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Date:      Mon, 23 Jun 2014 14:38:40 +0100
From:      Dave <freebsd01@dgmm.net>
To:        freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
Subject:   Using mbrola voices with either espeak or festival
Message-ID:  <6416730.casMxTUN4C@amd.asgard.uk>

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First off....

FreeBSD testbox.asgard.uk 9.2-RELEASE-p7 FreeBSD 9.2-RELEASE-p7 #0: Tue Jun  3 
11:05:13 UTC 2014     root@amd64-
builder.daemonology.net:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  amd64

I'm got both espeak and festival working using their default and supplied 
voices but can't get either to use any of the mbrola voices.

mbrola works standalone...

testbox:/usr/local/share/mbrolavox/en1 %mbrola ./en1 ./TEST/mbrola.pho 
~/test.wav && mplayer ~/test.wav

...at which point mplayer plays the .wav file 


Using espeak...

espeak -v mb-en1 "this is a test" | mbrola -e /usr/local/share/mbrolavox/en1/ 
- - > ~/fred.raw
Binary number format error
You are probably using a version of /usr/local/share/mbrolavox/en1/ 
incompatible
with your machine architecture.
Get the right one from the MBROLA project homepage :
   http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis
mbrowrap error: /proc is unaccessible: No such file or directory
mbrola voice not found

espeak speaks using the default voice at about half speed in a very deep bass 
voice.


mbrolavox was installed from ports and /proc is mounted


testbox:/home/dave %cat /etc/fstab
# Device        Mountpoint      FStype  Options Dump    Pass#
/dev/ada1p2     /               ufs     rw      1       1
/dev/ada1p3     none            swap    sw      0       0
/dev/ada1p4     /var            ufs     rw      2       2
/dev/ada1p5     /tmp            ufs     rw      2       2
/dev/ada1p6     /usr            ufs     rw      2       2
proc            /proc           procfs  rw,noauto,0,0



Likewise, using this...
testbox:/home/dave %espeak -v us-mbrola-2 "this is a test"
mbrowrap error: /proc is unaccessible: No such file or directory
mbrola voice not found

...also speaks slow and basso whereas...

espeak -v english "this is a test"

...works fine

Ports installed are...

%pkg info | grep espeak
espeak-1.47.11                 Software speech synthesizer

%pkg info | grep fest
festdoc-1.4.0.1                Documentation for Festival
festival-2.1_1                 Multi-lingual speech synthesis system
festival-freebsoft-utils-0.10_2 Festival utilities focused on interaction with 
Speech Dispatcher
festlex-cmu-1.95               CMU American English pronunciation dictionary 
for Festival
festlex-oald-1.4.1_1           Oxford Advanced Learner's pronunciation 
dictionary for Festival
festlex-poslex-1.4.1_2         English lexicon for Festival
festvox-don-1.4.0_2            British English male voice for Festival speech 
synthesis system
festvox-el11-1.4.0_2           Castilian Spanish male voice for Festival
festvox-kal16-1.4.0            American English male voice, sampled at 16 kHz, 
for Festival
festvox-ked16-1.4.0_1          American English male voice, sampled at 16 kHz, 
for Festival
festvox-rab16-1.4.1_2          16 kHz British English male voice for Festival
festvox-us1-mbrola-20041012_1  The MBROLA us1 voice (American English, female) 
for Festival
festvox-us2-mbrola-20041012_1  The MBROLA us2 voice (American English, low-
pitched male) for Festival
festvox-us3-mbrola-20041012_1  The MBROLA us3 voice (American English, high-
pitched male) for Festival


%pkg info | grep mbrol
festvox-us1-mbrola-20041012_1  The MBROLA us1 voice (American English, female) 
for Festival
festvox-us2-mbrola-20041012_1  The MBROLA us2 voice (American English, low-
pitched male) for Festival
festvox-us3-mbrola-20041012_1  The MBROLA us3 voice (American English, high-
pitched male) for Festival
linux-mbrola-3.0.1             MBROLA speech synthesizer for Linux
mbrolavox-3.0.1_1              Voices for MBROLA voice synthesizer


espeak is my preference as I'd like to convert a couple of ebooks for a non-
technical friend who doesn't have a PC so the option to write to a .wav file 
and split on the fly in 30 minute chunks is a nice plus but not essential.  It 
might even be better to split the text files into separate chapters anyway 
since there's only a couple of plaintext books to convert.  There may be more 
later now that I told him about Project Gutenberg :-)






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