From:

 David

Subject:

 Re: speech breaking up and distorting

Date:

 Fri, May 6, 2011 10:31:11 am

Hmm, don't know, about that. Have been running both Mike and Crystal, from
AT&T, as SAPI 4 here; with no distortion at all. True, this is under XP, but
I doubt there would be any connection as to the windows version itself. Fact
is, I find the SAPI 4 version of the AT&T voices more natural, and the SAPI
5 tends to be either too fast, or way too slow; as they changed the rate
settings in SAPI 5 definitions. Again matter of taste, but at least, it is
fully possible to run SAPI 4 voices without distortion, even at a rather
good volume. Might of course depend on the set of speakers you are using,
but since the user initially stated this is something that happened
recently, if I remember correct, I doubt any of this really plays the role.
Well, if you are using the SAPI4, then it's worth a try with the SAPI5
voices, agree on that, as it might at least help you out.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Clower"
To: "David"
Cc: ;
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2011 3:28 PM
Subject: Re: speech breaking up and distorting

Greetings,

Make sure you are using the SAPI 5 versions of these voices. The SAPI 4
iterations, at least with the AT&T products, are known to distort at even

low volume settings. I'm unsure about the Ivona voices as I have not used
them.

Regards,

Steve

On 5/6/2011 9:21 AM, David wrote:

Not sure, why your specific problem arises. Both of the voices - Kendra

and Crystal - are SAPI voices. To just break down the problem a bit,
would you happen to have any other voices (SAPI) on any of your systems?

Maybe you have Microsoft Mike and Mary, and I guess maybe even Sam. They
are not the best - agreed. Still, I would suggest for you to change to

one of the other SAPI voices on your system, and see if this is a SAPI
issue, or if it is more related to the voice itself.

The problem with broken speech in SAPI voices is known from years. SAPI

loads the system somehow differently than the dedicated voices Dectalk
and Eloquence. If your problem exists with other SAPI voices as well,

I'd first say there could be a problem with the general system load.
Maybe you are running some newly installed software, App, or even have

got some kind of Malware that tends to load the system. Whenever you
restart the system, you go back to a 'scratch-load', with only the

basics in memory. Soon as your ssystem starts to run different software
and tools, your load goes up, and if some of it overloads the system

somehow, you could experience the broken voice. Try to see if there is a
connection as to what software you are running, and when the voice

breaks. I.e, does it always happen when you start Word, Internet
Explorer or the like; or, is there no pattern here. Try to leave your

system - freshly restarted - unused for a periode of time, and then
start using it. Does the voice break immediately when you start using

the system now? Or, do you still have to open other software like above
mentioned, before the breaking takes place. If it happens even after the

system has been unintended for a while after restarting, it could be
that there is some kind of automatically loaded software that overloads

the system. In such a case, I'd suggest you look at your startup
routines, with a startup manager, and remove whatever is not necessary.

Or, go to Processes under the TaskManager, and see which software tends
to be heavy on the CPU usage.

Even if your CPU usage is not too high, you might be running with low

memory. How much RAM do your systems have? Even with a high amount of
memory installed, the different software running might be 'hungry' for

it, hence cause little memory left for your speech. This cause breakups,
and sometimes fully stop in the speech. Specially since you say this

started recently, I get the feeling there could be a matter of some
newly installed stuff on your system, that tends to eat up your

resources.

On your laptop, which the following will be most easily tested, when
this happens; does your fan start to spin rather fast? Either just

before the thing happens with the voice, or simultaneously. If so, again
it points to heavy loaded system resources. On your desktop, this test

might not be as easily carried out, since you normally won't have the
same spinning up and down of the fan, as you have on a laptop.

Another couple of cases, that might affect speech, and could make it

broken, is your disk usage. If things happen even through low disk
usage, it might be worth to do a defrag on your disk, as I have seen

that fixes certain speech problems.

When comes to the pitch adjustment, which distort your voice, I have
seen this with another voice as well. What I found in that case, was

that you can adjust the pitch to your heart's desire, as long as you run
the default speed. But, soon as you lower the speed just one step, and

then adjust the pitch, the voice gets distorted. Quite frustrating, and
might cause you to stop using that voice, eventually. Unfortunately,

there is - as far as I know - nothing you can do about it, except from
keeping your voice at the default speed. This is simply due to badly

compiled voice from the manufacturer. In the case this is your
experience, you might consider reporting the problem to the

manufacturer, and hope for them to fix it in an updated voice version.
Would it happen, that you recently saved settings in WE that includes an

adjustment of the voice speed?

Sorry I couldn't be of more specific help here. Hope any of the above,
wil help you track down the cause of the problem. Would be interesting

to know your findings, and if you solve the problem, how you managed. If
for no other reason, at least for future users that might run into same

problem.

To fully understand why this specifically happens with SAPI voices, is a
more tech thing, and I won't bother with it right now. One small point,

seems to be that SAPI ain't given the highest priority in the system,
hence other resource eager software, might 'kick' the voice off to the

sideline.

Lastly, and this is not really the most truly reason, but just want to
mention it: Your sound card, has there been any adjustment on its

equalizer. If you haven't done so deliberately, simply just forget this
point. Only certain cases, a messed up equalizer, might give bad sound

on specially female voices, since these use higher pitched tones, than
male voices. I ran into this kind of case, a couple of years ago, and

resetting the equalizer of the sound card, fixed the 'distorted
sounding' voice. Again, if you haven't been fooling with the sound card

settings - and no other user of the computer have - this solution is
very little likely, and you simply omit it.

----- Original Message ----- From: "Jenine Stanley"

To:

Sent: Friday, May 06, 2011 2:32 PM
Subject: speech breaking up and distorting

I have 2 computers and they both are having an odd issue lately with

their
synthesizers. Both run WE 7.5

Desktop runs Windows7, with Ivona Kendra speech synthesizer.

From time to time the speech will break up, like an old radio that's
poorly

tuned. Sometimes also when adjusting the pitch, which I like at 2, the

speech will become distorted as if it's too loud though the volume
hasn't

changed at all. The breaking up tends to fix itself but the distortion
requires a complete reboot of the computer, not just shutting down WE

and
restarting.

Laptop is running Windows XP with the AT&T Crystal synthesizer. I have

WE
start prior to log in and nothing has changed with the DECTalk speech.

The
last several days, when I boot up, and the speech changes over to

Crystal,
the voice is very distorted as if through a bad AM radio speaker. This

is
continuous, unlike the desktop computer issue. The only way to fix it

is to
exit WE and restart it. Then the speech returns to normal.

Any idea what might be going on here?

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--
Stephen Clower

Product support specialist
GW Micro, Inc. * 725 Airport North Office Park, Fort Wayne, IN 46825

260-489-3671 * gwmicro.com
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