Recommendations for NVDA voice
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Mani Iyer
Hello all,
I am profoundly deaf and wear hearing aids. I am currently using Microsoft’s David's voice. But this voice lacks clarity of certain consonants for my hearing and I find myself resorting to phonetic spelling a lot. Do you have any recommendation for a ‘clear’ voice under which which speech synthesizer would possibly help me. ? Thanks. Warmly, Mani
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Rosemarie Chavarria
Hi,
I’m using the e-speak voice female 5. She’s very clear in my opinion.
Rosemarie
Sent from Mail for Windows
From: Mani Iyer via groups.io
Sent: Wednesday, December 1, 2021 7:50 AM To: nvda@nvda.groups.io Subject: [nvda] Recommendations for NVDA voice
Hello all, I am profoundly deaf and wear hearing aids. I am currently using Microsoft’s David's voice. But this voice lacks clarity of certain consonants for my hearing and I find myself resorting to phonetic spelling a lot. Do you have any recommendation for a ‘clear’ voice under which which speech synthesizer would possibly help me. ?
Thanks.
Warmly, Mani
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Jujube
Hi, Have you tried some of the other OneCore voices including Zira or mark? They may or may not sound better to you. Otherwise, you could try the Eloquence/Vocalizer addon and see if any of that stuff suits you better. It costs money though, but you can trial it for a weekb before buying. Also, how fast is your speech rate? If you use faster speech rates, most of the other OneCore voices sound significantly better at high speech rates than David, as well as Eloquence and possibly some of the Vocalizer voices. Hope this helps.
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On Dec 1, 2021, at 7:51 AM, Mani Iyer via groups.io <mani.g.iyer=me.com@groups.io> wrote:
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Rosemarie Chavarria
Hi,
My favorite one-core voice is Zira. She sounds really good at a fast rate.
Sent from Mail for Windows
From: Jujube
Sent: Wednesday, December 1, 2021 8:48 AM To: nvda@nvda.groups.io Subject: Re: [nvda] Recommendations for NVDA voice
Hi, Have you tried some of the other OneCore voices including Zira or mark? They may or may not sound better to you. Otherwise, you could try the Eloquence/Vocalizer addon and see if any of that stuff suits you better. It costs money though, but you can trial it for a weekb before buying. Also, how fast is your speech rate? If you use faster speech rates, most of the other OneCore voices sound significantly better at high speech rates than David, as well as Eloquence and possibly some of the Vocalizer voices. Hope this helps.
> On Dec 1, 2021, at 7:51 AM, Mani Iyer via groups.io <mani.g.iyer@...> wrote: > > Hello all, > I am profoundly deaf and wear hearing aids. I am currently using Microsoft’s David's voice. But this voice lacks clarity of certain consonants for my hearing and I find myself resorting to phonetic spelling a lot. Do you have any recommendation for a ‘clear’ voice under which which speech synthesizer would possibly help me. ? > > Thanks. > > Warmly, > Mani > > > > > >
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On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 10:50 AM, Mani Iyer wrote:
Do you have any recommendation for a ‘clear’ voice under which which speech synthesizer would possibly help me. ?- Actually, I don't. The reason for that being that the exact nature of your hearing loss is what's going to dictate what is a clear voice to you. I love Microsoft David, even with a slight high-frequency loss, but clearly he doesn't work for you. There are a wide number of OneCore voices in English that are not American accents, but that still might be better for you. Since you say you're having an issue with consonants that strongly suggests that your high frequency loss is at play here, so choosing voices where there's more "punch" in that range is probably a good idea. And that likely means trying out the various female voices. You can easily add voices under Windows 10 (and, likely, the same way in 11) in Settings, Time & Language, Language Pane with the Add a language button. The voices for English for the United States, Canada, Australia, and the UK all have text-to-speech capability. I'd try adding those and then trying out the various voices to see which one, if any, suits you better than David does. Only you can ultimately make the determination of what is clear to your ears. Also, if your hearing aids have Bluetooth capability, I'd strongly suggest you exploit that by pairing them with your Windows machine and using them as your primary audio output. I can hear so very much better when the sound is being fed straight into my ears via my aids than I can when they are amplifying the output of the computer speaker. You can also, possibly, consult with your audiologist if you have programmable aids to create a program specifically for listening to computer speech that would exaggerate what you need exaggerated to gain clarity when using it, but that could be turned off when you are not in that listening environment. -- Brian - Windows 10, 64-Bit, Version 21H1, Build 19043 The difference between a top-flight creative man and the hack is his ability to express powerful meanings indirectly. ~ Vance Packard
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Mani Iyer
Hello Rosemarie,
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Thank you for your suggestion. I use a rate between 20 and 30. I will try Zira at that rate. :) Warmly, Mani
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Mani Iyer
Hello Jujube,
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My rate is generally between 20 and 30. I think I preferred David over Mark. And I haven’t tried Zira. Thank you. Mani
On Dec 1, 2021, at 11:47 AM, Jujube <ellaxyu@gmail.com> wrote:
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Monte Single
Yes, Zira is my voice of choice.
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Rosemarie Chavarria
Sent: December 1, 2021 11:05 AM To: nvda@nvda.groups.io Subject: Re: [nvda] Recommendations for NVDA voice
Hi,
My favorite one-core voice is Zira. She sounds really good at a fast rate.
Sent from Mail for Windows
From: Jujube
Hi, Have you tried some of the other OneCore voices including Zira or mark? They may or may not sound better to you. Otherwise, you could try the Eloquence/Vocalizer addon and see if any of that stuff suits you better. It costs money though, but you can trial it for a weekb before buying. Also, how fast is your speech rate? If you use faster speech rates, most of the other OneCore voices sound significantly better at high speech rates than David, as well as Eloquence and possibly some of the Vocalizer voices. Hope this helps.
> On Dec 1, 2021, at 7:51 AM, Mani Iyer via groups.io <mani.g.iyer@...> wrote: > > Hello all, > I am profoundly deaf and wear hearing aids. I am currently using Microsoft’s David's voice. But this voice lacks clarity of certain consonants for my hearing and I find myself resorting to phonetic spelling a lot. Do you have any recommendation for a ‘clear’ voice under which which speech synthesizer would possibly help me. ? > > Thanks. > > Warmly, > Mani > > > > > >
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Jujube
Microsoft Mark does sound a little high pitched, you can try pitching it down a few notches to see if it's any better. You could also try the Canadian English voices, but if you don't have Canadian English installed, you'll need to go into windows speech settings to install it.
On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 10:12 AM Monte Single <mrsingle@...> wrote:
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Gene
One voice that hasn’t been discussed, though it may have been mentioned, is
E-Speak. It comes with NVDA, but you have to switch to it if you are using
Windows 10 and 11. While I find it harsh and lacking in body, you may find
that it is easier to understand than some or many others.
Not knowing about the nature of your hearing loss, I’m not recommending it,
just pointing out that it may be more understandable and that it is a part of
NVDA.
If you don’t know how to switch to it and try different e-Speak
voices, list members will tell you.
Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: Brian Vogel
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2021 11:09 AM
Subject: Re: [nvda] Recommendations for NVDA voice On
Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 10:50 AM, Mani Iyer wrote: Do you have any recommendation for a ‘clear’ voice under which which speech synthesizer would possibly help me. ?- Actually, I don't. The reason for that being tha
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Monte Single
Well, maybe one of those Canadian voices sounds like me!
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Jujube
Sent: December 1, 2021 12:23 PM To: nvda@nvda.groups.io Subject: Re: [nvda] Recommendations for NVDA voice
Microsoft Mark does sound a little high pitched, you can try pitching it down a few notches to see if it's any better. You could also try the Canadian English voices, but if you don't have Canadian English installed, you'll need to go into windows speech settings to install it.
On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 10:12 AM Monte Single <mrsingle@...> wrote:
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Doug Hayman <dhayman@...>
Speaking of NVDA voices, I’d been having trouble using NVDA and mathplayer to read math where a colleague finally pointed out to me that the Microsoft David voice I was using was the source of my equations not reading correctly.
Doug Hayman IT Accessibility Coordinator Information Technology Olympic College (360) 475-7632 (currently working remotely and don’t have access to this phone)
From: nvda@nvda.groups.io <nvda@nvda.groups.io> On Behalf Of Gene via groups.io
Sent: Wednesday, December 1, 2021 10:52 AM To: nvda@nvda.groups.io Subject: [EXTERNAL] - Re: [nvda] Recommendations for NVDA voice
CAUTION: This email came from a non-OC system or external source. Beware of phishing and social engineering!
One voice that hasn’t been discussed, though it may have been mentioned, is E-Speak. It comes with NVDA, but you have to switch to it if you are using Windows 10 and 11. While I find it harsh and lacking in body, you may find that it is easier to understand than some or many others.
Not knowing about the nature of your hearing loss, I’m not recommending it, just pointing out that it may be more understandable and that it is a part of NVDA.
If you don’t know how to switch to it and try different e-Speak voices, list members will tell you.
Gene -----Original Message----- From: Brian Vogel Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2021 11:09 AM Subject: Re: [nvda] Recommendations for NVDA voice
On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 10:50 AM, Mani Iyer wrote:
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Louise Pfau
Hi. I use "Microsoft Richard" from the "English (Canada)" pack, but I don't know if he has the clarity you require.
Louise
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Eduardo Fermiano Luccas
the voice I thought was cool was microsoft james, but i don't recommend it to you, she still doesn't have a very clear pronunciation Em qua., 1 de dez. de 2021 às 16:39, Louise Pfau <louise.pfau@...> escreveu:
Hi. I use "Microsoft Richard" from the "English (Canada)" pack, but I don't know if he has the clarity you require.
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Jujube
Microsoft James is an Australian accented voice so if you're not used to that accent, it's probably not for you.
On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 1:53 PM Eduardo Fermiano Luccas <25102008luccas@...> wrote:
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Mani Iyer
Hello Jujube,
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I did try the Zira voice and I actually like her. But tell me which synthesizer should I be using: Microsoft 5 API or Windows Core Voices? I see a noticeable difference in Zira between the two. And besides, mark is missing from the Microsoft synthesizer. Right now I am using Microsoft’s Zira. Thanks, Mani
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Jujube
I would suggest OneCore mainly because you have the option of achieving higher speech rates with it, if that matters to you. Otherwise, it's personal preference.
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Mani Iyer
Gene,
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I agree the speak voices lack the body and do sound harsh, although I have to admit I did not seriously give all the English American voices a spin. I will do that soon. Thanks, Mani
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Gene
If you haven’t, you might want to try the default English voice as
well. I haven’t used most of the variants and dialects in E-Speak because
I don’t like the voice. But I wanted to discuss it because I didn’t know
if you had tried it and it might be worth trying.
Gene
-----Original Message-----
From: Mani Iyer via groups.io
Sent: Wednesday, December 01, 2021 5:10 PM
Subject: Re: [nvda] Recommendations for NVDA voice Gene,
I agree the speak voices lack the body and do sound harsh, although I have
to admit I did not seriously give all the English American voices a spin.
I will do that soon.
Thanks,
Mani
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Louise Pfau
On Wed, Dec 1, 2021 at 02:53 PM, Eduardo Fermiano Luccas wrote:
I also had a hard time understanding the English and Australian voices because I'm not used to the accents. Louise
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