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Dearly wishing to get my hands on "ReadSpeaker" (AKA "NeoSpeech TTS") (self.Blind)
submitted by All-Sided
Lately I've been looking for English-language TTS voices for Windows. As an advanced learner of English, I need one which sounds as natural as possible, will have a decent dictionary built into it, plus I really struggle to follow the Vocalizer voices, because they work on the principle of combining many chunks of pre-recorded speech together, whose realisation, IMHO, has yet a long way to go to sounding fine.
I discovered a dated pirate copy of NeoTTS, its SAPI voices for Windows, and enjoyed the British female voice titled "Bridget" the most. So I decided to go for the latest version, because the cracked version was released about 8 years ago or so, which means its dictionary has been no doubt expanded, plus that copy comes with no settings manager.
I found out these voices used to be included into some program called "Adobe Captivate", and that now they are integrated into the products branded "ReadSpeaker".
Yesterday I contacted their support, and what they told me is they don't sel their software to individuals; they deal only with businesses. That got me really surprised. I really want to obtain the voice, since I like it out of all English-language voices I've tested the most. I've asked them a few more things, hoping they'll agree on something, but would like to know if I could get at least a more recent version any other way.
Does anybody know something about it? Maybe somebody here has a more or less recent version of the voice with a license I could try to use? Any other suggestions? Maybe you could recommend me a similar voice satisfying my requests? Preferably the British English variants, or any other which will sound somewhat more "international".
I discovered a dated pirate copy of NeoTTS, its SAPI voices for Windows, and enjoyed the British female voice titled "Bridget" the most. So I decided to go for the latest version, because the cracked version was released about 8 years ago or so, which means its dictionary has been no doubt expanded, plus that copy comes with no settings manager.
I found out these voices used to be included into some program called "Adobe Captivate", and that now they are integrated into the products branded "ReadSpeaker".
Yesterday I contacted their support, and what they told me is they don't sel their software to individuals; they deal only with businesses. That got me really surprised. I really want to obtain the voice, since I like it out of all English-language voices I've tested the most. I've asked them a few more things, hoping they'll agree on something, but would like to know if I could get at least a more recent version any other way.
Does anybody know something about it? Maybe somebody here has a more or less recent version of the voice with a license I could try to use? Any other suggestions? Maybe you could recommend me a similar voice satisfying my requests? Preferably the British English variants, or any other which will sound somewhat more "international".
retrolental_morose 3 points 1y ago
you'll not find much improvement in dictionaries, even in 8 years.
Developers of these things tend to develop for English speakers already, your use case is quite niche in what is already a niche market.
The cracked version you had was presumably SAPI5 compatible and should work with NVDA.
Vocalizer Ava is my go to voice for Clarity with that engine But I do like Bridget and Julie from NeoSpeech too.
You may have better results with Azure Text-to-speech, Amazon or Google cloud etc. Not for screen reader use but you can put longer-form content through them.
Developers of these things tend to develop for English speakers already, your use case is quite niche in what is already a niche market.
The cracked version you had was presumably SAPI5 compatible and should work with NVDA.
Vocalizer Ava is my go to voice for Clarity with that engine But I do like Bridget and Julie from NeoSpeech too.
You may have better results with Azure Text-to-speech, Amazon or Google cloud etc. Not for screen reader use but you can put longer-form content through them.
All-Sided [OP] 2 points 1y ago
Well, I've run some tests on the ReadSpeaker website with the demo and have seen improvements compared to the cracked versions in the dictionary, and concerning the glitches as well.
What I'm looking for is preferably a UK voice which has the most natural flow and doesn't necessarily sound the clearest, but as glitch-free as possible, and either is already provided with an extensive vocabulary or has a versatile tool of editing the pronunciation of a new word it doesn't know.
All Vocalizer British voices sound far too stilted to me and have quite a lot of bugs. From the American ones, I do like Zoe.
And another observation I have is that a voice built fully by native speakers of the targeted language will sound best. My first language is Russian, and I can definitely say that all foreign software I've tried, like Vocalizer or Google, sound not that good to say the least, while those created by Russian speakers in the first place sound pretty decent. Vocalizer are based in Italy, far as I remember, Acapella are from Sweden. It means I'm looking into English-language voices from Microsoft, Google, Amazon and ReadSpeaker I was rejected to buy, because they've been developed nearly fully by native speakers of English. I've tried Ivona voices for SAPI 5, but they are clearly intended for reading books, very sluggish in my normal workflow.
The cracked Bridget voice nearly satisfies me, but when I set its speed to 50 per cent in NVDA, that's too slow, and 55 per cent is already too fast. I can't see how I could tune the speed of a SAPI 5 voice with NVDA more finely. It looks like I'll have to stick with this cracked version though.
I wonder that since I'm running Windows 11, which supports launching Android apps, if it would be possible to use Google Text-to-Speech on my laptop anyhow. They sound best. I'll be able to install an APK file, the question is if that would make any sense. Or maybe you know of other voices built by native speakers of English, preferable British accents, so I can test them and decide for myself if they suit me?
What I'm looking for is preferably a UK voice which has the most natural flow and doesn't necessarily sound the clearest, but as glitch-free as possible, and either is already provided with an extensive vocabulary or has a versatile tool of editing the pronunciation of a new word it doesn't know.
All Vocalizer British voices sound far too stilted to me and have quite a lot of bugs. From the American ones, I do like Zoe.
And another observation I have is that a voice built fully by native speakers of the targeted language will sound best. My first language is Russian, and I can definitely say that all foreign software I've tried, like Vocalizer or Google, sound not that good to say the least, while those created by Russian speakers in the first place sound pretty decent. Vocalizer are based in Italy, far as I remember, Acapella are from Sweden. It means I'm looking into English-language voices from Microsoft, Google, Amazon and ReadSpeaker I was rejected to buy, because they've been developed nearly fully by native speakers of English. I've tried Ivona voices for SAPI 5, but they are clearly intended for reading books, very sluggish in my normal workflow.
The cracked Bridget voice nearly satisfies me, but when I set its speed to 50 per cent in NVDA, that's too slow, and 55 per cent is already too fast. I can't see how I could tune the speed of a SAPI 5 voice with NVDA more finely. It looks like I'll have to stick with this cracked version though.
I wonder that since I'm running Windows 11, which supports launching Android apps, if it would be possible to use Google Text-to-Speech on my laptop anyhow. They sound best. I'll be able to install an APK file, the question is if that would make any sense. Or maybe you know of other voices built by native speakers of English, preferable British accents, so I can test them and decide for myself if they suit me?
r_1235 3 points 1y ago
I've came accross these voices in a website, something about network for helping blind. The voices certainly sound amazing, don't know if I can share the links here though. The website is notorious for piarated content.
All-Sided [OP] 2 points 1y ago
Thanks. The cracked version I tried was actually from that site. Even though the post is marked as recently updated, the actual cracked voices were posted online somewhere else 7 or 8 years ago already.
CloudyBeep 3 points 1y ago
Which Vocalizer voices did you try?
In what applications do you want to use these TTS voices?
In what applications do you want to use these TTS voices?
All-Sided [OP] 3 points 1y ago
I've tried the Expressive and Nuance voices. I want to use ReadSpeaker's British voice with NVDA.
CloudyBeep 3 points 1y ago
But which voices specifically? Some of the newer ones (Nathan, Zoe, etc.) are better than older ones (Tom, Samantha, etc.).
There's apparently a registry hack that you can apply to make the Cortana voice usable as a SAPI 5 voice.
There's apparently a registry hack that you can apply to make the Cortana voice usable as a SAPI 5 voice.
All-Sided [OP] 3 points 1y ago
I have tried all the Nuance voices, older and newer versions, and even accidentally compiled a list of phrases which most of them fail to read properly, I.E. without glitches. I'm rather after a British voice and never Enjoy those from Vocalizer. They all, the British ones, sound extremely stilted to me or have lots of audible bugs. But yeah, the American voice Zoe sounds really good. And somehow the first version of Tom, version 1.1, sounds pretty pleasant as well, far better than the newer ones.
What I'm looking for is preferably a UK voice which has the most natural flow and doesn't necessarily sound the clearest, but as glitch-free as possible, and either is already provided with an extensive vocabulary or has a versatile tool of editing the pronunciation of a new word it doesn't know.
From the British Windows OneCore voices, I do like George, but it sounds too quiet for whatever reason, and most of them have a bug that is when you're typing, often you'll hear an unnerving strident sound with the name of the letter being typed. I also have found a script which tweaked the registry and did enable Sarah, the British Cortana voice. It sounds OK, but actually too clear, clearer than English is normally spoken, but this has been so far the best option.
I wonder that since I'm running Windows 11, which supports launching Android apps, if it would be possible to use Google Text-to-Speech on my laptop anyhow. They sound best. I'll be able to install an APK file, the question is if that would make any sense.
What I'm looking for is preferably a UK voice which has the most natural flow and doesn't necessarily sound the clearest, but as glitch-free as possible, and either is already provided with an extensive vocabulary or has a versatile tool of editing the pronunciation of a new word it doesn't know.
From the British Windows OneCore voices, I do like George, but it sounds too quiet for whatever reason, and most of them have a bug that is when you're typing, often you'll hear an unnerving strident sound with the name of the letter being typed. I also have found a script which tweaked the registry and did enable Sarah, the British Cortana voice. It sounds OK, but actually too clear, clearer than English is normally spoken, but this has been so far the best option.
I wonder that since I'm running Windows 11, which supports launching Android apps, if it would be possible to use Google Text-to-Speech on my laptop anyhow. They sound best. I'll be able to install an APK file, the question is if that would make any sense.
CloudyBeep 3 points 1y ago
I don't know if that would work.
AutomaticChair9 3 points 1y ago
I don't know about that voice in particular but you could try $1. They have a number of "premium" voices that might work for you.
All-Sided [OP] 2 points 1y ago
Thanks, will look into it.
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