{"id":6267,"date":"2018-10-26T21:57:22","date_gmt":"2018-10-26T20:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/potbanks.wordpress.com\/?p=6267"},"modified":"2025-11-11T14:01:36","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T14:01:36","slug":"a-sapi5-tts-voice-for-the-black-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/2018\/10\/26\/a-sapi5-tts-voice-for-the-black-country\/","title":{"rendered":"A SAPI5 TTS voice for the Black Country"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m pleased to see that there’s now a West Midlands – Black Country\/South Staffordshire voice for Windows. CereProc’s “Sue” is SAPI5, so will work in any TTS system and software. I’d never encountered the CereProc name before but I couldn’t resist at the price, as I got the voice for just \u00a35.50 with a discount code – PRICEFALL18. At that price it is, of course, for Non-Commercial use only.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

PayPal is accepted, but (rather annoyingly) to download your purchase you’re then told you need to set up an account with them. This failed the first time, but worked the second. Eventually I got through to a 70Mb download, installed in Windows, and pasted in the licence.<\/p>\n

The store seemed a bit confused about if the voice was Heather or Sue, but it installed as Sue. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On loading TextAloud 4, I was a little disappointed, as the voice was definitely not as smooth and modulated as the store sample. But it was trying to read an H.P. Lovecraft essay. I then tried it with the free Web browser addon Reader View for Chrome and Opera<\/a> (which does voice reading as well), on a news article, and it was much better.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The voice seems to be a little better when slowed by a fraction (0.9), and as with most TTS voices some words cause stumbles. For instance Sue needs…<\/p>\n

genre -> jon-rer
\nmodulated -> module ayted
\nsample -> sam pull
\nyou’re -> you are
\n— -> [add a space either side of the dash]<\/p>\n

…etc.<\/p>\n

But even ‘out of the box’ it’s fairly good on simple language, flowing across the words naturally. It handles (brackets) very well indeed in Reader View. Some de-essing in Audacity would smooth off the inevitable robo-sibilance. <\/p>\n

\n

Update: 2025. The company now has a new owner. the “Sue” voice<\/a> is now \u00a330 and still for non-commercial use. However, note that Sue is no longer described as “West Midlands – Black Country”. So she may now sound different? Buyer beware.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m pleased to see that there’s now a West Midlands – Black Country\/South Staffordshire voice for Windows. CereProc’s “Sue” is SAPI5, so will work in any TTS system and software. I’d never encountered the CereProc name before but I couldn’t resist at the price, as I got the voice for just \u00a35.50 with a discount […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6267"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18545,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267\/revisions\/18545"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/spyders\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}