Loquendo TTS agents

[gogirl14]

The Loquendo speech agents Aussie Grace and Aussie Alan used to be available with Captivate 5 but are no longer available in Captivate 6.

Can someone tell me where I can locate them, or buy and install them?

I need a TTS agent with an Australian accent.

[shawninvancouver]

I don't use the TTS functionality myself (not realistic enough) but I've heard others complain about the removal of TTS voices.

You may purchase the Austrilian voices here:

http://www.loquendo.com/en/demo-center/interactive-tts-demo/

no... wait... here:

http://www.nuance.com/for-business/by-solution/customer-service-solutions/solutions-services/inbound...

no... wait... oh heck, you are going to need to contact them here: http://www.nuance.com/for-business/by-solution/customer-service-solutions/solutions-services/contact...

or here: http://www.nuance.com/company/company-overview/contact-us/index.htm

Seriously, this Loquendo aka Nuance (or whatever) are two (or one) of the most difficult companies to figure out how to buy their stand-alone voices. It is ridiculous actually. The best thing to do is contact them directly and ask them (be certain to specify that you are looking for just those voices).

Another product that might be worth looking into is located here: http://www.cereproc.com/products/voices

And another really good TTS solution (but SaaS and much more expensive) is: http://www.ispeech.org/

Let us know how you make out because I am certain that others are interested.

- Shawn

[wahoochaser]

I have also been trying to obtain these voices. I've tried using the contact page on their website but no-one gets back to me! I've just rung one of the numbers in the contact list and been promised someone will ring me back. If you have any success, please post how you achieved it!

[gogirl14]

I think that I am having some success. Nuance has actually rung me and advised that someone will ring me on Wednesday when back from leave...fingers crossed

[shawninvancouver]

Please share what you found.

This company (Loquendo/Nuance) was extremely frustrating to deal with. My guess is that they have near zero interest in selling their products to individuals.

You may wish to consider one of the other products that I suggested. For stand-alone (one time fee), I especially like: http://www.cereproc.com/products/voices

[wahoochaser]

I have now rung them 4 times, emailed 5 times and still nothing! I even have an adobe competitor trying to make contact with them in case Loquendo are reluctant to deal with individuals - and still no joy! I've had a look at your link - cereproc - and agree the quality is reasonable but I am really keen to access Australian accented voices and to date, Loquendo are the only Australian voices I have been able to locate.

[gogirl14]

A Sales Engineer from Nuance Communications did finally get back to me and confirmed that Captivate 6 no longer supports Loquendo.

They will not release Australian Grace and Alan for individual use. They tell me that they will be merged with Vocaliser Studio, very expensive I believe.

So it's back to the drawing board. I have logged a feature request with Adobe to have Austrlian TTS incorporated into later versions of Captivate.

I am very disappointed after spending hours trying to contact this company

[RodWard]

If it's just an Australian voice you need, there's about 20 million of them down under...

Maybe you just need to find one willing to record your audio voiceover for you.

[shawninvancouver]

Hey Rod,

Have you seen the greedy prices asked by many of these TTS companies?

The typical rate for their SaaS solutions is as high as $400 per hour! I KNOW I can hire a real voice actor (with an obviously more 'convincing' voice) for much less money! 

[RodWard]

For that kind of money you could definitely hire a pretty good Aussie voiceover artist.

[wahoochaser]

I finally received a phone call and pricing info which included the Vocaliser software - about $18K for the software plus the two Aussie voices. Like you, back to the drawing board!

[RodWard]

$18,000.00!!

For that kind of money you could buy several Australians...not just their voices.

[wahoochaser]

Did they ring you back?

[GaryBerks]

Agree about contacting this company. We are trying to buy a business license and they are a nightmare to deal with. Makes me wonder what else is wrong.

[BDuckWorks]

A google search:  Australian text to speech +Captivate​ returned a few options, but the trend appears to be a SaaS approach, or a server license.

Here is an online service, but I didn't hear any output:

http://responsivevoice.org/text-to-speech-languages/australian-text-to-speech/

Another online trial, this one worked:

IVONA Text-to-Speech

Here is a reference article from 2011.

LumenVox Text-to-Speech:

We offer male and female voices in:

• American English
• Australian English
• Brazilian Portuguese
• British English
• Canadian French
• Castilian Spanish
• Danish
• Dutch
• European French
• European Portuguese
• Icelandic
• Indian English
• Italian
• Latin American Spanish
• North American Spanish
• Norwegian
• Polish
• Romanian
• Russian
• Standard German
• Swedish
• Turkish
• Welsh
• Welsh English

There is no specific mention of Captivate, or

ALSO:

The NeoSpeech.com website shows the following voices on their sales inquiry form :

Julie (Female, U. S. English)

Kate (Female, U. S. English)

Ashley (Female, US English)

Paul (Male, U. S. English)

James (Male, U. S. English)

Bridget (Female, British English)

Hugh (Male, British English)

Violeta (Female, Latin American Spanish)

Francisco (Male, Mexican Spanish)

Chloe (Female, Canadian French)

Hui (Female, Mandarin Chinese)

Liang (Male, Mandarin Chinese)

Misaki (Female, Japanese)

Show (Male, Japanese)

Yumi (Female, Korean)

Junwoo (Male, Korean)

The BAD NEWS:

Their website no longer supports the online purchase and download of these voices, it's primary focus appears to be 'TTS-in-the-cloud'

where you need licensed, downloadable, voice files.

Other options may be available via a Google Search.

As of Captivate 5.5, additional voices from Loquendo may not work. There is a restriction that only the shipped voices work. BTW, if you are planning on additional Neospeach voices, check with the vendor if they support Speech API. Only those voices which support Speech API will work with Adobe Captivate.

FYI, NeoSpeech Voices for Cp9 and other Captivate 9 download instructions are here:

Adobe Captivate 9 Direct Download Links: Free Trials with no Akamai | ProDesignTools