Loquendo 7 Tts Speed Control

[lorpar]

I need to accelerate a bit the TTS Speed. I am using Loquendo 7 TTS engine, which works fine with VoiceGuide.

I tried to use the TTSspeed control in VG.ini, but it does not work. According to Loquendo manual it should accept a command \speed=(0 to 100), but when I put this command in VG TTS Module it does not work (TTS reads it like if it was parte of the message).

Does anybody have some experience with using Loquendo with VoiceGuide ... and if yes how to set the speed with it ?

Thanks

[SupportTeam]

Best approach would be to consult the Loquendo manual to see what in-text tags they allow that let you control how the TTS is processing the text.

 

if you can post here the manual for the version of TTS engine that you are using then we can have a quick look at it and advise.

[lorpar]

According to the manual (see below), the in-text command \speed=XX should tune the speech speed. Indeed, when I use it within the loquendo speech system (a program where I can write text and let it speak) it works fine and does control speech speed. The problem is that when I put the same command within text in the Voiceguide Play Module, it does nos control speed but it just reads the \speed=XX command like if it was part of the text to read.

Attached please find the loquendo TTS user guide (zipped CHM file).

Loquendo TTS 7 User's Guide.zip

[SupportTeam]

From manual:

Alternatively, Loquendo TTS behavior can be controlled by preparing the input text
according to the SSML standard (Speech Synthesis Markup Language), described in Appendix A.

in appendix A:

<speak version=“1.0” xml:lang=“en”>
<prosody rate=“230”> Fast rate sentence </prosody>
<speak>

[lorpar]

Yes ... I did attempt this way too. It is better that the first attemp, since the TTS is not reading the commands as if they were part of the text, but, on the other side, it is unuseful since TTS is not obeying to these commands. Putting it or nothing it reads the same way. :-(

Anybody has some experience with Loquendo ??

[SupportTeam]

Does the TTS engine respond to any other embedded SSML commands?

 

If they are being stripped out of the text this at least means that they re being recognized by the engine as a command.

 

The manual's Appendix 1 shows a number of different ways of specifying the speed. have you tried using the other approaches?

 

Are you using English TTS or some other language? If some other language then have you modified the xml:lang value appropriately?

[lorpar]

I use brazilian portuguese language voices. I put "pt-br" in the xml:lang value. Anyway this should affect just the way it pronouce not the speed which is what I am focusing now ...

When I use Loquendo Voice Experience (which is a program coming with the engine, where you can put textx and it speaks it) I notices that it can be controlled successfully with the \speed=XX control ...

I will try the other way described in appendix a, which should be <prompt><pros rate=“+20%”> sentence </pros></prompt> ...

[lorpar]

I agree that they must have been recognized as commands, since they are not read as text ... but the problem is they they are not enforced as commands, meaning they have no effect. I need to discover what is wrong with this ...

 

Thanks

[lorpar]

made attempt with <prompt><pros rate="+50%"> sentence </pros></prompt> ... still the system recognizes it as command, since it dos not read it as text, but the command has no effect ... the speed remains the same and nothing changes. :-(