Category: Geeks r Us
Does anyone know how I can get started making DecTalk songs? I want to start making them. Do I need a special demo, or can I do it with DecTalk Access 32?
I want to hear those dectalk songs! I have one but have never been able to make it sing.
you can use the dectalk 4.3 demo program to create songs. The only limitation with the demo is that the text file has to be called demo.txt and the program files have to be in the same directory as the demo.txt file. You can easily create the text file in word, assuming you know about pitch paramaters and phoneems. About all I have managed to do is modify already created text files and change stuff around. then, you can save the text file (remember to select text in the save as type part of save dialog). then you can run the dectalk demo program to hear how it sounds. If you want the url to get the dectalk 4.3 demo. just post here or send me a pm.
Blake
For those interested in getting there hands on dectalk without paying a cent, download the 4.3 demo from
http://onj.andrelouis.com/Dectalk
hit enter on the link that says dectalk4.3.zip.
once the zip archive has extracted files, you are ready to go. no installation required. Just use your favorite word processor to edit the demo.txt and start messing around with dectalk. the speak43.exe program, part of the program, has its own editor. However, I find the speak43 editor a bit difficult to use with jaws.
Blake
Also in the ZIP, Their is another file named Dscripts.zip. This file contanes JAWS Scripts.
Ok, how do I make dectalk sing there are 7 days. I planned to be a preschool teacher. Also can you guys make dectalk sound like dan clarke of freedomscientific?
Since I last posted in this topic, I have figured out how to make Dectalk sing. Making it sing involves typing the sounds that make up words, as well as assigning a pitch and time value. If you'd like, I can program the song you want. If interested, send me a pm.
I don't know if Dectalk can be made to sound like Dan Clark, but perhaps it can imitate him with the right parameters changed.
The site I gave years ago for obtaining Dectalk 4.3 no longer works. The new site for all things Dectalk, including the 4.3 demo is:
ftp://thehorspools.bounceme.net/dectalk
interesting, although the website for the dectalk archive does not seem to work. i rememer it was being hosted on bluesgrasspals.com/dectalk but it is "no longer available." Yes there are different parameters you should type on any plaintext file (files with .txt extenssion) and then run it thorugh the converter. i forgot the codes but i am sure you can find an online refference.
oops, ok guys after a bit of researching there is another mirror available. Blake's right on his address although it doesn't appear to be up much of the time. Also note that this server has a thirty users limit, so if you get kicked with the too many users message you know why. Now, here it is: ftp://bluegrasspals.com/dectalkarchive
You can log on anonymously for now. Just avoid 10000 simultaneous downloads and keeps your rates rather low. While this is not expressed on the server anywhere else it is still a common practice for sharing amongst ftp's. It also prevents such servers from being taken down because of repetitive abuse. I am sure though most ftp serving programs have the capability to cap or limit upload sizes. Still, this could slow down others who are connected.
Lou,
Thanks for posting the BlueGrassPals ftp link. I had forgotten about that mirror.
The owner of BlueGrassPals took his http version of the Dectalk Archive offline last year due to too much downloading. As far as I know, the ftp version will be online for the foreseeable future. I have heard, however, that
ftp://bluegrasspals.com/dectalkarchive
will probably not be updated with new stuff as often. the BlueGrassPals ftp site is useful for downloading Dectalk stuff when the site I gave is offline.
The link I gave is the current (updated) Dectalk Archive. You may sometimes have difficulty accessing
ftp://thehorspools.bounceme.net/dectalk
because the gentleman's server is not up all of the time.
You can press enter on this link:
ACB radio's main menu and main menu on demand archive
Then press enter on the link that says:
15 May 2000
Then navigate to track 3 in the M3u playlist and there is a 22 minute part of mainmenu all about singing dectalks.
Hope you enjoy it!
I also am learning how to make dec talk sing. where can I get a referance to the simbles you type in to make it sing? is there a sight you can go to?
ooo It would be so cool to have decktalk sing the songs I write! lol I tried looking at Chris N.'s site about programming dectalk but it was way over my head. If anyone can explain the ligistics of how to do it, I would really appreciate it! Is the demo only for 7 days? Because I know that isn't long enough for me to practice on. lol I'll check back on this board but feel free to contact me if you'd like to take the time to teach me. Thanks!
The Dectalk demo never expires. The way I learned to make Dectalk sing was to look at a bunch of Dectalk song text files and see how the words were created. One day, I realized how the sounds go together to form words. To make Dectalk sing, you type the phonetic equivalent of each sound in a word, assigning a time and pitch value. So, for the word and,
ae<400,17>nd
ae is the a sound, 400 is the time, 17 is the pitch and nd is the nd sound. Feel free to send me a PM if anyone needs help programmingDectalk to sing.
oy. I still don't understand... I'll send you a PM.
So, if you want to sing a song, here is an example.
[:phone on]
[ay<500,13>l<50,17ay<500>k<50><dh<50,20>ah<500>z<50,25>ow<500>n<50>]
I also discovered how to make a quavering voice of quivering voice.
[aa<-500,13>aa<-500,14>aa<-500,15>aa<-500,16>aa<-500,15>aa<-500,14>aa<-500,13>aa<-500,12>aa<-500,11>aa<-500,10>aa<-500,11>aa<-500,12>aa<-500,13>]
That it it.
Wow! That sounds cool but a bit involved. Could you do it with a hardware Decktalk like the internal card one or the external that connects via a serial port? I've heard that those sound different but don't know how. Anyway, maybe, I'll down the software version and try what you wrote. But how/where do we find the actual pitch meanings? I mean, how do we know which numbers to assign to which notes/words?
Dare I say it? Research, research, research.
What is it with people who know things and just can't answer them when asked? At least, the first question. The others might require research, since they're a bit more difficult.
The pitch and notes are as follows.
Well I tried to visit the Dectalk Archive because i'd like to get back into this. But I keep getting a thing that says failed to change directory.
I might be getting a Decktalk and that's why I was curious.
I like to hear it sing.
Me too. I found a great one of all the voices singing Auld Lang Sinne in harmony.
nothing wrong with it for 5 minutes or so every few years I guess.
I had text Assist on a sound card it must have been close to ten years ago - maybe eleven or 12, all that to say I don't think this exists anymore. Anyway, it had Text Assist Software and an ASB chip, if I remember right. Never did make the thing sing though.
So I wrote The Three Bears for my daughter with Paul as the narrator, Harry as Papa, and I don't remember who was Mama, but Kit was Baby I think it was.
Those were the days; she was only four ...
That was around the time I gutted all the JAWS Scripts, put just the events I needed on her little Pentium with Jump Start, and Kit the Kid would come up talking to her. It wouldn't speak like JAWS of course, but only said stuff a four-year-old would need. It said hi to her, then when she moved the mouse over games and stuff it told her what they were. Certain things like Control Panel would automatically close if she went in by accident. It spoke using the Kit voice and if an error message / dialog came up, Betty would come on and tell her 'Ask Mama for help' .
It would tell her not to click anything if the system was busy. As I said I had to redo every single event and strip out a lot of stuff since what I wanted wasn't a JAWS for her but just an aid.
Recently she said it was kinda creepy having the computer talk because she thought it *knew* what she was doing, when it would tell her not to go in places, or read off icons. She was only four and five then, so of course couldn't read. Boot myself in the head for losing all that source.
I lost it because I made a partition and an answer file so all my wife had to do was boot Windows 95 to a command prompt, type a command, and Windows would either reinstall in full or reconfigure. That must've done it; I was gone that week and she didn't do much but follow the instructions I had on paper.
You could do a lot more with modern events though now ... and what I did was pretty much a hack job in those days, I didn't even put more than a few hours into it: I didn't think it would amount to much. But now you all are making me remember this stuff ... lol
That sounds so incredibly cool! So you could make events say different things? And what is Text Assist? Is it something I should look into?
giuys, guys. the dectalk archive is at
www.dectalk.com
it's hosted by the guys who make qwitter!
-Tomi
And Tiff the Text Assist / Text Ole software is a 16-bit Windows (originally 3.1X from what it looked like) program. And no you won't get it to work in DOS though I suppose someone could write memory hog device drivers and other stuff to access the ASB chip. And yes, if something has events in it be it JAWS or anything else, as a programmer you can respond to or act upon any of that. Commonly known events are things like onMouseOver, onFocus and onBlurr in Javascript though all modern languages have them.
... and no your basic won't have them ...
Hmm. Windows 3.1 is the one version I never tried. I have it on my KeyNote gold, so I'll have to install a reader and see how it works. Of course, this really is just for a hobby, but I'm curious.
Get ready for general protection faults ... especially if you try and connect to the Internet ... and you won't get Text Assist going unless you have one of the Soundblaster Cards that had that chip.
or, you could use windows 3.1, in a virtual machine.
I also have Window bridge which I found online. It's the demo however. If you want it, I'd be more than happy to upload. Window bridge supports keynote synthesizers, so no need for text assist.
Windows 3.1, to date, was the best OS out there ever, and I do mean this.
Wow! You have Windowbridge? That is such an awesome package! It works with Windows and DOS. I just remembered that I don't have a soundcard on that machine so grrr! I'll have to do the virtual machine and work with either my Echo or my Braille Blazer but it should be fun in any case. *smile*
How do you convert the text in the demo into a Wav? There's an item in the file menu to do just that, but it won't work. Am I overlooking something?