Not sure, why your specific problem arises. Both of the voices - Kendra and
Crystal - are SAPI voices. To just break down the problem a bit, would you
happen to have any other voices (SAPI) on any of your systems? Maybe you
have Microsoft Mike and Mary, and I guess maybe even Sam. They are not the
best - agreed. Still, I would suggest for you to change to one of the other
SAPI voices on your system, and see if this is a SAPI issue, or if it is
more related to the voice itself.
The problem with broken speech in SAPI voices is known from years. SAPI
loads the system somehow differently than the dedicated voices Dectalk and
Eloquence. If your problem exists with other SAPI voices as well, I'd first
say there could be a problem with the general system load. Maybe you are
running some newly installed software, App, or even have got some kind of
Malware that tends to load the system. Whenever you restart the system, you
go back to a 'scratch-load', with only the basics in memory. Soon as your
ssystem starts to run different software and tools, your load goes up, and
if some of it overloads the system somehow, you could experience the broken
voice. Try to see if there is a connection as to what software you are
running, and when the voice breaks. I.e, does it always happen when you
start Word, Internet Explorer or the like; or, is there no pattern here. Try
to leave your system - freshly restarted - unused for a periode of time, and
then start using it. Does the voice break immediately when you start using
the system now? Or, do you still have to open other software like above
mentioned, before the breaking takes place. If it happens even after the
system has been unintended for a while after restarting, it could be that
there is some kind of automatically loaded software that overloads the
system. In such a case, I'd suggest you look at your startup routines, with
a startup manager, and remove whatever is not necessary. Or, go to Processes
under the TaskManager, and see which software tends to be heavy on the CPU
usage.
Even if your CPU usage is not too high, you might be running with low
memory. How much RAM do your systems have? Even with a high amount of memory
installed, the different software running might be 'hungry' for it, hence
cause little memory left for your speech. This cause breakups, and sometimes
fully stop in the speech. Specially since you say this started recently, I
get the feeling there could be a matter of some newly installed stuff on
your system, that tends to eat up your resources.
On your laptop, which the following will be most easily tested, when this
happens; does your fan start to spin rather fast? Either just before the
thing happens with the voice, or simultaneously. If so, again it points to
heavy loaded system resources. On your desktop, this test might not be as
easily carried out, since you normally won't have the same spinning up and
down of the fan, as you have on a laptop.
Another couple of cases, that might affect speech, and could make it broken,
is your disk usage. If things happen even through low disk usage, it might
be worth to do a defrag on your disk, as I have seen that fixes certain
speech problems.
When comes to the pitch adjustment, which distort your voice, I have seen
this with another voice as well. What I found in that case, was that you can
adjust the pitch to your heart's desire, as long as you run the default
speed. But, soon as you lower the speed just one step, and then adjust the
pitch, the voice gets distorted. Quite frustrating, and might cause you to
stop using that voice, eventually. Unfortunately, there is - as far as I
know - nothing you can do about it, except from keeping your voice at the
default speed. This is simply due to badly compiled voice from the
manufacturer. In the case this is your experience, you might consider
reporting the problem to the manufacturer, and hope for them to fix it in an
updated voice version. Would it happen, that you recently saved settings in
WE that includes an adjustment of the voice speed?
Sorry I couldn't be of more specific help here. Hope any of the above, wil
help you track down the cause of the problem. Would be interesting to know
your findings, and if you solve the problem, how you managed. If for no
other reason, at least for future users that might run into same problem.
To fully understand why this specifically happens with SAPI voices, is a
more tech thing, and I won't bother with it right now. One small point,
seems to be that SAPI ain't given the highest priority in the system, hence
other resource eager software, might 'kick' the voice off to the sideline.
Lastly, and this is not really the most truly reason, but just want to
mention it: Your sound card, has there been any adjustment on its equalizer.
If you haven't done so deliberately, simply just forget this point. Only
certain cases, a messed up equalizer, might give bad sound on specially
female voices, since these use higher pitched tones, than male voices. I ran
into this kind of case, a couple of years ago, and resetting the equalizer
of the sound card, fixed the 'distorted sounding' voice. Again, if you
haven't been fooling with the sound card settings - and no other user of the
computer have - this solution is very little likely, and you simply omit it.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jenine Stanley" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, May 06, 2011 2:32 PM
Subject: speech breaking up and distorting
I have 2 computers and they both are having an odd issue lately with their
synthesizers. Both run WE 7.5
Desktop runs Windows7, with Ivona Kendra speech synthesizer.
From time to time the speech will break up, like an old radio that's
poorly
tuned. Sometimes also when adjusting the pitch, which I like at 2, the
speech will become distorted as if it's too loud though the volume hasn't
changed at all. The breaking up tends to fix itself but the distortion
requires a complete reboot of the computer, not just shutting down WE and
restarting.
Laptop is running Windows XP with the AT&T Crystal synthesizer. I have WE
start prior to log in and nothing has changed with the DECTalk speech. The
last several days, when I boot up, and the speech changes over to Crystal,
the voice is very distorted as if through a bad AM radio speaker. This is
continuous, unlike the desktop computer issue. The only way to fix it is
to
exit WE and restart it. Then the speech returns to normal.
Any idea what might be going on here?
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