[from Gary Cziko 931203.2200 GMT]
I am soliciting help from CSGnet on a project involving manipulating
digital audio as played through the Macintosh.
The basic goal is to be able to play digitized speech through an interface
which permits "on the fly" control of the speed of speech without changing
the pitch.
I know of at least one commercial project which comes close to this. It is
called Voice Processor and is designed for transcribing dictation. But
while speed can be changed from 1 to 150%, it cannot be done on the fly.
Having such an interface would serve at least two purposes. First, basic
"tracking" studies could be done to show how listeners could control the
speed of speech subject to disturbances in speed. Disturbances could also
be introduced as vocabulary or grammatical difficulty or other factors.
Second, it could be practically used by foreign-language learners to make
authentic speech more accessible to them.
A graduate student, Yong Zhao, would like to use such an interface to do a
master's thesis. He is quite knowledgeable about computers, although he
has only been introduced to the Macintosh this semester.
If someone has some information to share on this, please let me know.
Hopefully there is an easy way to change audio speed using HyperCard or
QuickTime.
Hoping to hear soon from a PCT-savvy audio Mac hasher--Gary
[from Richard Thurman 931207.1300]
Gary Cziko (931203.2200)
The basic goal is to be able to play digitized speech through an interface
which permits "on the fly" control of the speed of speech without changing
the pitch.
.
.
.
If someone has some information to share on this, please let me know.
Hopefully there is an easy way to change audio speed using HyperCard or
QuickTime.
Gary
The following item may be an answer for your inquiry. This was announced
on info-mac yesterday. It seems to be an Xthing that will allow
Hypercard to vary speech pitch and rate. It can be downloaded from
sumex-aim (36.44.0.6).
Date: Fri Dec 3, 1993 09:48
From: SPerspect@aol.com
Subject: [*] SpeakText XFCN 1.0
..... version 1.0 of our SpeakText XFCN for
HyperCard. SpeakText allows you to utilize Apple's Speech
Manager and PlainTalk TTS. SpeakText includes features for
rate, pitch and voice and does not contain any limits for
the length of text to be spoken.
Thank you,
Software Perspectives
[Archived as /info-mac/card/speak-text-10.hqx; 46K]
Hope this helps!
Rich
···
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Richard Thurman
Air Force Armstrong Lab
BLDG. 558
Williams AFB AZ. 85240-6457
(602) 988-6561
Internet: Thurman%HRLOT1.Decnet@EIS.Brooks.AF.Mil
or
Thurman@192.207.189.65
---------------------------------------------------
[Martin Taylor 931208 14:40]
(Richard Thurman 931207.1300)
Gary
The following item may be an answer for your inquiry. This was announced
on info-mac yesterday. It seems to be an Xthing that will allow
Hypercard to vary speech pitch and rate. It can be downloaded from
sumex-aim (36.44.0.6).
Date: Fri Dec 3, 1993 09:48
From: SPerspect@aol.com
Subject: [*] SpeakText XFCN 1.0
..... version 1.0 of our SpeakText XFCN for
HyperCard. SpeakText allows you to utilize Apple's Speech
Manager and PlainTalk TTS. SpeakText includes features for
rate, pitch and voice and does not contain any limits for
the length of text to be spoken.
From the description, I am almost certain that this is not what Gary wants.
It looks as if it speaks text using controllable parameters for the synthesis,
whereas Gary was looking for a way of changing the speed but not the
pitch of a sample of already digitized speech. I could be wrong, though
Gary's initial request seemed pretty unambiguous.
The basic goal is to be able to play digitized speech through an interface
which permits "on the fly" control of the speed of speech without changing
the pitch.
Martin