Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!aplcen!haven!udel!mmdf
From: kosma%human-torch@stc.lockheed.com (Monty Kosma)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: amiga speech synthesis
Message-ID: <21526@snow-white.udel.EDU>
Date: 8 Jun 90 21:17:35 GMT
Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU
Lines: 27


   >
   >it works?  Does the amiga actually have a speech synthesis chip, or is
   >it done through audio samples of phonemes, or what?  
		    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
   Yes, this way. And there is very tricky software to bind these phonemes
   together and make fluent speech of them. What is to be said about quality:
   The max. sample rate of the Amiga beyond 18 kHz is far enough for speech
   (regard the bandwidth of a telephone with 3 kHz!), only limitation is in
   the quality of the digitized phonemes. Frankly speaking, they are such a
   pure Texan style American (just for a German ear) that they are nearly
   useless for other languages than American. I believe even Britons would
   need different phonemes.
   All this was done by an external software company and sold to Commodore.
   They even had offers to prepare it for other languages, but the charge
   was so expensive that noone took it.

   -- 
   Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel       E-Mail to 
   Commodore Frankfurt, Germany         rutgers!cbmvax!cbmbsw!cbmger!peterk

hmm, so let's say I (or somebody) wanted to improve on this, or just fool
around a bit.  Would having different/better samples help? Or does the 
"binding together" software need work?  What I guess I'm asking is what
is the weak link that makes the voice so poor.

monty