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FAQ for AAC and/or ALS UsersIs this technology for me? Because ModelTalker and InvTool are still beta software, there are some rough edges. The process of creating a synthetic voice takes time and there are several things that could go wrong. Before you invest your time and energy in this process, here are some important questions you may want to ask (and their answers):
I have ALS and I am starting to have trouble speaking. The quality of the personal synthetic voice you create with InvTool is very dependent on your natural voice and speech quality. Ideally, you should record your voice before it is affected by the ALS. Nonetheless, if your voice is just a little breathy or hoarse, it will probably still be possible to make a useful synthetic voice. The more trouble you have speaking, the more difficult it will be for you to record all the sentences that are needed, and the more difficult it will be for our software to find all the speech sounds it needs to make a useful synthetic voice. If you cannot repeat short sentences without pausing or slurring, you may find the recoding process to be too taxing for you and the resulting synthetic voice may not be very usable.
First, you must have a Windows PC with audio capabilities and a head-mounted microphone. You will then need to download and install the InvTool software (which will also install the ModelTalker TTS system). Once the software is installed, you should test it with your PC and microphone to be sure you are able to make good sounding audio recordings using InvTool. When you are sure you are able to make good quality recordings with InvTool, you will then carefully record a short inventory of about 14 words and phrases for us to review. The InvTool program guides you through that process by prompting you for each utterance that is needed. After you upload these test speech files to our server, we will look them over and possibly make additional suggestions for creating better recordings. If all is well, we will send you the full inventory of 1650 words and phrases. You should expect that recording the full inventory will take at least 8 to 10 hours distributed over 3 or 4 days; for some people it can take a lot longer. When all of the phrases are recorded, you can upload the speech files to our server for conversion to a synthetic voice. We will send you a web link to download the voice once it has been created.
Unfortunately not. To be clear, everyone's voice as well as their recording equipment and environment is different, and so we cannot give you a good estimate of the probability that you will succeed in making a usable synthetic voice. We do know that we have produced some very good voices for people that are using them on a regular basis. However, a few people have not succeeded in creating a usable voice. Please listen to these samples to get a reasonable idea of the range of voices that have been created by users in the field.
If I make a personal synthetic voice, will it sound just like me? Your personal synthetic voice will probably capture your natural voice quality fairly well, but the speech will still not sound exactly like you because it is synthetic. The timing and intonation of sentence "spoken" by ModelTalker will probably sound much more robotic than your natural speech. Be sure to listen to the examples of natural and synthetic voices to get a realistic idea of how ModelTalker voices compare to natural speech.
Some commercial synthetic voices sound almost perfectly human. The technology in ModelTalker is similar to that used for some of the very best commercially available voices, but there are also many important differences. The single most important difference is that the highest quality commercial voices are constructed from many hours of recordings made under studio conditions by professional speakers who work with technicians to record everything in exactly the best possible way. Even though it may take you several hours to record the sentences for a ModelTalker voice, there will only be about 45 minutes of actual speech recorded for your voice. In a commercial system, there could be 45 hours of speech or more!
Could I record many extra hours of speech and make my ModelTalker voice sound as good as the best commercial systems? We don't really know. Nearly all of our efforts have been directed toward making ModelTalker sound as good as possible with as little speech as possible and we have not attempted to create a commercial-sized voice. Let us know if you want to try; maybe we can help.
If I make a voice, how can I use it? The ModelTalker TTS system runs on recent Microsoft Windows computer systems. It does not yet run on devices that use the Windows Mobile operating system, but there are plans to port the speech engine to this platform in the near future. ModelTalker works as both a standalone text to speech system and a SAPI 5.1 speech engine. The standalone application lets you type English text into a window and speak the text using your synthetic voice. Your synthetic voice can also be controlled by SAPI 5.1 applications including e-book readers, screen readers, AAC devices, and other software. Although the ModelTalker SAPI speech engine is not yet completely compliant with the SAPI 5.1 standard, it does work with most AAC devices that support SAPI 5.1 voices. A Speech-Language Pathologist with expertise in AAC technology may be able to work with you to install and use your voice with AAC software that supports SAPI 5.1 voices.
No. We realize that there are a number of software packages that still use the SAPI 4 protocol instead of SAPI 5; however, Microsoft is no longer supporting SAPI 4.0. We hope that many of these packages will be upgraded to version 5.1.
What do I need to know about computers in order to create a personal voice?
You should have, or be working with someone who has relatively good computer user skills. At the very minimum, you should be knowledgeable and confident doing the following:
Is there a hotline or other support if I need assistance? As ModelTalker and InvTool are still beta products (and are currently not for sale), we do not have a hotline and do not have staff available to provide user support outside of the current beta testing program. We recognize that the voice banking capability this software provides is something that many people strongly desire and that there is virtually no other alternative presently available. Once ModelTalker and InvTool become commercially available, AgoraNet will of course provide full customer support for purchasers of the final product.
We do offer help in a few ways. First we do always try to answer email questions from anyone who is interested in or who is using either ModelTalker or InvTool. In addtion, there are several mailing lists dedicated to supporting beta testers. If you are a potential AAC user who is trying to make a personalized synthetic voice with InvTool, we provide assistance in the following ways: 1) We analyze the test inventory that you upload to our server and make recommendations for improvements to your recording environment and process; 2) we do the final conversion of field recorded speech files to a synthesis database using our voice creation software; 3) we can diagnose and fix some problems with the speech files that would be difficult or impossible for you to handle yourself; and 4) we return the synthetic voice in the form of an installable executable file that should simplify the install process for you.
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