The FestVox project is part of the work at Carnegie Mellon University aimed at advancing the state of Speech Synthesis.
The Festvox project aims to make the building of new synthetic voices more systemic and better documented, making it possible for anyone to build a new voice. Specifically we offer:
• Documentation, including scripts explaining the background and specifics for building new voices for speech synthesis in new and supported languages.
• Specific scripts to build new voices in supported languages, such as US and UK English.
• Aids to building synthetic voices for limited domains
This work is firmly grounded within Edinburgh University's Festival Speech Synthesis System.

Supported platforms

Note the techniques and processes described here do not guarantee that you'll end up with a high quality acceptable voice, but with a little care you can likely build a new synthesis voice in a supported language in a few days, or in a new language in a few weeks (more or less depending on the complexity of the language, and the desired quality).

You will need:

• A Unix machine (e.g. Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, etc) with working audio i/o. This may work on other platforms but many scripts, perhaps unnecessarily, depend on Unix utilties like, awk, sed etc.
• Installed versions of Edinburgh University's Festival Speech Synthesis System and Edinburgh
• Speech Tools (distributed with Festival).
• A waveform viewing/labeling program like emulabel distributed as part of Macquarie University's EMU speech database system. Although automatic labeling software is included in festvox, a display tool is necessary for diagnosis and debugging.
• Patience and care, and a little interest in the subject of speech technology.

• The licence
• FestVox 1.2 for Festival [ tar.gz ]
• and updated module for Festival 1.4.1 required for Limited Domain voices [ tar.gz ]