[Bayonne-devel] Re: .tts files in bayonne package

[Erik Enge]

Tusarkanti Nayak <address@hidden> writes:

> I see some .tts files like festival.tts, english.tts and several
> others. Though festival.tts uses festival program for tts, can anyone
> please point to as what these files do?

I think these are the voice libraries, dictionaries or somesuch files.

> Can they provide some tts functionality for bayonne? If yes, how to
> use them?

>From the Install Manual:

  Perhaps more useful is the ``-with-flite'' option. This option can
  enable and install support for Carnegie Mellon's Flite (Festival
  Light) text to speech system into GNU Bayonne. To use this option, you
  must also specify the directory where your flite package is
  unpacked. This is typically done by using ``-with-flite=dirpath'',
  such as ``-with-flite=/home/myhome/src/flite-xxx'', where the path is
  where flite is installed, for example.

  When ``-with-flite'' is used, the say command adds support for both
  caching text to speech translations, and for using flite internally
  linked with the bayonne server. When flite is intalled, this also
  disables the altplay keyword which otherwise supports non-tts
  alternate speech. This results in a high performance text to speech
  system that you can use with synthesised voices. If you have the flite
  derived ``theta'' tts system, you can instead use
  ``-with-theta=/opt/theta'' to enable that instead of flite (assuming
  theta is installed under /opt/theta).

[Note that options are --with-flite and --with-theta.]

>From the Scripting Manual:

  say [gain=db] [volume=%level] [voice=ttsname] text...

  If there is a tts module installed in Bayonne, or an external one has
  been made active, then the say command may be used to generate
  synthesised speech. This command is ignored if there is no tts service
  present, and so may be used in conjunction with altplay and altspeak.

I am currently using Flite and it works quite well.  I will be trying
out Theta in the near future and expect it to work well, too, after
conversations with the vendor.

You will have to edit your bayonne.conf slightly.  Grep for 'flite' and
'tts' and you'll probably see what you need to change.

Erik.