speakup using different synths with software speech?

[Tony Baechler]

Hi,

This is very well said. I've felt the same way for a long time which is 
why I still use Windows for email and ssh to my Linux machines. I would 
prefer to use Linux as my primary OS, but I have a few sticking points 
as well. The biggest is the quality of ESpeak, exactly as you say. To 
me, it reminds me of an Echo with a British accent. With Speakup, that 
isn't a big problem because I have an external Doubletalk LT, a 
Trippletalk and a DEC-talk Express. However, unless I'm mistaken, 
(someone, please correct me here) there is no way to get Orca to use 
hardware speech. I realize that there are better software synths out 
there, but either they're just as bad (look at Festival), they're 
non-free (Mbrola comes to mind), or they cost money, such as TTSynth. 
Until there is a high quality speech synth for Linux that works with 
Orca, I will not be completely switching.

My other sticking point is that there is no equivalent to Sound Forge or 
professional audio editing software that's accessible. There are Sox and 
Ecasound, but they aren't GUI apps and are difficult to use for long, 
comprehensive editing and post-production. I like Wedit, but it has the 
same limitations. I know there are GUI audio processors but I read that 
they're not accessible. While I'm at it, it would also be nice to find 
something for manipulating MIDI files, but I can get by with Timidity 
for now.

James Homuth wrote:
> Somewhat related, what's the likelyhood of Espeak voices getting
> improvements to be more... I'm not sure what the word for it is, other than
> human-sounding? That's been one of my main sticking points for why I'm still
> with Windows on my primary machine; that, plus I've not until now had time
> to test the accessibility of my particular preferred distribution. I did
> hear a demonstration a while back of a version of Espeak, and while I could
> definitely get used to it, I think I'd like it a whole lot better if it
> didn't sound quite as robotic. I'm not saying it should equal eloquence by
> any means, but the demo I heard kind of reminded me of the old Echo synths
> used on the early Apple computers. Good, but could be better, IMHO.