EMIC2 - fantastic. Quick review and comments
xanatos
Posts: 1,120
Love the new EMIC2. My first foray into T2S was the original EMIC (we're not counting my VERY first foray with the old SPO256-AL2 which I cooked back in the 1980s)... I loved the ease of implementation of the original EMIC and was very sorry to see it get discontinued. Fortunately, I was able to use the RC Systems T2S module in the interim. But I am VERY happy with the new EMIC2.
The voices are great right out of the box with little adjustment necessary in most applications. Even keeping with just the Epson parser, the "on the fly" embedded "speech markup codes" allow for some great modification of words and phrases... whisper mode is really a must hear (prefix the words to be whispered with ##).
I also really like that this board is given a right-angle connection so it doesn't stick straight up as the original EMIC did - I like keeping my board profiles as flat as possible and this helps. I had to find right-angle mating connectors for the EMIC1 projects. And the board has a slightly smaller area than the original EMIC.
I am very, very pleased with the EMIC2 and look forward to more in-depth work with the DECtalk parser - this is the FIRST T2S module that I've ever heard SING before - and it sings better than most people I know! And at a price lower than both the original EMIC - AND lower than the RC Systems module - it's my current favorite.
Thanks Grand Idea & Parallax!
Dave
The voices are great right out of the box with little adjustment necessary in most applications. Even keeping with just the Epson parser, the "on the fly" embedded "speech markup codes" allow for some great modification of words and phrases... whisper mode is really a must hear (prefix the words to be whispered with ##).
I also really like that this board is given a right-angle connection so it doesn't stick straight up as the original EMIC did - I like keeping my board profiles as flat as possible and this helps. I had to find right-angle mating connectors for the EMIC1 projects. And the board has a slightly smaller area than the original EMIC.
I am very, very pleased with the EMIC2 and look forward to more in-depth work with the DECtalk parser - this is the FIRST T2S module that I've ever heard SING before - and it sings better than most people I know! And at a price lower than both the original EMIC - AND lower than the RC Systems module - it's my current favorite.
Thanks Grand Idea & Parallax!
Dave
Comments
Thanks for the great review! I'm glad you like the module. Looking forward to seeing what cool stuff you come up with!
Take care,
Joe
I'm glad the emic2 is out. It's a bit hefty for getting one everytime I build a project, but it's still worth the price. I've modified my vga and keyboard routines (for the quickstart and human interface board) to include emic2 speech output, so I don't need someone else to help me out when I'm playing with femtobasic, or (after I get it installed) cp/m. Having the emic code in the vga and keyboard drivers allows me to have speech for input and output, no matter what the project is, and that just rocks. So, I'm definitely ordering more of these boards in the future, especially as my various projects get completed, and wind up in their permanent cases/homes.
Nice to have the ability to have text-to-speech on all of my projects now, and at 60 bucks a pop, it's roughly the same cost as a vga monitor only it's much smaller.
I think this is the right place for my question.
Does anyone know how can I synthesize speech using the emic2 in another language except English or Spanish? For instance has anyone made the Emic2 to speech German or Chinese?
I would like to create the Greek speech.
In other words does anyone know how I can change the accent in order to produce a different speech similar to my language? Some years ago playing with the “Talk it” software (this software had only English and Spanish accents) I could to produce Greek speech typing Greek phrases written in Latin characters in various combinations and using the Spanish accent.
The result was good enough, and anyone was able to understand the produced Greek speech. How can I do something like this now using the Emic2 ? Is it possible? Or I must follow a completely different method?
I also shaw the "microphone to VGA"( Project of the week) and I was wondering if we can create a kind of "stamp" for every recorded letter with this method in order to use it with Emic2
Do you have any idea how can I say it using the EMIC2?
In this TEXT to Speech site if you type the phrase you gave with latin characters " Then ennai akrivos afto poo thelo" , or with the original Greek characters" Δεν είναι ακριβώς αυτό που θέλω", the rsult is very similar!
However, you can use the epson tts mode, where you'd specify sounds based on phonemes where you can control exactly what the speech sounds like. It may take some doing, but you should be able to make your greek text speak in that manner.