I've been playing with the Cepstral speech synthesizer, which offers a unique twist: You can buy individual voices at bargain rates. The standard voices cost just $29.99, and the special-effect ones, which I find have more creative potential, are just $6.99. The synth runs on Windows, OS X, Linux, and even Solaris, and sounds at least as good as the one on this site. (Which you can hear by clicking the Listen link above.)
You can even add effects, including Dizzy Droid, Liquid Love, Old Robot, PVC Pipe, Spacetime Echo, and Split Personality. Here are the $6.99 Damien and Whispery voice reciting a phrase my 5-year-old son suggested, monster house darkness power super monkey fruit pizza:
- Damien Voice (MP3)
- Whisper Voice with Echo (MP3)
Another fun twist is that the downloadable version nags you to pay up by inserting random comments into the speech output. For example, when I rendered a phrase with the drill sergeant-like Shouty voice, it interjected, "This voice is not licensed! Purchase a license!"
This preference pane shows the Cepstral voices I've installed. You can adjust their pitch range and add effects, but it would be interesting to be able to adjust the "age" and gender as well.
Cepstral's FAQ page explains how to render speech output into WAV files using the Terminal, but you can also use a streamripper program such as Audio Hijack.
For more on creative speech synthesis, check out our Digital Media Insider Podcast #3: Singing Computers.
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Audio
Comments (2)
Read More Entries by David Battino.
@Dr. Don: Thanks for reminding me. I heard an early demo of Cantor a couple of years ago and it didn’t catch my ear, but the new demos are interesting. I also like the idea that it can be played in real time.
Have you ever checked out "Cantor" its a singing synthesis program. It can do german and english and has a number of fine tuning controls. Fun.