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TTS suddenly sounds bizzare on Android phone

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ScottQ
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2021/02/09 07:14:25 (permalink)

TTS suddenly sounds bizzare on Android phone

Just a heads up I found my Read Aloud Android app voice was sounding weird and very annoying. I first noticed this using Read Aloud Android app, my first thought was it was the app but after several hours investigating I found it was an update to Google TTS engine. Version 23.x - 24.5 are not working correctly for me (Samsung Galaxy S5 Android 6.0.1). I reverted to v22.x (thanks to APKMirror ) and re-downloaded TTS voice data fixed it. Problem was TTS AUS male voice 5 now saying SOME words as if using female voice - I don't know how else to describe it. My factory version only has female TTS so needed to find update. Spent hours having to fix this problem myself.
Using Google TTS v23.x - v25.x speech incorreclty sounds like this:
ogg voice recording
I reverted to version 22.13 and here is what the voice sounds like when working properly:
ogg voice recording
(sample is first paragraph from https://hyperionics.com/atVoice/manual.html )
 
 
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    Admin
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    Re: TTS suddenly sounds bizzare on Android phone 2021/02/09 12:56:07 (permalink)
    Yes, I get similar signals from other users too, and most blame me for the problem... Thank you for posting the sound samples, at least now I know what they are talking about. I really don't know why this happens and why Google won't fix it, despite being notified so many times about this problem. I observed something similar with their cloud voices, but less severe, so these are still usable. I did not observe the problem on my devices here, maybe it's only certain devices or Android versions where this problem occurs.
     
    Whenever I can, I try to convince people to stop using the buggy Google Text-to-speech product and use something better, e.g. Vocalizer TTS voices that can be downloaded from Google Play store (free 1 week trial of each voice, purchase afterwards if you want). There are also many other good TTS engines and voices there, e.g. Acapela TTS, Cereproc voices, RHVoice (this one free, but lower quality) etc.
     
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    ScottQ
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    Re: TTS suddenly sounds bizzare on Android phone 2021/02/16 12:44:02 (permalink)
    @Greg
    Thanks for the tips on alternatives, I will look and see if they have an AUS male voice offering then think about leaving google TTS engine. I like the Google TTS AUS male voice I am using - most free offerings tend to be a female voices or really poorly made male voices (for AUS in particular).
    I found the Play store comments for "Google TTS engine" helped me identify that few people have / had problem. Reading app review comments is a painfully difficult way to get information. This was one of the few times my Google Search skills did not help.
    Search text I tried:
    • google tts voice sounds wrong
    • google tts voice saying words wrong
    • google tts voice tone wrong
    • google tts correcting voice problems
    • google voice buggy
    I did find this https://support.google.co.../thread/15860380?hl=en but question is locked. It would have been interesting to ask posters follow up questions and if their problem sounds like the recorded audio files I made. I think most everyday users who treat their phone as an "appliance" would find it extremely difficult to describe and identify the problem.
    When I use "ok google", I get an AUS female voice - I have no clue why.
    When I use "Notification readout" (= has an option to reads out calendar events) that is AUS male voice.
    Read Aloud Android was reading first sentence in USA female one voice and the
    line was read with a AUS This is especially true, if you don't use other if they only used Read Aloud Android app,
    Just letting Play store update everything sounds good in principle but sometimes you end up with this steamy mess.
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    Re: TTS suddenly sounds bizzare on Android phone 2021/02/16 13:33:01 (permalink)
    Google TTS and the other apps you mention (like OK Google, Read Aloud Android) are not my products, so I can't comment or help with them, beyond what I already wrote above. If you have so much trouble with Google TTS voices, it would be probably best to use other, non-Google voices with my app, @Voice Aloud Reader. The voice selection in @Voice app is independent of the system selected default TTS voice, so you could use e.g. one of Vocalizer voices in @Voice app, and Google voices, if you really want, everywhere else. 
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