Record your own voice

[tukatz]

The manual (920) is pathetically lacking in detail. I was able to record all the commands using my laptop, Home, a mic and my 920 through operate my device. I now have a folder named customvoice and it contains 56 wav files of the directions I recorded. However, I can't find instructions on how to combine those files into the two files that represent each voice available on the 920. I tried support, but that was a waste of time.

Update: Got it working. Now to rerecord the voice prompts so they flow and sound better. It turns out you simply enable the recorded voice.

 

[mattyp]

do you have to record it through home? I recorded it directly with my tomtom but after doing all 57 commands and pushing done, I don't get the option to save it or anything and therefore can't select myself as a voice, I am not one of the options, but the commands are recorded because when I go back to record I can play all of my commands. Any idea on how to select you own voice?

 

[tukatz]

do you have to record it through home? I recorded it directly with my tomtom but after doing all 57 commands and pushing done, I don't get the option to save it or anything and therefore can't select myself as a voice, I am not one of the options, but the commands are recorded because when I go back to record I can play all of my commands. Any idea on how to select you own voice?

On my 920 if I select Change preferences | Voice preferences I see an icon labeled Enable recorded voice. That's all there is to it. Unfortunately, I found that the commands I recorded did not flow together at all well. I rerecorded all of the commands, attempting to start speaking as quickly as possible and stopping the recording as quickly as possible. There was still too much lag. The commands come out choppy. The commands are recorded as .wav files in the customvoice folder on your TomTom. It should be possible to edit each file and eliminate excess dead time before and after the spoken command, but i have not tried that.

 

[dhn]

Apparently, Audacity is agood freeware program for sound editing. I've not tried it but suppose you can google for its location.

 

[sageuvagony]

Apparently, Audacity is agood freeware program for sound editing. I've not tried it but suppose you can google for its location.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/

 

[tukatz]

I've just been experimenting with the Windows Sound Recorder. It has a feature where you can delete part of a sound file either before or after the 'current position' as shown by the slider. What I found is that despite my best efforts there was dead space both before and after the spoken command. I was able to alter several commands and string them together and they flowed pretty well.

It was an experiment from the beginning. My evaluation is that it is way too much work and doesn't sound that great. The record volume is inconsistent simply because you don't always speak at the same volume. The sound quality is only as good as the equipment used to record the commands. You have to trim off the dead space on both ends of every one of the commands.

I'll stick with the voice that came with the 920. She sounds better than I do.

 

[sageuvagony]

I'll stick with the voice that came with the 920. She sounds better than I do.

I said the same thing when I tested this feature out

I'll let either Jane or Susan do all the talking. I hate hearing my own voice anyways.

I always use Windows sound recorder as well for trimming or combining wav files. It's a very simple program and works great. It just sucks that when I want to use sound recorder, I need to restart my computer and boot into Windows XP instead of Vista (I have dual-boot.) The sound recorder on Vista has been SO BADLY stripped down that the ONLY button you get is "Start Recording" NOTHING ELSE. There's not even a menu. You can't hit "save." The file will only save once you hit "Stop Recording"

I know it's a bit off topic but here's some screenshots for those of you without Vista.

Not very fun eh? At least it does what it's supposed to do, record sound.

 

[wasdvd]

Custom voice responses

My daughter-in-law recorded the 56 - 57 custom voice responses, and the results, combined with the standard computer voice Susan, is excellent!! She used the TomTom 930 mic, and her responses compliment Susan very well.

I have great fun showing off her responses to my family.