Synthesizing Speech – Using Speech Synthesis Markup Language SSML (Part 3)

Windows built-in text-to-speech engine accepts plain text and turns it into a voice, but it can also be controlled using “Speech Synthesis Markup Language”. This way, you can fine-tune the voice, control pitch, and also language.

Windows ships with localized speech engines, so controlling the language is a good idea. Else, your (English) text may sound weird on a (German) system.

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.speech
$synthesizer = New-Object System.Speech.Synthesis.SpeechSynthesizer

$Text = '
<speak version="1.0" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/synthesis" 
    xml:lang="en-US">
    <voice xml:lang="en-US">
    <prosody rate="1">
        <p>Normal pitch. </p>
        <p><prosody pitch="x-high"> High Pitch. </prosody></p>
    </prosody>
    </voice>
</speak>
'
$synthesizer.SpeakSsml($Text)

Depending on the installed speech engines, you can even switch between languages now:

Add-Type -AssemblyName System.speech
$synthesizer = New-Object System.Speech.Synthesis.SpeechSynthesizer

$Text1 = '
<speak version="1.0" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/synthesis" 
    xml:lang="en-US">
    <voice xml:lang="en-US">
    <prosody rate="1">
        <p>Normal pitch. </p>
        <p><prosody pitch="x-high"> High Pitch. </prosody></p>
    </prosody>
    </voice>
</speak>
'

$text2 = '<speak version="1.0" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/synthesis" 
    xml:lang="en-US">
    <voice xml:lang="de-de">
    <prosody rate="1">
        <p>Normale Tonhöhe. </p>
        <p><prosody pitch="x-high"> Höhere Tonlage. </prosody></p>
    </prosody>
    </voice>
</speak>'

$synthesizer.SpeakSsml($Text1)
$synthesizer.SpeakSsml($Text2)

If you’d like to mix languages in one text, you can also resort to the old COM object “Sapi.SpVoice”. This is taken from the previous tip:

$text = "<LANG LANGID=""409"">Your system will restart now!</LANG>
<LANG LANGID=""407""><PITCH MIDDLE = '2'>Oh nein, das geht nicht!</PITCH></LANG>
<LANG LANGID=""409"">I don't care baby</LANG>
<LANG LANGID=""407"">Ich rufe meinen Prinz! Herbert! Tu was!</LANG>
"

$speaker = New-Object -ComObject Sapi.SpVoice
$speaker.Rate = 0
$speaker.Speak($text)

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