Free Text-to-Speech Resources (mainly for Greek)
by Gerasimos Xydas

• DEMOSTHeNES Speech Composer (http://demosthenes.di.uoa.gr): A Text-to-Speech software system that supports the Greek language. This is a part of my PhD research and my spiritual kid. I have offered everything to him: from my free time to my voice (http://www.di.uoa.gr/~gxydas/mbrola). Now there are more people involved and it gradually grows up :) You can find here a free copy for non-profitable activities (probably out-of-date, but still...) of this Text-to-Speech software, plus other resources (dll, client application) that might be useful to you.

• MBROLA Voice Databases for Greek (http://www.di.uoa.gr/~gxydas/mbrola): You can find here several diphone databases for the MBROLA (http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/mbrola.html) synthesizer that I have developed. Currently, there is one male voice available: mine! Sounds nasal, but that is the cost of MBROLA. One female and one more male databases are on the way. These databases are offered for free for non-profitable activities. If you want to make money, please, contact us.

• A Greek Formant Synthesizer (http://www.di.uoa.gr/~gxydas/en/formant.shtml): My under-graduate project (1998). You can download this synthesizer for free. It sounds like a robot, there are not all the coarticulation rules in there and it is not very efficient implemented. However, it is amazingly small (50KB).

• Open source C code for the FLITE small-footprint speech synthesizer (http://www.di.uoa.gr/~gxydas/en/gxflite.shtml): Auxiliary C code I have been writting for the open source FLITE (http://www.cmuflite.org).

• Greek resources for the FLITE speech synthesis system (http://www.di.uoa.gr/~gxydas/en/greekflite.shtml): FLITE (http://www.cmuflite.org) speaks Greek. Some components are still shared with DEMOSTHeNES (C/C++), but in the near future it will run alone in pure C code.

• Greek resources for the FESTIVAL speech synthesis system (http://www.di.uoa.gr/~gxydas/en/greekfestival.shtml): I do not spent around my free time, as you can see. Another speech synthesizer made speaking Greek. Here you can find resources for the Greek language for the FESTIVAL (http://www.festvox.org) speech synthesis system.

• Installing FESTIVAL using Cygwin in Windows (http://www.di.uoa.gr/~gxydas/en/festival_cygwin.shtml): Some very useful instructions for a successful installation and compilation of the free FESTIVAL speech synthesis system, based on my personal experience.

• The evolution of my Greek Text-to-Speech based activities (http://www.di.uoa.gr/~gxydas/en/ttstour.shtml). A small tour to 3 Greek TtS systems: formant based, diphone based and corpus based.

• The DEMOSTHeNES Song (http://www.di.uoa.gr/~gxydas/demosthenes/demosthenes.mp3): DEMOSTHeNES would like to sing as well. In the mean time, here is an R&B attempt.