[access-uk] Re: Iona voices

  • From: "john coley" <johncoley@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 10 Oct 2012 11:39:58 +0100

Hi Andy, yes, it's a great shame that they can't find a way of getting the SAPI 
voices to support pitch. So many people have got used to pitch change denoting 
capitals. I'm sure those creating these voices could find a way, it's more, I 
suspect, that they aren't bothered enough to try. It's easy to spot people 
using SAPI voices, as their capitalisation's out of the window.
  On your point about Amy's diction she can't say T in a lot of cases either. 
She says D. Another odd thing about the voices is not only the way they say 
things, for example world war the second instead of world war 2, but also 
seemingly made up words they come up with sometimes. I have the Goodmans digi 
box, and the synth they've used for that can't say x or ex, as in X men or 
Exfactor. I'd be interested to get from anyone with a Goodmans box who've 
noticed these made up words to hear their guesses as to what the made up words 
are.
                    John.
 
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: ANDY COLLINS 
  To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
  Sent: Wednesday, October 10, 2012 10:55 AM
  Subject: [access-uk] Re: Iona voices


  Hi John -

  Shame that. Would it really have been so difficult to have included pitch 
change with the Ivona voices, and why are there such strange anomalies such as 
the way Amy yells the letter Y, and pushes some syllables so hard it sounds 
like she's constipated! -

  Andy

    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: john coley 
    To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
    Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2012 11:29 PM
    Subject: [access-uk] Re: Iona voices


    Hi Andy, none of those voices support pitch. The same goes for Realspeak 
and the other human sounding SAPI voices. I've only come across one vaguely 
human sounding synth that supports pitch, and that was SVox Pico for use with 
NVDA.
                        John.

      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: ANDY COLLINS 
      To: access-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx 
      Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2012 6:03 PM
      Subject: [access-uk] Iona voices


      Hi all -

      I'm using the Iona voices in demo mode for now, thinking about buying a 
license. I'm not very impressed with Brian and Emma [uk voices] but Amy [uk] is 
pretty reasonable, even though I don't like the way she pronounces certain 
words.

      I was trying to make changes in JAWS, so that she would speak capitol 
letters in a higher pitch, the way I am use to under Eloquence, but no matter 
how much I Play around with this setting, it makes no difference. All letters 
are read in the same pitch, when reading character by character. The odd thing 
however, is that when Amy comes across the letter y [case doesn't matter] she 
seems to yell it out, and in a slightly raised pitch too, as if there is 
something special about the letter y!

      Anybody have similar experiences? -

      Andy

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