Synthesis of speech and reading of electronic books by voice

Voice engines

At the moment, to synthesize speech is best suited voice engines:

• Acapela ALYONA Multimedia (Acapela Multimedia Alyona)
• Acapela ELAN NIKOLAI Tempo Multimedia V5.1.0.0 Russian (255 channels)
• Other Russian Voices

Extras. Information: Text-to-speech (TTS) engine or speech synthesis engines - programs similar to drivers, designed to convert and synthesize text into a sound wave. The speech synthesis engines do not have a built-in control and in order for your computer to speak, one TTS is not enough. To use TTS, you need a synthesis program (TextAloud, Cool Reader, Balabolka, etc.) that replaces the interface, allowing you to work with TTS, change its settings, sound and timbre of speech, and control the rest of the possibilities.

The company Acapela developers of the popular Russian-speaking voice module Nicholas, released a new Russian, female voice engine, which was called Alena, runs on SAPI-5 with a frequency of 22 kHz, the quality of the synthesized speech Alain far ahead of Nicholas, voice and intonation in the opinion of users more pleasant than at the engine Katerina from ScanSoft RealSpeak.

Together with the engine comes Lexicon Manager - dictionary editor, which allows you to change the pronunciation of words both alphabetically and phonetically.

For example, using KooBAudio, mp3book2005 and this voice engine - a 4 hour romance can be announced and translated into mp3 in 10 minutes

Acapela Alyona - works well with such programs as: KooBAudio 0.7.0.7, mp3book2005, Balabolka, Cool Reader ...

A good voice engine! In general, it does read more clearly than all other Russian speakers, including Nikolai, but the latter has a more pleasant voice due to the low voice of the voice and makes less mistakes in accents.

Program for reading books

Preparing for installation

1. Download the speech synthesis engine:

• Alyona Russian 2.220 ( Alyona_Russian_ID2220.rar ) (148.93 Mb) - engine synthesis of Russian speech.
• Nicolai ( Acapela-Elan-TTS-Nicolai.rar ) (10.7 MB) is another high-quality voice.

2. Download Infovox Desktop 2.220 Engine SP3 ( Acapela_Infovox_Desktop_2.220_EngineSP3.rar ) (24.08 Mb) - a program for control and activation, with a native, simple reader, and most importantly with the program for editing the Alenin Dictionary of Pronunciations - Lexicon Manager.

3. Download US English 2.220 ( English_ID2220.rar ) (233.13 Mb) - the engine for the synthesis of English speech.

4. Download the Reader , a program for reading books ( links above ).

5. Download AlyonaSlovari-Alyona22k ( AlyonaSlovari.rar ) (1.2 Mb) - dictionaries to Alena for 24345 words.

7. Download MSagent.exe and ms_speech_api.exe ( sintez_bib.rar ) (archive-1.09 MB) - MSagent.exe (400 KB) - agent for working with speech recognition and synthesis engines, ms_speech_api.exe (830 KB) - libraries necessary for speech recognition and speech synthesis (for Windows 7 are not needed).

Supports OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, 8.

All links are listed below on the page!

Installation and startup

• 1) Install the Infovox Desktop 2.220 Engine
• 2) On top, install the voice engine Alyona Russian 2.220
• 3) Run the License Manager and copy the button "Copy to Clipboard" License Code
• 4) Run key.exe, insert the code there and press "Make Key" to generate the license file.
• 5) Import the resulting file into the License Manager by clicking "Import License File"
• 6) We add dictionaries using Lexicon Manager (Lexicon-Voice Associations - Add Lexicon ... or File - Import Lexicon)

To work, you need additional libraries (install in this order!):

• 1. MSagent.exe and ms_speech_api.exe are the libraries needed for the speech recognition and synthesis programs. (for Win 7 are not needed)
• 2. Acapela ELAN Tempo Multimedia V5.1.0.0 Nicolai is the engine for synthesizing Russian speech for an agent.
• 3. ToM Reader 2.73 or MP3book2005 - programs for reading, which one will like.
• 4. Download the accent dictionary for ELAN Tempo Multimedia Nikolai .

We copy the main dictionary exc_rus.txt, and abb_rus.txt for the abbreviations, in the C: \ Program Files \ Elan package, and exc_rus.txt also in the Program Files \ MP3book2005 \ DIC, with the replacement.

MP3book2005 only edits exc_rus.txt, abb_rus.txt needs to be edited in Notepad or Word. These are branded dictionaries, they are used by ELAN Tempo Multimedia.

There is also a dictionary that is built into the reading program of ToM Reader (Digalo Russian Nicolai.dic). Do not use such dictionaries at all, they only worsen the pronunciation.

In ToM Reader, the engine settings are approximately the following:

To edit the dictionary in MP3book2005, press the Dictionary button, and if necessary, load the dictionary exc_rus.txt. To add a new word to the dictionary, we press the button at the top of the Pronunciation, we write the word in the bottom line, if it is highlighted in the text, then it will already be there, press the Check button, put the cursor on the correct place of stress, press (<), and if the pronunciation is suitable click Add. Then click the button at the top of the Save button to overwrite the dictionary. Abbreviations, like asterisks, are not used in branded dictionaries, each word is recorded separately. This is not convenient, but the pronunciation is more qualitative.

You can keep ToM Reader and MP3book2005 simultaneously open. Read in ToM Reader, edit in MP3book2005, and after changing the ToM Reader dictionary you need to restart. You can only use MP3book2005. At the same time, it should be taken into account that ToM Reader is free, and not registered MP3book2005 has insignificant restrictions.

Disadvantages:

Acapela ELAN Tempo Multimedia sometimes reads words written in CAPITAL letters, spelled.

Digalo Nicholas - the old version.

You can take Digalo TTS 2000 (DigaloCoreRus.exe-7.44 MB, SAPI 4) and ToM Reader Russian. Digalo TTS 2000 is a voice engine that supports several languages, including Russian. It is paid, but you can find crack. ToM Reader Russian is a program that uses Digalo TTS 2000 to read books.

Digalo TTS 2000 has the Russian voice Nicolai, it's better than voices from other companies, but not perfect, so you need a dictionary for it. There are two options: to use the dictionary built into the ToM Reader, and use the dictionary in Digalo itself. The first is simpler, because it uses asterisks (*) to replace part of the word, but less qualitative, the second is more complicated, but also better.

In the first case, we take the Digalo Russian Nicolai.dic dictionary and copy it into the dict folder in the ToM Reader, which appears when you open the ToM Reader and set it in the settings: use the dictionary. In the second case, the process is somewhat longer. But its advantage is that you get a better pronunciation, and other programs, such as PROMT, that do not have the ability to connect a dictionary, will have the correct pronunciation, because Digalo will use its dictionary.

So, take DigaloEditor 1.0 and unpack it into c: \ Program Files \ Digalo \ Digalo 2000 Russian \ russian \ data. There appear: DigaloEditor.exe - the program for editing the dictionary, abb_rus.txt and exc_rus.txt - dictionaries. abb_rus.txt for abbreviations, exc_rus.txt for other words. DigaloEditor.exe only edits exc_rus.txt, abb_rus.txt needs to be edited in Notepad or Word.

Now about the features of editing in DigaloEditor.

If you want to add a word or find it, click the Add button, and start typing, it automatically searches, and if such a combination is it is highlighted in red. And the most important thing. When typing a word, it is already written in the dictionary, and if you leave it after saving the result, it will be in the dictionary. In independence, there is such a word in the dictionary or not. So if you wrote the right word, press the save button. If it is not correct or if there is already such a word, delete the entered line with the Delete button. And so save-delete after each set. The stress is placed with the sign "<" without quotes, there must be an equal number of spaces on one side and on the other. For example: "fish trout fish fore". Line: "fish trout fish-foresh <l" will cause an error in Digalo. Words with variable stress depending on the meaning, you need to write in the phrase. Suspension lock = hanging lock <k.

The result is heard after the reading program is rebooted.

The program for the synthesis of Russian speech Speaker 2.0.6 and voice engines Digalo and SpeechCube

• Developer site
• Year of manufacture: 2006
• Version: 2.0.6.0
• Developer: Ryazanov Anton
• Platform: Windows 9x / nt / 2000 / xp
• System requirements: minimum P200 + sound card
• Language: English + Russian
• Tabletka: Not required

Govorilka is a small program for reading texts with voice. She can read aloud any text that you will give it in any language, any voice set. Writes the text to an MP3 file.

The main features of the Govorilka program.

• Reading the text in voice.
• Write readable text to a sound file (* .WAV, * .MP3) with increased speed * and broken down into parts of the specified size.
• Adjust the speed of reading and voice height.
• Automatically scrolls the text on the screen to always see the readable fragment (speech tracking). However, the text can be highlighted in color.
• Rechargeable pronunciation dictionaries that allow you to easily adjust the pronunciation of individual words and phrases.
• Opens large files in DOS and Windows encoding.
• Opens texts from Microsoft® Word and HTML files.
• The size of the readable text is up to 2 gigabytes.
• The text and the cursor position are remembered when exiting the program.

Please note that the current version of the program is a test version (beta) - there may be minor errors.

What is useful for Govorilka: Govorilka takes care of your eyesight. With her the texts of electronic books can be listened to, and not read from the screen of the monitor. You can learn how to sound words and phrases in a foreign language. You can quickly burn books into MP3 files and listen to them on an MP3 player. With the help of Govorilka you can evaluate the possibilities of computer-assisted speech synthesis and teach your computer to talk.

Description: A talker is needed for someone who loves to listen to texts rather than reading them from the screen of the monitor or saves their eyesight and wants to read the texts of e-books sitting away from the monitor who wants to learn how words and phrases sound in a foreign language. A talker is needed by anyone who wants to teach their computer to talk and who is just curious to know how this all works.

Additional features: changing the reading speed and voice height; opening large files in DOS and Windows encoding, and reading text from MS Word files; record speech in a sound file (wav or mp3); automatic scrolling of text on the screen, so that the readable fragment is always visible; reading text that is in the clipboard, the ability to change the pronunciation (dictionary).

Extras. Information: The interface for Govorilka is multilingual, the program will work right away in Windows 2000 / XP, but Windows 95/98 / NT users may have to download some missing files - text-to-speech engine and SAPI (details on the home page) .