How to use the Advanced Speech Synthesis robot skill

Advanced Speech Synthesis

Natural sounding text to speech using Microsoft Azure neural voices, in many languages.

This robot skill is a text to speech engine: it does not speak on its own, it is what ARCx uses whenever anything in the project asks for speech. Add it, pick a voice, and every Audio.Say() in your scripts - plus the voice of skills such as Autonomous AI - uses that voice.

Requirements

• You must be logged into your Synthiam account in ARCx. The audio is synthesized through Synthiam's web service, and without a login the skill raises "There is no user logged into ARC."
• An internet connection.
• Only one instance of this skill per project, and only one text to speech engine skill in a project at a time.

Adding it to a project

1. Add the skill to the project (Audio category).
2. Open its configuration.
3. Type the Text To Speech Voice code you want, for example en-US-JennyNeural. The question mark beside the field opens Microsoft's list of every supported voice: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/speech-service/language-support?tabs=tts
4. Type something in the Test box and press Test to hear it.
5. Save.

The window

• Stop Speaking - stops whatever is being spoken right now, immediately.
• Log - the last 25 lines of activity, including what was spoken and any errors.

Configuration

Picking a voice code

Voice codes follow the pattern language-REGION-NameNeural. Copy the Voice name column from Microsoft's language support page exactly - if the code is wrong the service returns an error, which appears in the log.

The Window tab sets the robot skill's window title, its size on the workspace and notes about what it does in this project.

SSML

If the text handed to the engine is SSML, it is detected and passed to Azure as SSML, so you can control emphasis, breaks, rate and pitch:

Audio.SayWait("<speak version='1.0' xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2001/10/synthesis'; xml:lang='en-US'><voice name='en-US-JennyNeural'>Hello <break time='500ms'/> world</voice></speak>");

Speaking from a script

Audio.Say("Hello, I am a robot");          // PC speaker, returns immediately
Audio.SayWait("Hello, I am a robot");      // PC speaker, waits until finished
Audio.SayEZB("Hello from my own speaker"); // EZB #0 speaker
Audio.SayEZBWait("Hello", 0);              // EZB #0 speaker, waits until finished

When the audio is destined for an EZB, the skill resamples it to the rate and sample size the EZB asked for (8 bit or 16 bit), so it plays correctly out of robot hardware.

Troubleshooting

See also

• Basic Speech Synthesis - English only, no configuration
• Windows Speech Engine - offline, uses the voices installed in Windows

Control Commands for the Advanced Speech Synthesis robot skill

There are Control Commands available for this robot skill which allows the skill to be controlled programmatically from scripts or other robot skills. These commands enable you to automate actions, respond to sensor inputs, and integrate the robot skill with other systems or custom interfaces. If you're new to the concept of Control Commands, we have a comprehensive manual available here that explains how to use them, provides examples to get you started and make the most of this powerful feature.

This skill has no control commands.

It is a text to speech engine. It does not receive commands; it provides the voice that ARCx uses whenever something asks for speech.

How to make it speak

Use the Audio object from a JavaScript or Python script:

Example:

Audio.SayWait("Bonjour, je suis un robot");

SSML is accepted by these commands and is passed through to Azure untouched.

Changing the voice from a script

The voice is a configuration setting, not a control command. Change it in the skill's configuration dialog, or programmatically through ARCx's configuration API using the VoiceCode field of this skill's configuration.

Stopping speech

The Stop Speaking button in the skill's window stops playback. There is no control command equivalent in this skill.