mespeak

A CommonJS wrapper over Norbert Landsteiner mespeak text-to-speech library. Works in browserify. More

Example

Here is a simple example showing how to use mespeak:

var meSpeak = require("mespeak")
 
//Select english/american voice
meSpeak.loadVoice(require("mespeak/voices/en/en-us.json"))
 
//Play a sound
meSpeak.speak("hello world")

It also works in node.js too (though audio playback is unsupported):

var meSpeak = require("mespeak")
meSpeak.loadVoice(require("mespeak/voices/en/en-us.json"))
process.stdout.write(meSpeak.speak("hello world", {rawdata: "buffer"}))

Install

npm install mespeak

API

The API is identical to that on Landsteiner's web page

var meSpeak = require("mespeak")

meSpeak.speak(str[, options])

Says a string.

• str is a string to say
• options is a list of options to pass to the speech synthesizer. For more info, see here.

The options argument takes the following parameters:

• amplitude: How loud the voice will be (default: 100)
• pitch: The voice pitch (default: 50)
• speed: The speed at which to talk (words per minute) (default: 175)
• voice: Which voice to use (default: last voice loaded or defaultVoice, see below)
• wordgap: Additional gap between words in 10 ms units (default: 0)
• volume: volume relative to the global volume (number, 0..1, default: 1) Note: the relative volume has no effect on the export using option 'rawdata'.
• rawdata: do not play, return data only. The type of the returned data is derived from the value (case-insensitive) of 'rawdata':
  • buffer: A node.js buffer containing a wav file
  • 'base64': returns a base64-encoded string.
  • 'mime': returns a base64-encoded data-url (including the MIME-header). (synonyms: 'data-url', 'data-uri', 'dataurl', 'datauri')
  • 'array': returns a plain Array object with uint 8 bit data.
  • default (any other value): returns the generated wav-file as an ArrayBuffer (8-bit unsigned).

Note: The value of 'rawdata' must evaluate to boolean 'true' in order to be recognized.

meSpeak.loadConfig(json | url[, callback])

Loads a configuration for mespeak. By default uses mespeak/mespeak_config.json There are two forms.

• json Synchronously loads a configuration JSON object. This can be done using require("filename.json")

The other option is to load the config asynchronously via http:

• url is the url of the config file
• callback is called once the config is loaded

meSpeak.isConfigLoaded()

Checks if mespeak is configured

meSpeak.loadVoice(json | url[, callback] )

Loads a voice for mespeak. You can either specify a url and a callback, or a JSON object. A list of voices are included in the voices/ directory. For example, to load an english voice you can do:

meSpeak.loadVoice(require("mespeak/voices/en/en-us.json"))`

The other form is the same as in meSpeak.loadConfig and takes two arguments:

• url which is the url of the voice to load
• callback which is an optional callback-handler. The callback will receive two arguments:
  • a boolean flag for success
  • either the id of the voice, or a reason for errors ('network error', 'data error', 'file error')

meSpeak.setDefaultVoice(str)

Sets the default voice to use. The default voice is always the the last voice loaded.

meSpeak.isVoiceLoaded()

Checks if a voice is loaded

meSpeak.getDefaultVoice()

Returns the default voice.

meSpeak.setVolume(volume)

Sets the volume of playback globally.

• volume is the volume represented as a float

This update happens immediately and is applied relatively

meSpeak.getVolume()

Returns playback volume.

meSpeak.play(stream[, relativeVolume])

Plays a sound. You can use this to cache previously generated voices and play them back at run time by setting the

• stream is a sound to play
• relativeVolume is the relative loudness of the sound

meSpeak.resetQueue()

Clears playback queue, stops all currently playing sounds.

meSpeak.canPlay()

Checks if mespeak can play a sound.

Credits

(c) 2011-2013 Norbert Landsteiner. GPL License

NPM entry currently maintained by Mikola Lysenko