TAV20, software speech synthesizer for the VIC-20 (Spanish)

[pastbytes]

9 years ago, I made a software speech synth for the Commodore 64: TAV64.
Now I ported it to the Commodore VIC-20 (unexpanded). It uses a phonetic language to speak Spanish. I don't know if it could be useful for other languages.
You can download it from: http://www.pastbytes.com/tav/descargas.html

I don't have a VIC-20 to test it, I would like to know how it sounds on real hardware.

[Vic20-Ian]

Wow, very impressive.

I will test it tomorrow.

[grondinm]

So i had to test this out. If only to load something new on my VIC(Only recently got it so loading everything i can to it direct from tape).

I do not speak Spanish so the only couple of phrases i had it speak are from google translate. All in all pretty nice. Potentially my small little LCD tv is not doing it justice. Also keep in mind this was recorded on my cell phone as i do not have a capture device.

Here it is

https://video.gcfam.net/videos/embed/6b ... b896dada00

I'll try it on my better TV probably tomorrow.

[pastbytes]

Here it is

https://video.gcfam.net/videos/embed/6b ... b896dada00

Thanks, it sounds similar to the emulator.
Here you have a table with the phonemes you can use ("COMANDO" column):
http://www.pastbytes.com/tav/
Instead of Y, you should use I (i), and K for C.

SOI BUENO,I USTED
OLA,KOMO ESTAS

You can set the pitch of a vowel if you add - or + to it.
A- (low pitch)
A (normal pitch)
A+ (high pitch)

You could try something like: DIS IS A SPICH SENTESAISER
RETURN repeats the last sentence.

[Mike]

Now, having speech synthesis on the VIC-20 without the need for any extra hardware is just plain lovely!

I suppose your program uses formant synthesis with at least 3 tones (for vowels and voiced consonants) or noise (for voiceless consonants), followed by DAC output over the volume register?

Do you have any plans to provide the synthesis engine in a way so it can be used in own programs?

Greetings (and ¡Muchas gracias!),

Michael

[pastbytes]

I suppose your program uses formant synthesis with at least 3 tones (for vowels and voiced consonants) or noise (for voiceless consonants), followed by DAC output over the volume register?

I use the volume register to output 4-bit PCM audio, with all the oscillators turned off.
This program is a simplified port of my HR2 hardware speech synthesizer, which uses a PIC microcontroller. HR2 (now HR4) connects to any RS232 device, receives text at 1200, 9600, 19200 or 57600 bps, and outputs 8-bit audio at 7812,5 Hz (HR4 uses a higher sample rate: 8680 Hz). TAV20 uses almost the same sample rate, 1 sample each 2 raster lines, but with 4-bit resolution.
TAV and HRx are mostly concatenative speech synthesizers, but actually are hybrids between a concatenative synth (using digitized phonemes) and a synth generating phonemes by code. Phonemes with noise component are generated by program, the choice of which sounds are stored and which ones are generated by program depends on how complex the sound is, and how much memory uses. The synth is natively PCM, I don't use formants.
The HRx synthesizers can sing and generate music, here you can hear HR4 singing and playing the music of Argentina's national anthem.

[pastbytes]

Do you have any plans to provide the synthesis engine in a way so it can be used in own programs?

The speech engine is now a binary without video effects, requires a null-terminated string with the text to speak.
I added pixel's code to boost the volume of digis. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9912
It works on an unexpanded VIC-20. Assembled with ACME.

http://www.pastbytes.com/apps/tav/tav20lib.zip

[pastbytes]

I uploaded version 1.1 to http://www.pastbytes.com/tav
This version fixes a bug with the pitch of vowels, and has code to boost the volume of speech.

[The Geek on Skates]

Quieres jugar un juego de ajedrez?

lol I speak Spanish and that War Games quote is hysterical! Of course, what else would a voice synthesizer for the VIC-20 be programmed to say?

Seriously tho, this is incredible! I knew numerous synths were built for the C64, but never saw one for the VIC before. Good stuff!

[Bryan]

Superb idea and sounds good. The ability to use this in an unexpanded Vic makes this proggy a real gem.