To make an Australian English voice, look at the other English accent voices as examples. For example the voice files, espeak-data/voices/en/en-n and en-wm. These set some options, and refer to new phoneme tables.
The phoneme files for these are phsource/ph_english_n, phsource/ph_english_wm (in the espeakedit download), which are referenced from the end of phsource/phonemes. So make a new file, phsource/ph_english_au and add a line at the end of phsource/phonemes:
phonemetable en_au en
include ph_english_au
Make a new voice file: espeak-data/voices/en/en-au, which contains:
name australian
language en-uk-au
phonemes en_au
option 12 1 // reduce [t]
replace 00 h NULL
The line "option 12 1" changes the sound of [t] in words like "city" so it sounds more like "siddy" than "sitty".
The line "replace 00 h NULL" drops [h] sounds.
Use the new phsource/ph_english_au file to specify vowel sounds which are more suitable for Australian than the standard English vowel sounds. Look at phsource/vowel/vowelchart.png for the relative positions of eSpeak's vowel sounds (and vdiph/vowelchart.png and vdiph2/vowelchart.png for diphthongs). Load vowel files (eg. phsource/vowel/a ) into espeakedit to hear their sounds. Perhaps you can find suitable vowels from eSpeak's collection of vowel and diphthong files without needing to make new ones. At least you should be able to make a better approximation to Australian than the standard eSpeak English voice.
If you make a recording of your own vowel sounds, then look at them with the "praat" program (www.praat.org) you can see their vowel formant frequencies. You can then use phsource/vowel/vowelchart.png to choose eSpeak vowels which have similar F1 and F2 formant frequencies.
After you make changes to ph_english_au, re-compile the eSpeak phoneme data using espeakedit, Compile -> Compile phoneme data.
The consonants from the standard English voice are probably OK except for [t] (mentioned above) and [h] dropping (see above). Perhaps we need a different [l]?
I look forward to hearing the results of your experiments.
eSpeak is not good for female voices.
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Hello
Can anyone give me some ideas on the best way to develop English voices (Male and Female) with an Australian accent?
Thanks
Phil
To make an Australian English voice, look at the other English accent voices as examples. For example the voice files, espeak-data/voices/en/en-n and en-wm. These set some options, and refer to new phoneme tables.
The phoneme files for these are phsource/ph_english_n, phsource/ph_english_wm (in the espeakedit download), which are referenced from the end of phsource/phonemes. So make a new file, phsource/ph_english_au and add a line at the end of phsource/phonemes:
phonemetable en_au en
include ph_english_au
Make a new voice file: espeak-data/voices/en/en-au, which contains:
name australian
language en-uk-au
phonemes en_au
option 12 1 // reduce [t]
replace 00 h NULL
The line "option 12 1" changes the sound of [t] in words like "city" so it sounds more like "siddy" than "sitty".
The line "replace 00 h NULL" drops [h] sounds.
Use the new phsource/ph_english_au file to specify vowel sounds which are more suitable for Australian than the standard English vowel sounds. Look at phsource/vowel/vowelchart.png for the relative positions of eSpeak's vowel sounds (and vdiph/vowelchart.png and vdiph2/vowelchart.png for diphthongs). Load vowel files (eg. phsource/vowel/a ) into espeakedit to hear their sounds. Perhaps you can find suitable vowels from eSpeak's collection of vowel and diphthong files without needing to make new ones. At least you should be able to make a better approximation to Australian than the standard eSpeak English voice.
If you make a recording of your own vowel sounds, then look at them with the "praat" program (www.praat.org) you can see their vowel formant frequencies. You can then use phsource/vowel/vowelchart.png to choose eSpeak vowels which have similar F1 and F2 formant frequencies.
After you make changes to ph_english_au, re-compile the eSpeak phoneme data using espeakedit, Compile -> Compile phoneme data.
The consonants from the standard English voice are probably OK except for [t] (mentioned above) and [h] dropping (see above). Perhaps we need a different [l]?
I look forward to hearing the results of your experiments.
eSpeak is not good for female voices.