edited.

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2018-06-12 02:35:50

I fixed the link, it was broken in a migration.

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