Speech Synthesis in old arcade games
Discussion
Am I right in saying speech synthesis is different from text-to-speech (TTS)?
The reason I ask is that ever since I was a kid playing in amusement arcades, I've always loved this particular metallic, machine voice. The game "Gorf" comes to mind, along with a few others.
Nowadays all TTS seems to be natural, human sounding, and that cool sci-fi robotic sound is rare. I could even be getting confused with vocoders, which afaik modulate a human voice as opposed to synthesizing it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I can't even find an example online to link to, but it was a very distinctive metallic 80's voice. I don't think it was sampled - rather synthesised/tts. I'd love to find a tts program that plays this voice!
erdnase said:
Am I right in saying speech synthesis is different from text-to-speech (TTS)?
The reason I ask is that ever since I was a kid playing in amusement arcades, I've always loved this particular metallic, machine voice. The game "Gorf" comes to mind, along with a few others.
Nowadays all TTS seems to be natural, human sounding, and that cool sci-fi robotic sound is rare. I could even be getting confused with vocoders, which afaik modulate a human voice as opposed to synthesizing it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I can't even find an example online to link to, but it was a very distinctive metallic 80's voice. I don't think it was sampled - rather synthesised/tts. I'd love to find a tts program that plays this voice!
steven hawking fetish FTW !The reason I ask is that ever since I was a kid playing in amusement arcades, I've always loved this particular metallic, machine voice. The game "Gorf" comes to mind, along with a few others.
Nowadays all TTS seems to be natural, human sounding, and that cool sci-fi robotic sound is rare. I could even be getting confused with vocoders, which afaik modulate a human voice as opposed to synthesizing it. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I can't even find an example online to link to, but it was a very distinctive metallic 80's voice. I don't think it was sampled - rather synthesised/tts. I'd love to find a tts program that plays this voice!
Sampling is very different to speech synthesis.
The former is digital recording, the latter is generating speech through artificial sounds.
Some early video games made use of both - eg Ghostbusters or Impossible Mission was sampled, Tales of the Arabian Nights (all on the Commodore 64) was synthesized.
The advantage of sampled is realism and clarity. The advantage of synthesized is that any word can be generated - it just doesn't sound so natural.
The former is digital recording, the latter is generating speech through artificial sounds.
Some early video games made use of both - eg Ghostbusters or Impossible Mission was sampled, Tales of the Arabian Nights (all on the Commodore 64) was synthesized.
The advantage of sampled is realism and clarity. The advantage of synthesized is that any word can be generated - it just doesn't sound so natural.
Edited by AlexKP on Tuesday 24th February 19:55
That's just bad 80's synthesis compared to modern technology.
The old stuff in games was sampled speech mostly
http://foldfiveghostbusters.ytmnd.com/
like so....
The old stuff in games was sampled speech mostly
http://foldfiveghostbusters.ytmnd.com/
like so....
cazzer said:
No way.This is the best example of all time, ever, ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-fFgg
V8mate said:
cazzer said:
No way.This is the best example of all time, ever, ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-fFgg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAkOZNP8XIA&fea...
V8mate said:
cazzer said:
No way.This is the best example of all time, ever, ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-fFgg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf9Y--_aY70&fea...
That was the original, with a distinct lack of speech.
Let the geek wars begin
V8mate said:
cazzer said:
No way.This is the best example of all time, ever, ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-fFgg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icVy7Ve6y6A
Morningside said:
V8mate said:
cazzer said:
No way.This is the best example of all time, ever, ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-fFgg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAkOZNP8XIA&fea...
...Bloody hell 1988!!Morningside said:
V8mate said:
cazzer said:
No way.This is the best example of all time, ever, ever.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qItugh-fFgg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAkOZNP8XIA&fea...
Wow, just spent a while youtubing Gorf and the Vortrax speech synthesis chip. It might indeed be old, crude speech synthesis, but it still sounds awesome.
Totally reminds me of being a kid in the old arcades, with the flashing lights and beeps. Somehow 80's technology has a certain feel to it that the best games of today can't emulate.
erdnase said:
Wow, just spent a while youtubing Gorf and the Vortrax speech synthesis chip. It might indeed be old, crude speech synthesis, but it still sounds awesome.
Totally reminds me of being a kid in the old arcades, with the flashing lights and beeps. Somehow 80's technology has a certain feel to it that the best games of today can't emulate.
if you like all the old arcade games, download an emulator called mame and you cn play all the old games Totally reminds me of being a kid in the old arcades, with the flashing lights and beeps. Somehow 80's technology has a certain feel to it that the best games of today can't emulate.
ive got over 3000! of them Gassing Station | Computers, Gadgets & Stuff | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff