Text to Speech VST : VST Speek !

Wavosaur

7 years ago

Techno is reactivated

VST Speek is a free vocal synthesis VST plugin for recreating the old skool robotic text to speech we all love. Choose a preset, type any text and let’s speak !

download VST Speek 1.3 for Windows 32 bit

download VST Speek 1.3 for windows 64 bit

VST Speek + reverb
https://blog.wavosaur.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/text2speechVST.mp3?_=1

UPDATE

v1.3:
– fix for crash in Cubase when selecting preset from drop down menu
– add hack for Presonus Studio One : text is now editable
– fix memory leaks
– MAC OS X version !!! => see https://blog.wavosaur.com/text-to-speech-vst-now-for-mac-vst-speek-au-speek-audiounit/

v1.2:
– now the hack for getting keyboard events in Ableton is less dirty 🙂
– fixed potential bug on close plugin

v1.1:
– 64 bit version for Windows
– Fixed bug with audio buffer
– Added hack for Ableton Live 9 : plugin should get keyboard keys input now
– Added support for VST Key (not tested ! we don’t have Cubase)
VST Speek text to speech is 100% freeware, the plugin is based on the Software Automatic Mouth (SAM) vocal synthesis software created by Softvoice Inc for the Commodore 64.
The original C64 software has been reverse engineered and ported to C by Sebastian Macke : http://simulationcorner.net/index.php?page=sam

I have adapted then to VST plugin :

you can trigger the speech with MIDI keyboard (velocity sensitive)
you can use MIDI pitchbend
you can change original pitch or mouth/throat parameters while it’s speaking

This is not a vocal synth like “Vocaloïd”, it’s intended to do crunchy robotic lofi techno voices!
It’s not intended for good quality speech synthesis too, better speech synthesis softwares exist now.

Please comment and vote for the most wanted feature / development for this VST plugin !

– 64 bit version
– MAC version
– ability to assign different text to MIDI notes
– ability to read longer text (and / or read from text file)
– assign pitchbend or midi CC to voice parameters.
– Android version ?
– more parameters

Don’t hesitate to report any bug you found.

Text to speech vocal synthesis has been used in some famous (and less famous!) rave/techno songs from the 90’s. The robot voices were popular in the nineties.
The funkyest speech synthesis sotfwares at this time were :

The Amiga 500 say program :
it used narrator & translator library to produce nice computerized robot voices ! If you are not a happy Amiga 500 owner you can use an Amiga emulator : WinUAE

The Commodore 64 Software Automatic Mouth (SAM) :
you can use the brand new VST Speek or the S.A.M simulation program (command line executable for Windows) from Sebastian Macke : SAM for window

The Atari ST Speech :
that’s the one in U96 – Das Boot ! you can use the Steem Atari emulator + stspeech.tos
Here’s a port for Windows, command line application : stspeech.exe

Apple MacinTalk

They were all developped by Softvoice inc.

We must not forget the Speak n Spell toy by Texas Instrument !
This was a great piece of talking machine, that is still circuit-bended to death nowadays.

Here’s some 90’s music tracks that used vocal synthesis (Amiga or Atari) :

U96 – Das Boot :