English Speech Files

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ralfherzog-20070820_vf18.zip
User: ralfherzog
Date: 8/20/2007 6:19 pm
Views: 4602
Rating: 16

Speaker Characteristics:

Gender: male;
Age range: adult;
Pronunciation dialect: General American English.

Recording Information:

Microphone make: Sennheiser PC131;
Microphone type: noise canceling headset;
Audio card make: OnBoard - Mainboard: Asrock 939Dual-SATA2;
Audio card type: Realtek 850;
Audio Recording Software: Audacity 1.2.6;
O/S: Windows XP Professional.

File Info:

File type: FLAC;
Sampling rate: 48kHz;
Sample rate format: 16bit;
Number of channels: 1;
Audio Processing: n

vf18-01 You're a devil for fighting, and will surely win
vf18-02 I'll only be in the way
vf18-03 He lifted his eyes, and a strange cry burst from his lips
vf18-04 Shooting pains passed like flashes of electricity through his body
vf18-05 I know that you are in charge there, and Jeanne knows
vf18-06 For a full minute the two men stared into each other's face
vf18-07 He was sure, now, of but few things
vf18-08 It was a miracle, and I owe you my life
vf18-09 Philip ate lightly of the food which Pierre had ready for him
vf18-10 Such men believe, when they come together
vf18-11 The journey was continued at dawn
vf18-12 Jeanne and Pierre both gazed toward the great rock
vf18-13 There was something pathetic in the girl's attitude now
vf18-14 He moved his position, and the illusion was gone
vf18-15 For two hours not a word passed between them
vf18-16 I have hunted along this ridge, replied Philip
vf18-17 That's Thorpe's, said the young engineer
vf18-18 We saw your light, and thought you wouldn't mind a call
vf18-19 Billinger may arrive in time
vf18-20 There's the hitch, replied Thorpe, rolling a cigarette
vf18-21 I want my men to work by themselves
vf18-22 Philip saw MacDougall soon after his short talk with Thorpe
vf18-23 Neither could they understand the growing disaffection among Thorpe's men
vf18-24 Two weeks passed, and in that time Thorpe left camp three times
vf18-25 It was the third or fourth time that Philip had heard MacDougall swear
vf18-26 Blood was oozing slowly from the wounded man's right breast
vf18-27 He destroyed everything that had belonged to the woman
vf18-28 Philip bent low over Pierre
vf18-29 Did Thorpe go to see any one in Churchill
vf18-30 She saw the answer in his face
vf18-31 Thorpe and his men were to destroy this camp, and kill you
vf18-32 There is no need of further detail, now -- for you can understand
vf18-33 There followed a roar that shook the earth
vf18-34 Blind with rage, he darted in
vf18-35 In it was the joy of life
vf18-36 Swiftly his eyes measured the situation
vf18-37 But this little defect did not worry him
vf18-38 And then, steadily, he began to chew
vf18-39 Together they ate the rabbit
vf18-40 They edged nearer, and stood shoulder to shoulder facing their world

Copyright (C) 2007  Ralf Herzog

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>. 

--- (Edited on 8/20/2007 6:19 pm [GMT-0500] by ralfherzog) ---

--- (Edited on 8/20/2007 6:41 pm [GMT-0500] by ralfherzog) ---

ralfherzog-20070820_vf18.zip ralfherzog-20070820_vf18.zip

Notice: many prompts in "English Speech Files" were adapted from the prompt files contained in the CMU_ARCTIC speech synthesis database, which were in turn derived from out-of-copyright texts from Project Gutenberg, by the FestVox project at the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Re: ralfherzog-20070820_vf18.zip
User: kmaclean
Date: 8/20/2007 8:46 pm
Views: 155
Rating: 16

Hi Ralf,

I tried decoding your flac audio files, but I get this message:

$ flac -d vf18-40.flac

flac 1.1.2, Copyright (C) 2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005  Josh Coalson
flac comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you are
welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.  Type `flac' for details.

vf18-40.flac: *** Got error code 2:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATUS_FRAME_CRC_MISMATCH


vf18-40.flac: ERROR while decoding data
              state = FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_READ_FRAME

Are you able to decode them or am I doing something wrong?

thanks,

Ken 

--- (Edited on 8/20/2007 9:46 pm [GMT-0400] by kmaclean) ---

I also get the same error with the newest version of flac:

./flac -d vf18-40.flac

flac 1.2.0, Copyright (C) 2000,2001,2002,2003,2004,2005,2006,2007  Josh Coalson
flac comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY.  This is free software, and you are
welcome to redistribute it under certain conditions.  Type `flac' for details.

vf18-40.flac: *** Got error code 2:FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_ERROR_STATUS_FRAME_CRC_MISMATCH


vf18-40.flac: ERROR while decoding data
              state = FLAC__STREAM_DECODER_READ_FRAME

--- (Edited on 8/20/2007 9:50 pm [GMT-0400] by kmaclean) ---


Notice: many prompts in "English Speech Files" were adapted from the prompt files contained in the CMU_ARCTIC speech synthesis database, which were in turn derived from out-of-copyright texts from Project Gutenberg, by the FestVox project at the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

decoding works under Windows XP with FLAC 1.2.0a
User: ralfherzog
Date: 8/20/2007 9:41 pm
Views: 259
Rating: 14
Hello Ken,

I am able to decode them from FLAC to WAV.  I am using FLAC for Windows that you can download from the following source:   http://tinyurl.com/33upwp or you can download it from this hyperlink:  http://tinyurl.com/3xq56e

It is the version with the name flac-1.2.0a.exe.  It works fine on my computer.  This software has two components:
1. FLAC Frontend, this does the encoding and decoding.
2. FLAC Tester, with this component, you can test encoded FLAC files without having them to decode.

I encode the wav files with with the FLAC frontend.  Before I zip the folder (with the FLAC files, the prompts file, the license file and the README file), I check the files with the FLAC tester to be sure that everything went fine.  

Did you try to decode my submitted files with the FLAC frontend?  It should work.  To be sure that there wasn't a submission error, I downloaded the file ralfherzog-20070820_vf18.zip, extracted it, and then used the FLAC front end to decode the FLAC audio files.  It worked.  And the FLAC tester showed that everything was OK.

In short: I am able to decode them correctly.  I don't know why it doesn't work at your computer.  Perhaps it is the version: you tried the version FLAC 1.1.2 and FLAC 1.2.0.  But I am using FLAC 1.2.0a.

Greetings, Ralf

--- (Edited on 8/20/2007 9:41 pm [GMT-0500] by ralfherzog) ---


Notice: many prompts in "English Speech Files" were adapted from the prompt files contained in the CMU_ARCTIC speech synthesis database, which were in turn derived from out-of-copyright texts from Project Gutenberg, by the FestVox project at the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Re: decoding works under Windows XP with FLAC 1.2.0a
User: kmaclean
Date: 8/21/2007 9:10 pm
Views: 217
Rating: 22

Hi Ralf,

Yup ... you are right.  Works great on Windows with the FLAC front-end (using flac1.2.0).

Now to figure out why it doesn't work on Fedora (FC4) ...

Ken 

--- (Edited on 8/21/2007 10:10 pm [GMT-0400] by kmaclean) ---


Notice: many prompts in "English Speech Files" were adapted from the prompt files contained in the CMU_ARCTIC speech synthesis database, which were in turn derived from out-of-copyright texts from Project Gutenberg, by the FestVox project at the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Re: decoding works under Windows XP with FLAC 1.2.0a
User: kmaclean
Date: 8/21/2007 11:26 pm
Views: 136
Rating: 12

Hi Ralf,

I tested a few theories, but I can't replicate the error.  I have converted your submission to wav format (using FLAC frontend in Windows XP) and will process that.

But we need to figure out what might be causing this problem if we are ever to automate the process (the processing scripts are all in Linux).

I thought maybe it might be related to Flac tags or Replaygain settings, but I can encode wav files in Windows XP with different combinations of these settings and decode them on Linux (Fedora 4) with no problems (on my dual-booted PC).

Which settings did you use on the FLAC frontend?:

  • Encoding level?
  • Add tags? automated or custom tags?
  • Replaygain?
  • Align on sector boundaries?
  • ...
Did you do anything different when you recorded your original wav files in Audacity?

thanks,

Ken 

--- (Edited on 8/22/2007 12:26 am [GMT-0400] by kmaclean) ---


Notice: many prompts in "English Speech Files" were adapted from the prompt files contained in the CMU_ARCTIC speech synthesis database, which were in turn derived from out-of-copyright texts from Project Gutenberg, by the FestVox project at the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

My FLAC frontend configuration under Win XP
User: ralfherzog
Date: 8/22/2007 12:06 am
Views: 229
Rating: 13

Hello Ken!

I didn't change anything in the FLAC front-end.

My configuration is:

- encoding level: 6
- add tags: yes (this is the default configuration, I don't know whether tags are added at all, it is possible that I get an error message during encoding, but I am not sure.  But in the end, it works out fine, so I don't care whether tags are added or not.)
- replay gain: yes.
- align on sector boundaries: no

It is the exactly same configuration of the FLAC front-end like in the following picture:

http://tinyurl.com/2mnu45

I didn't do anything different when recording the files with audacity.  I did the same procedure as always.

I will continue to submit in the FLAC format, because I am planning to submit bigger zip files with more audio files in it.

I have one idea why you might get problems: did you try to decode my submitted FLAC files without extracting the zip folder first?  Perhaps this is the reason for your problem? Perhaps it is impossible to decode from FLAC to wav when the audio files are inside the compressed ZIP container?

Greetings, Ralf

--- (Edited on 8/22/2007 12:06 am [GMT-0500] by ralfherzog) ---


Notice: many prompts in "English Speech Files" were adapted from the prompt files contained in the CMU_ARCTIC speech synthesis database, which were in turn derived from out-of-copyright texts from Project Gutenberg, by the FestVox project at the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Re: My FLAC frontend configuration under Win XP
User: kmaclean
Date: 8/22/2007 7:35 am
Views: 148
Rating: 22

> didn't change anything in the FLAC front-end.

> didn't do anything different when recording the files with audacity.  I did the same procedure as always.

That is what I figured ... hmm 

>I have one idea why you might get problems: did you try to decode my submitted FLAC files without extracting the zip folder first? 

On Linux I use FLAC on the command line, and it does not work with zip or tar.gzipped files.

>I will continue to submit in the FLAC format, because I am planning to submit bigger zip files with more audio files in it.

Please try at least one submission using Linux Audacity and Flac on Linux.   I am thinking that somehow there is a Windows to Linux conversion issue.

Another option would be to use Audacity's "export to Flac" option - in Windows or Linux (I think this option is only included in the newer releases of Audacity), and see if that makes a difference.

thanks,

Ken

--- (Edited on 8/22/2007 8:35 am [GMT-0400] by kmaclean) ---


Notice: many prompts in "English Speech Files" were adapted from the prompt files contained in the CMU_ARCTIC speech synthesis database, which were in turn derived from out-of-copyright texts from Project Gutenberg, by the FestVox project at the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

Re: My FLAC frontend configuration under Win XP
User: kmaclean
Date: 8/22/2007 7:51 am
Views: 522
Rating: 20

Hi

This problem has been fixed ... it was a user error (i.e. me) see this post for details.

Ken 

--- (Edited on 8/22/2007 8:51 am [GMT-0400] by kmaclean) ---


Notice: many prompts in "English Speech Files" were adapted from the prompt files contained in the CMU_ARCTIC speech synthesis database, which were in turn derived from out-of-copyright texts from Project Gutenberg, by the FestVox project at the Language Technologies Institute at Carnegie Mellon University.

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