VoiceAttack for non-native English speekers

[Alexa Reizla]

I watched GeekyGamerGirl on twitch yesterday and she kidna got me into the game. Mostly because of the speech recognition that can be added with VoiceAttack. I realize that's an extra $8 on top ot ED, but looking how she played the game it's certanly worth it!

So I downloaded the VA software, dropped GlaDOS in it (pretty scary thought though to have her run my ship's computer ) and got started with it. Not having bougth VA yet, I had to make a selection of what I'd use for now. Of course 'Good morning Sara' was one of them to get GlaDOS booted. Then going through the commands and targeting and next seemed to be handy to get to know GlaDOS (or rather the VA software...)

Now here's the problem, I'm a non-native English speaker and when you (the reader, not the VA software) and I have a conversation you'll know what I mean. But that darn VA software... A command as 'target' is understood as 'direct' most of the times. I know I could simply change that in the VA software, but the thing has to learn to listen to me instead of me kinda lieing to it. Alternatively I decided to use 'lock' to select my target, but the VA software thinks I'm saying 'log'. Though that's an understandible mistake, I'll go for that right now.

Perhaps I should start the Windows' speech recognition again and learn the PC some of those specific commands..?

[Shimaaji]

First: You are using an English version of Windows? Speech recognition always works in the present system language. Otherwise you saying "shield" for example might actually be reported as "schielt", which voice attack might or might not correctly assign to a command responding to "shield" since VA has a certain tolerance, but nevertheless using a different language than the one of the OS will yield terrible results. This ultimately was the reason why I reinstalled Windows in English. Speaking German commands in a Sci-fi game just seems wrong.

Do multiple runs of the windows speech recognition training. I did four as far as I remember and multiple training runs improve recognition performance.

Also make sure you add words not known to the software to the user dictionary. ( hyperspace etc.)

Also always use the same microphone. (preferably a headset, because varying distance while speaking has quite a negative impact)

After doing all that play around with the recognition tolerance that can be set in the VA options. (setting this to high levels can compensate for non-programmed words, because even if the speech recognition engine reports something like "high per space" when saying hyperspace VA might assign it correctly, but it's better to have the recognition engine know all words)

[Alexa Reizla]

Originally posted by Urisk:

First: You are using an English version of Windows?

Windows version is not much of a problem with Ultimate 7 But I have set it to English (UK). Perhaps that's the problem and I should set it to English (US)?

Originally posted by Urisk:

Speaking German commands in a Sci-fi game just seems wrong.

Kinda feel the same about Dutch SF commands :p

Originally posted by Urisk:

Do multiple runs of the windows speech recognition training. I did four as far as I remember and multiple training runs improve recognition performance.

Also make sure you add words not known to the software to the user dictionary. ( hyperspace etc.)

I will do an other run or two I think. Also, how to add words to the dictionary?

Originally posted by Urisk:

Also always use the same microphone. (preferably a headset, because varying distance while speaking has quite a negative impact)

Dasly no headset here. I'm using the mic from my webcam because I'm using one of the best headphones ever made and I certainly don't want to loose it's perfect sound experience ;)

Originally posted by Urisk:

After doing all that play around with the recognition tolerance that can be set in the VA options. (setting this to high levels can compensate for non-programmed words, because even if the speech recognition engine reports something like "high per space" when saying hyperspace VA might assign it correctly, but it's better to have the recognition engine know all words)

Think I'll be playing with those options as well soon enough. For now, reboot my system, set to US English (which is what we learned at school) and restart that learning thing...

[Alexa Reizla]

Rebooted into English (US) and it seems that that already does quite some good for the VA software. GlaDOS is actually listening to me (how scary...)

[😎Macula😎]

When you open Windows Speech Recognition and set it to listening right click on it and click on Speech Dictionary (or you can say "open Speech Dictionary" that works too) and click on add a new word after that you enter word or sentence and then you have to record how you pronounce you can even listen back to see if everything sounds alright (which I strongly recommend to see if it recorded your pronounce just right) and that's it.

PS sometimes while you training your speech recognition can be all wrong in my case it was it kept constantly pausing while pronouncing sentences lol if something similare happens you can always create new profile which means its gonna be like you never done any training this is just small tip if you not satisfied with your current trained profile if you want to start over and such.

[Shimaaji]

I don't get all that good results with my webcam microphone as well. (And my Logitech C910 actually has a pretty good one.)

I of course perfectly understand your headphone problem. If you already have very good Hifi headphones buying a headset of similar quality would be very difficult and expensive, since most (well: more likely 'all') consumer headsets suck and we'd be looking at professional studio equipment. Also downgrading to a "gaming headset" from high quality headphones wouldn't work, since it would ruin your experience.

So right now I'd see the following options to get better recognition results:

- A clip-on microphone (most of them aren't very good and "placing" them can be difficult depending on what you wear)
- a gooseneck microphone or a separate gooseneck and a microphone you can fit to a clip at its end (this would at least reduce the distance to the microphone, but it could get in the way when using an Oculus Rift)
- a neckband microphone, which could work alongside your headphones (Search Sennheiser HSP 4 to see the top end of this product category - and then buy a cheaper one ;) )

The third option would likely yield the best results without giving up your headphones, since you would have a microphone close to your mouth at a constant distance, but it might be cheaper to buy a clip on microphone and possibly at a later point tinker something together to get a similar result, since the selection of available affordable neckband microphones that produce good results is AFAIK actually rather small. (Most people apparently don't buy headphones and microphones seperately ... which is unfortunate.)

[Alexa Reizla]

Originally posted by Macula:

When you open Windows Speech Recognition and set it to listening right click on it and click on Speech Dictionary (or you can say "open Speech Dictionary" that works too) and click on add a new word after that you enter word or sentence and then you have to record how you pronounce you can even listen back to see if everything sounds alright (which I strongly recommend to see if it recorded your pronounce just right) and that's it.

Thanks for the hint. I got it working and indeed, stuff like "Friendship drive" had to be added manually. From the looks of it, all seems to be working nicely at the moment.

Originally posted by Urisk:

I don't get all that good results with my webcam microphone as well. (And my Logitech C910 actually has a pretty good one.)

I'm using the Logitech C270 (or C72) - 720p HD cam) myself and it does respond pretty well, but it takes up ALL surround noices. And with the summer coming around the corner I'll have the doors to the street open to get some sun while playing, but also a lot of extra noise for the mic :s

Originally posted by Urisk:

I of course perfectly understand your headphone problem. If you already have very good Hifi headphones buying a headset of similar quality would be very difficult and expensive, since most (well: more likely 'all') consumer headsets suck and we'd be looking at professional studio equipment. Also downgrading to a "gaming headset" from high quality headphones wouldn't work, since it would ruin your experience.

So right now I'd see the following options to get better recognition results:

- A clip-on microphone (most of them aren't very good and "placing" them can be difficult depending on what you wear)
- a gooseneck microphone or a separate gooseneck and a microphone you can fit to a clip at its end (this would at least reduce the distance to the microphone, but it could get in the way when using an Oculus Rift)
- a neckband microphone, which could work alongside your headphones (Search Sennheiser HSP 4 to see the top end of this product category - and then buy a cheaper one ;) )

The third option would likely yield the best results without giving up your headphones, since you would have a microphone close to your mouth at a constant distance, but it might be cheaper to buy a clip on microphone and possibly at a later point tinker something together to get a similar result, since the selection of available affordable neckband microphones that produce good results is AFAIK actually rather small. (Most people apparently don't buy headphones and microphones seperately ... which is unfortunate.)

Uhm, did you check the price of the Sennheiser HSP 4? It's over €600 on the Sennheiser site. No way I'll be spending that kind of money on a mic...

I've looked around a bit and I listened to the Turtle Beach XP22 at our local store. The sound is pretty decent for gaming (can't match my BeyerDynamic DT990 at all ) and I might pick it up. It also saves money on the energy bill that I don't need to have the amplifier on while playing as well...

I also looked for the gooseneck mics, but I can't find them in The Netherlands, and the clip-on I could find only one for €20. As you said, looks like very few people are looking for a single head mic...

[Ottomic]

I ran the speech recognition trainer a couple times and it improved my accuracy greatly. In English, at least. I have far from a good headset (pretty basic 50€ pair of Razer headphones) that are hell to get a good capture on TS, yet VA mostly picks up whatever I say pretty easily, even with the occasional crossfeed from the sound that's playing on the headset itself. English is my third language as well, so far from a perfect accent over here. I would advice however to use VA only with headphones to prevent contamination to the mic. That certainly helps a lot.

So yeah, my advice would be to run the trainer a bunch of times, let it get used to your accent, and see if it improves VA accuracy. Maybe it's not really needed to spend too much in equipment in the first place.

There's some tricks to it as well that improve recognition. The Anubis voice pack, for example, uses "A eye" for "AI". The SARA pack uses "friendship" for "frameshift" as well, and ASTRA "baiter" for "beta", among others. If you type a semicolon between several commands you can also have different variations for a command that's giving you trouble. (activate protocol beta;activate protocol baiter;activate protocol bay tar)

[Alexa Reizla]

Originally posted by Ottomic:

There's some tricks to it as well that improve recognition. The Anubis voice pack, for example, uses "A eye" for "AI". The SARA pack uses "friendship" for "frameshift" as well, and ASTRA "baiter" for "beta", among others. If you type a semicolon between several commands you can also have different variations for a command that's giving you trouble. (activate protocol beta;activate protocol baiter;activate protocol bay tar)

I've already been busy on tweaking those oddities. The default 'Speed 50' is heard as 'Speed 15', while 'Set speed to 50%' comes out normal. So I added the short 'Speed 15' to SARA as well. 'Friendship drive' was one I had to drop into the speech dictionary and it comes out without problem.

I did notice that when I moved the webcam to my 2nd monitor (3 monitor setup here) so that I can play a bit more relaxed (got a huge die as footchair here) the distance from me to the mic is too big and at times stuff is not heard right. Guess I'll really have to swap to a headset...

[Captain Sardonic]

Originally posted by DemiGoth:

I watched GeekyGamerGirl on twitch yesterday and she kidna got me into the game. Mostly because of the speech recognition that can be added with VoiceAttack. I realize that's an extra $8 on top ot ED, but looking how she played the game it's certanly worth it

That's awesome, DemiGoth. Only thing I should mention--for those who want to check out her Elite (and other) streams--is that her username is G33kGrrly_Gaming. Her Twitch channel is http://www.twitch.tv/g33kgrrly_gaming; it's an excellent place to learn some of the basics of Elite, and the community is fantastic. They might even have suggestions for how to handle the VA usage.

[Shimaaji]

Originally posted by DemiGoth:

Uhm, did you check the price of the Sennheiser HSP 4? It's over €600 on the Sennheiser site. No way I'll be spending that kind of money on a mic...

I've looked around a bit and I listened to the Turtle Beach XP22 at our local store. The sound is pretty decent for gaming (can't match my BeyerDynamic DT990 at all :D: ) and I might pick it up. It also saves money on the energy bill that I don't need to have the amplifier on while playing as well...

I also looked for the gooseneck mics, but I can't find them in The Netherlands, and the clip-on I could find only one for €20. As you said, looks like very few people are looking for a single head mic...

Yea, that's why I wrote "(...) and then buy a cheaper one" after mentioning the HSP 4. ;)

But that product category is indeed far too under-represented on the market.

For gooseneck mics: Here in Germany I've bought a gooseneck and the parts to fix it to my desk as well as a clip to fit in all kinds of microphones from a conrad.de . In case you have a similar company in The Netherlands you might find something there. However if you can live with a good gaming headset that's of course fine, too. :)

The problem with owning headphones like the BeyerDynamic DT990 is, that headsets that have headphones of similar quality are usually only sold with microphones that are 'on the same level' (studio equipment), which would likely mean you'd end up in the 300 EUR category for a headset offering a sound quality entirely equivalent to your headphones. So I suppose finding something you're content with is a success in itself. :D

[Alexa Reizla]

Originally posted by Urisk:

Originally posted by DemiGoth:

Uhm, did you check the price of the Sennheiser HSP 4? It's over €600 on the Sennheiser site. No way I'll be spending that kind of money on a mic...

I've looked around a bit and I listened to the Turtle Beach XP22 at our local store. The sound is pretty decent for gaming (can't match my BeyerDynamic DT990 at all ) and I might pick it up. It also saves money on the energy bill that I don't need to have the amplifier on while playing as well...

I also looked for the gooseneck mics, but I can't find them in The Netherlands, and the clip-on I could find only one for €20. As you said, looks like very few people are looking for a single head mic...

Yea, that's why I wrote "(...) and then buy a cheaper one" after mentioning the HSP 4. ;)

But that product category is indeed far too under-represented on the market.

For gooseneck mics: Here in Germany I've bought a gooseneck and the parts to fix it to my desk as well as a clip to fit in all kinds of microphones from a conrad.de . In case you have a similar company in The Netherlands you might find something there. However if you can live with a good gaming headset that's of course fine, too. :)

The problem with owning headphones like the BeyerDynamic DT990 is, that headsets that have headphones of similar quality are usually only sold with microphones that are 'on the same level' (studio equipment), which would likely mean you'd end up in the 300 EUR category for a headset offering a sound quality entirely equivalent to your headphones. So I suppose finding something you're content with is a success in itself. :D

Yeah, the BeyerDynamic DT990 is one that's not easely rivalled by any headphone or headset. Therefor I've looked around a but and ditched the idea of the Turtle Beach and instead decided to go for the Sennheiser PC 320 G4ME. It seems to have a good range (got excellent hearing) and isn't overly expensive either...