Node-RED nano-tts

Very early stages - not ready for use! See gmn/nanotts#8

Inputs

• payload string

  The text to be turned into speech. This can include Pico TTS markup.

• lang (optional) string

  The voice language to use. Must be one of en-US, en-GB, de-DE, fr-FR, es-ES or it-IT (defaults to en-US).

• pitch (optional) float

  The voice pitch. Must be between 0.5 and 2.0 (defaults to 1).

• speed (optional) float

  The voice speed. Must be between 0.2 and 5.0 (defaults to 1).

• volume (optional) float

  The voice volume. Must be between 0.0 and 5.0 (defaults to 1). Values greater than 1 may lead to distortion.

Outputs

• payload buffer | boolean

  A raw PCM buffer when set to ouptut one, otherwise a boolean indicating success.

• filename string

  The full path to the generated file, when set to produce a WAV file.

• filesize integer

  The generated file's size in bytes, when set to produce a WAV file.

Details

This node uses the Pico TTS engine from SVOX, via the Nano TTS library, to generate 16-bit 16kHz audio by reading out the msg.payload in US English, British English, German, French, Spanish or Italian voices.

The node can output a raw PCM buffer containing the audio, write the audio to a WAV file, or speak it directly through the default soundcard of the machine running Node-RED.

Messages can specify their own settings with msg.lang, msg.pitch, msg.speed, msg.volume.

Markup

The strings passed to this node may include Pico TTS specific markup, to affect particular properties of the speech generated. The below is only a brief summary of the most commonly used tags - see the Pico TTS manual for the full list and further details.

• <pitch level="..."> ... </pitch>

  Sets the pitch level for the enclosed block.

• <speed level="..."> ... </speed>

  Sets the speed level for the enclosed block.

• <volume level="..."> ... </volume>

  Sets the volume level for the enclosed block.

• <break time="..."/>

  Inserts a pause with the duration specified by the time parameter (e.g. "1s" or "1000ms").

• <ignore> ... </ignore>

  Completely ignores the enclosed block (it will not be read out).

• <phoneme ph="..."/>

  Provides a phonemic or phonetic pronunciation for a word to be inserted into the text in the place of the markup. The value of ph should use the X-SAMPA phonetic alphabet to define the phoneme.

• <play file="..."/> | <play file="..."> ... </play>

  In the first form, this will play an audio file at the position where the tag appears. In the second form the audio file will play instead of the enclosed block of text.

References

https://github.com/gmn/nanotts