General TTS Discussion Thread

By Enes Deniz, 24 June, 2023

Forum
iOS and iPadOS

I wanted the title to be as broad as possible. This may be a thread where everything related to speech synthesizers and TTS, from questions and problems to suggestions and available/newly-released voices/engines, is posted. So I have two questions:
1. I already have eSpeak-NG and RHVoice on my iPhone but can anyone list all the available third-party TTS engines? New ones may be added to this list as they're released. And does anyone know whether DecTalk will be ported to iOS?
2. Would it not be great to have an option to download third-party TTS engines from within VoiceOver settings, just like we can go to App Store to download fonts? Well, just letting me quickly go the app store and having me look for fonts or TTS engines myself doesn't actually help much, so users should only see fonts if they choose to download fonts from the App Store, or TTS engines if they choose to download TTS engines/voices.

Options

Comments

By Levi Gobin on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

have they added rh voice for English?

By Matthew Whitaker on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

Just now reading this post. Is RH Voice on there? I didn't know. ama check it out.

Update:
I don't see English as an option when in the app.

By Levi Gobin on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

I just checked out rh Voice, and there is still no English version
That’s not the worst though. Look what the developer wrote back to a two star review where someone was wishing for the English version to be provided.
There are so many English voices already available on iOS. Please read the description of our language strategy. Also, with two-star reviews like yours, this App will not attract English language users in future.
Basically you’re saying, oh, there’s a million other voices on iOS. Just use those? That’s kind of BS in my opinion.
I think just how sided people can use any font they want, we should be able to use any Voice we want. Rant over.

By Dominic on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

That’s all I’m gonna say, how absolutely disrespectful

By Siobhan on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

I'll never wrap my head around this whole voice thing. every IOS release, someone wants this voice, someone doesn't want that voice, can this voice be added? In my humble opinion, apple's given up on any voice development whatsoever simply because they can outsource to get voices. Now for languages that needed support as they didn't have any, I can't think of an example off the top of my head, I understand that. But they source technology that hasn't been updated in ages, have low sample rates causing Eliquence to sound tinny as someone has posted before. Personally I wish apple would really develop Alex a little more, maybe a female counterpart, and give us the ability to take what we don't want for voices off our phones and Macs. For example all the novelty voices which are stupid and incredibly unhelpful, I'd get those off faster then a prom dress. I get everyone wants their own voices like the font someone just posted. apple's probably not gonna allow that as they are sandboxed pretty well and the only way is jailbreaking your device which though not a goody goody, I'd be most unwilling to do. Here's to the next OS and maybe deleting the unwanted voices. Notice I didn't say languages because I wouldn't ever think like that.

By Enes Deniz on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

We have a bunch of English and Russian voices for use with other software like NVDA and Talkback yet we still have more than one Russian RHVoice voices. Besides, we now also have eSpeak-NG supporting not only Albanian and Macedonian but several other languages and dialects, and eSpeak-NG can also be used on all the currently popular operating systems. So RHVoice should be totally abandoned if that's what they argue.

By Dennis Long on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

Make it clear it is because of their response.

By Levi Gobin on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

We all should be leaving once Starr reviews. That’s right I forgot espeak supported those languages. Let them know that. Let them know that they are not the only one, in Espeak was first.

By Enes Deniz on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

What if they actually decide to stop development altogether? Do state your opinion and tell them you can lower your rating further but I would prefer to keep it at 3 for now, to incentivize them while also giving them a warning.

By Enes Deniz on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

Let me clarify that eSpeak-NG's support for certain languages and dialects is still quite poor and it's a fact that we do have numerous English voices available, many of which are free, with excellent quality, particularly compared to voices in certain other languages. Thinking that speakers of these languages should be grateful as they now have eSpeak-NG, would not really be respectful at all either. So demanding support for English is fine, but it is also perfectly understandable that other languages have to be prioritized. For those speaking English or certain other languages as their mother tongue, finding some language they've not even heard of among the languages supported by eSpeak-NG, shouldn't necessarily mean it speaks this language well enough and speakers of this language no longer need any additional voices. Getting used to high-quality voices and demanding them is okay, but do bear in mind that many have never ever had a single one of them in their own language, so even broken eSpeak-NG voices are tremendous steps for them. You can use your iPhone in Kazakh and Persian but having voices in these languages/dialects alone doesn't fix everything either, as the default language is still Russian when trying to use the device in Kazakh, so you have to pick Kazakh from the list of rotor languages.
By the way, I've visited rhvoice.com just a few minutes ago but couldn't find the App Store link for the iOS app there. So you still have this "Coming soon" thing there, so apparently they're also slow to update the website.

By Henrik on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

I'm one of the people who like using voices at slightly different pitches on iOS, and I don't like the fact that when you change the pitch of one thing, everything goes along with it. It would be great if you had the ability to change pitch on a per voice basis

By Zoe Victoria on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

Pronunciations have completely stopped working for me ever since iOS 16 came out. Yes, I have tried restarting my phone, and yes, I have tried setting all the pronunciations to only the voice I use. Nothing has worked. The problem persists on my iPad as well.

By Enes Deniz on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

We once had three variants of Zoe, but one, which should be "premium-high", is gone now. We still do have this variant for other voices like Ava and Malcolm, whose name is Jamey on iOS for some weird reason known possibly only to whoever changed it. And some Eloquence voices/variants are also named differently. Anyone know why?

By Levi Gobin on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

Although the premium version of this Voice has been on Mac os for over a year now, it is finally back on the iPhone

By Enes Deniz on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

Well, why it was gone remains a question to which I currently have no plausible answers but good that it's somehow back.

By Dominic on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

Who else sees the default Australian female voice here and who else uses it

By Levi Gobin on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

Why that particular Voice?
To me that Voice sounds awful. That is my personal opinion though.

By OldBear on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

I remember back in the days I used JAWS, some of the voices had overtones or some kind of conflict with the cheap laptop speakers that became annoying after a few minutes. A few attempted to be realistic, but never quite got there, becoming annoying. I think it was Reed and this high-pitched, child's, cartoon voice called Bobby that I eventually used the most. Neither sounded real, and neither were well understood by sighted people... probably because I had the rate cranked up most of the way.
I am lucky that I don't have any auditory issues with the stock Samantha voice, but I completely understand someone needing to find a voice that doesn't make their brain go haywire. Even if it's Grandma.

By Enes Deniz on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

I have tried downloading Fiona and adding Scottish English to the rotor languages several times, but all of my attempts would result in certain voices like Tom and Malcolm/Jamy being gone all of a sudden along with Fiona. I've even had to delete all rotor languages so that VoiceOver would revert to the default language, and then re-add the ones that I would need, with the help of sighted people, as VoiceOver would not speak at all. Why on earth does that happen?

By Enes Deniz on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

Malcolm is named Jamy on iOS, but even on iOS can you find him also as Malcolm. So he might have been struggling to discover his true identity...
Some Eloquence variants, or at least one of them, may also have been named differently than the versions for other operating systems. I am almost sure Eddy has to be named Glen, and I also think Sandy has to be named Bobby and Flo has to be named Sandy.

By JC on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

As of iOS 17 beta 3, I'm back on Red..

By Enes Deniz on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

You mean Reed?

By Enes Deniz on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

Well, would anyone be interested to remind Google of my request to have Google TTS on iOS and other operating systems by Apple? You know, the more requests, the more priority. At least I hope so. And what about Microsoft and even Yandex? Even the neural voices should actually be available for free, just as the Siri voices, but even if not, at least the voices that we have on Windows (OneCore voices) we should also have on iOS. so I've not ever contacted Microsoft support and would appreciate someone more familiar with their support team doing this, but can do it myself too. And I've been searching for ways to contact Yandex support but not yet been able to do it.

By roman on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

I really do not have no hopes what so ever regarding any voices, even if we complain. In my personal view, only the American voices are prioritise and been changed, well, sort of.

I mention the American voices, because other voices of English are just trash. Specifically, Daniel, from the UK,, Kate and Oliver. voices. The UK voices are sentimental to me, because I am from England and we are the English, and the world speaks our language.

My point is, apple has given up on voices and if there is really some legendary voice in the market, then Apple will consider the text to speech revelation.

By Vsevolod Popov on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

Hi all. I agree about the thing that the behavior of RHVoice for iOS developers is bad. RHVoice have the best Russian voices on the market imho, also keeping in mind that they are free and open source. They also have great voices for Ukrainian and Polish. For those people who speak Ukrainian the solution provided by Nuance is simply horrible, it makes pronunciation mistakes here and there! So RHVoice for different languages is really needed!

By Ann Marie B on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

Hi all. Yes it would be cool to download preferred voices from the app store in the same way an app is downloaded. As for RH voice, there is still no English option. Happy Zoey premium is coming to iOs 17.

By Dennis Long on Saturday, July 8, 2023 - 07:14

Eloquence Reid all the way.

By Enes Deniz on Tuesday, August 8, 2023 - 07:14

I need answers and findings on the following from users of both iOS 16 and iOS 17, as these issues I have been having for quite a while, and wish to know if you also have them.
Some or all of the following voices are deleted after being downloaded and used for some time: Fiona (Scottish English), Jamie/Malcolm (British English), Lee (Australian English), Tom (US English), Nicolas (Canadian French).
I don't know which of these voices commit suicide and which are killed by those committing suicide, but they're often deleted together so it's not that easy to be sure about it.
As I said, this has happened multiple times but the latest and present one is more critical and weird. I had downloaded and been using Jamie but then it somehow got deleted. I then wanted to download Oliver, and I also had Lee, but don't know remember whether I downloaded Lee before or after Oliver. I also used Oliver and Lee for a few days but then realized they were also gone. So I decided to stick with Eloquence for British English and Karen for Australian English, but then when I went to the settings to select Karen as the Australian English voice, I wouldn't be able to select it no matter how many times I tried. I would double-tap the Karen button and find Karen there, which was the compact voice/variant, and hear the word "Selected" when double-tapping it, but I would hear Samantha after going back to the Speech section of the VoiceOver settings where you have the rotor languages; and yes, it's Samantha who speaks when I pick Australian English from the rotor languages. And VoiceOver doesn't say "Selected" when I double-tap on Australian English once again and navigate to the Karen button. I have a screen recording that I sent to Apple when reporting feedback on that, but will have to upload it somewhere so that I can share a link with you.

By Enes Deniz on Tuesday, August 8, 2023 - 07:14

It currently supports Albanian and Macedonian only.

By Enes Deniz on Friday, September 8, 2023 - 07:14

Here's what I get when I go to Settings>Accessibility>VoiceOver>Speech>English (US)>Siri:
- Download Voice 1, 55,8 MB
- Download Voice 2, 63,3 MB
- Download Voice 3, 62,7 MB
- Download Voice 4, 66,4 MB
- Download Voice 5, 69,5 MB
* Note that these do not have the typical rotor actions like Activate or Speak Sample.
Here in turn is what I get when I go to Settings>Accessibility>Spoken Content>Voices>English>Siri under English (US):
- Voice 1, Using 72,6 MB
- Download Voice 2, 79,5 MB
- Download Voice 3, 79,5 MB
- Voice 4, Using 82,4 MB
- Download Voice 5, 90,3 MB
* These do have rotor actions.

By Enes Deniz on Friday, December 8, 2023 - 07:14

Let's bombard whoever maintains RHVoice for iOS with App Store comments and e-mails so that they finally decide to deal with whatever that's taking so long and speed up the process.