Comments on: Flame-The MIDI Talking Synth

By: mooveoverrobot

mooveoverrobot — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 04:13:01 +0000

sorry to post so many years later, but it seems there still isn’t any good on-the-fly way to generate speech and pitch without having to type it in. or at least no videos of anyone doing it live.

By: mooveoverrobot

mooveoverrobot — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 04:11:14 +0000

It seems kinda cool, but yeah, as a toy. Also it seems the thing can’t really be used to generate speech which was the purpose of the speakjet. I only saw one clip(flame website) where someone used it in conjunction with a keyboard, and they got it to say maybe two words, which probably took a long time to program.

Idea:
why not use the left two octaves of a midi controller to select the allophones and the rest of the keys to control pitch. This way you could press on the left hand KUH – MM – - HH – EE – RE and the pitch or melody you want the voice to conform to on the right hand. The left hand part would only be 5 or 6 key presses to create the simple phrase, also that could be sequenced leaving melody up to the right hand. It would only take a few minutes to learn how to play an allophone part with the left hand, whereas with this you would need to mess with a sequencer on each step of the way for hours to get it to actually say anything. For 500$ or whatever I would not want it to be that random. my speak and read is for that.

yeah man, I think eventually the midibox speakjet module could realize the potential of these ICs…. and like you said, for much cheaper, and probably much cooler. still would like to play with this though

By: N8

N8 — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 00:42:39 +0000

!!! Fun Toy

By: CM

CM — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:03:24 +0000

Thanks for sharing that Peter, I’m gonna try listening sometime soon.

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 04:38:31 +0000

BTW – I made 12 recordings of the FLAME Midi-Talking Synth since 6-9-07, and have used the first recording as background music on the IT’S A SECRET music site. It is just me playing the talking synth live – no overdubs, with some reverb added. Go to itsasecretmusicdotcom to listen. Thank you! -Peter from IT’S A SECRET

By: Peter

Peter — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 02:29:02 +0000

I have been using the FLAME Midi-Talking Synth now for three days, and can tell you that it is an amazing speech and synth sound generating instrument. It is very different from a vocoder keyboard, therefore it is unique. -Peter from IT’S A SECRET

By: Carpeteria

Carpeteria — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 11:57:18 +0000

ALMOST puts the Speak & Spell to shame? I’d say the shaming is beyond description. That’s a great little toy.

By: HL-SDK

HL-SDK — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 02:19:56 +0000

Naw man, Midibox could come up with the same thing at 1/4 of the price.

I joke not! The module is still in dev stage because there isn’t an overwhelming use for it.

By: Mike Ford

Mike Ford — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 14:53:51 +0000

The boys that cooked up the speakerjet are from GREAT STATE OF ALABAMA! I have seen a PIC controller for this same chip for much less over at “bots are us”type websites. Pretty killer anyway!

By: Niall

Niall — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 13:52:20 +0000

I noticed it contains two..