jaxcore-speak v0.0.4

Jaxcore Speak

A JavaScript speech synthesis and visualization system for the web, based upon meSpeak and sam-js.

Jaxcore Speak combines both speech synthesis systems through a common API with an HTML5 canvas-based audio volume display which was partially based on volume-meter.

Beware that web browsers are now disabling Web Audio API by default, so the first usage of Jaxcore Speak must be called from a user action such as mouse click or keyboard action.

Examples

• Full example: https://jaxcore.github.io/jaxcore-speak/client/
• Multiple voices & scopes: https://jaxcore.github.io/jaxcore-speak/multiplespeakers/

Installation (NPM module)

npm install jaxcore-speak

Usage

English en is the default, but see below for how other languages can be used.

import Speak from "jaxcore-speak";

Speak.setWorkers({
	'espeak': 'webworkers/espeak-en-worker.js',
	'sam': 'webworkers/sam-worker.js'
});

let voice = new Speak({
	profile: "Cylon",
	language: "en"
});

voice.speak("hello my name is Cylon").then(function() {
  console.log("done");
});

Webworker Usage

As of version v0.0.4, both speech synthesizers are loaded with webworkers which drastically improve memory usage. The webworker files can be downloaded here. Or to build the worker files clone this repo and run npm run build-workers.

The worker js files must be served separately from the NPM module, and the path to the files must be set using the Speak.setWorkers() method.

SAM is English only so there is only 1 webworker file for it.

But ESpeak has many language options. For English (US) only use this:

Speak.setWorkers({
	'espeak': 'webworkers/espeak-en-worker.js',
	'sam': 'webworkers/sam-worker.js'
});

For other languages it likely will be better to use the all file:

Speak.setWorkers({
	'espeak': 'webworkers/espeak-all-worker.js',
	'sam': 'webworkers/sam-worker.js'
});

Keep in mind, the file sizes of each worker is large. English (US) is 1.7MB, and all the languages is 2.7MB. Your webserver requires proper caching of the worker files.

Voice Profiles

Jaxcore Speak includes the following predefined ESpeak-based voices:

• Jack
• Pris
• Roy
• Scotty
• Xenu
• Cylon
• Leon
• Rachel
• Zhora

And the following SAM-based voices:

• Sam
• Elf
• Robo
• Granny

Custom voices can be generated at run time. See the source code of SpeakApp.js example for details.

Intonation

The voice profiles include an easy way to modify the speed (faster/slower) and pitch (deeper/higher):

voice.speak('hello world', {
  fast: true
});

voice.speak('hello world', {
  slow: true
});

voice.speak('hello world', {
  high: true
});

voice.speak('hello world', {
  low: true
});

ESpeak Languages

The language should be defined while instantiating new Speak(), the possible languages are:

• ca = Catalan
• cs = Czech
• de = German
• el = Greek
• en = English
• en-n = English (N)
• en-rp = English (RP)
• en-sc = English (Scottish)
• en-us = English (US)
• en-wm = English (WM)
• eo = Esperanto
• es = Spanish
• es-la = Spanish (Latin America)
• fi = Finnish
• fr = French
• hu = Hungarian
• it = Italian
• kn = Kannada
• la = Latin
• lv = Latvian
• nl = Dutch
• pl = Polish
• pt = Portuguese (Brazil)
• pt-pt = Portuguese, European
• ro = Romanian
• sk = Slovak
• sv = Swedish
• tr = Turkish
• zh = Chinese (Mandarin)
• zh-yue = Chinese (Cantonese)

Set the desired language while instantiating the Speak object:

let voice = new Speak({
	profile: "Cylon",
	language: "es"
});
voice.speak("hola mi nombre es Cylon");

Or switch languages at any time:

voice.setLanguage("es");

Or set the language as a speak() option:

voice.speak("bonjour je m'appelle Cylon", {
  language: "fr"
});

But remember, if

Scope Visualization

Install MonauralScope from jaxcore-client:

npm install jaxcore-client

import {MonauralScope} from 'jaxcore-client';

Include a canvas element somewhere in your page:

<canvas id="scope" />

And use the setVisualizer() method:

var canvasElement = document.getElementById('scope');
var monoScope = new MonauralScope(canvasElement);

voice.setVisualizer(this.monoScope);

Run Example Demo

Clone this repo, then:

cd examples/client
yarn install
yarn start

Speaker Queue

New feature as of v0.0.4.

The Speaker Queue allows multiple Speak/Scope dictations to be queued up and played one by one and receive start/stop events for UI updates while that "speaker" is speaking.

See the multiplespeakers for an example of this in action.

License

Jaxcore Speak is free software released under the GPL License.

However, IANAL (I am not a lawyer) and due to the bizarre combination of dependencies and the typical use case of compilation/minification into a JavaScript file delivered over the web, the license restrictions are ambiguous.

Original Works

meSpeak (NPM module by Mikola Lysenko): https://github.com/mikolalysenko/mespeak

meSpeak (emscripten port by Norbert Landsteiner): https://www.masswerk.at/mespeak/

eSpeak http://espeak.sourceforge.net/

SAM (reverse-engineered version of SAM by Sebastian Macke) https://github.com/s-macke/SAM

SAM fork by Vidar Hokstad https://github.com/vidarh/SAM

SAM-js port by Christian Schiffler https://github.com/discordier/sam

meSpeak License

Jaxcore speak includes modified source code from meSpeak which is GPL and also includes emscripten-compiled eSpeak code which is also GPL. Therefore this derivative work is available under the GPL.

sam-js License

sam-js is used as an external dependency (via NPM) for the SAM based voice profiles. sam-js was reverse engineered and could be classified as abadonware (quoted from https://github.com/s-macke/SAM) :

The software is a reverse-engineered version of a software published more than 34 years ago by "Don't ask Software".

The company no longer exists. Any attempt to contact the original authors failed. Hence S.A.M. can be best described as Abandonware (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware)

As long this is the case I cannot put my code under any specific open source software license. However the software might be used under the "Fair Use" act (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FAIR_USE_Act) in the USA.

Jaxcore Speak will be updated according to any new information that comes to light and it is recommended that any further derivative works/improvement also be independently released under the GPL.