Thread: need guidance: Creating own voice files.

I have created my own voice file to get rid of the irritating re-calculating prompts. What I have done so far is to use the normal Garmin English_American.vpn file and recorded new wav files. My current issue is that I can only name my new voice the same and replace the original one in the unit.

What I really would like to do is to leave the English_American.vpn intact on the unit and to rename my personal voice and upload that. Problem is that the unit then does not pick my file up. I suspect that I need to also change other parameters to be able to do so.

Any help or ideas on this?

@raycomp
Usually the pre-compiled novelty voices found on the internet (eg governator) are based on English_American_.vpn and should be so named (Note: it's '*_.vpn', English_American.vpn won't work i think) and therefore as you've found two voices named the same won't both work.

Renaming to another unused voice might work and often does but with unexpected wrong prompts sometimes. Unless you've actually replaced that voice's correct prompts with your own custom recordings from the start as roger1009 suggested.

Because you replaced the American sound files, only it's original name will work for sure with your custom prompts in the right place, and I've found that even renaming to English_British_.vpn can have problems or just won't work (not the Borat [kazakh] one though 'coz it was compiled using the Brit original i think).

It might be easier to start again using a different unused voice file as a basis if you find simple renaming doesn't work. Or you could just use the Pommie one for guidance if you get sick of your own voice.

If you use Garmin Voice Studio (Free Software) you can create your (non TTS) voice from Scratch.

[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]

(OR Maybe I'm Missing Something Here) ??

No Boet, I don't think you're missing a thing. Maybe it's us that is I haven't mucked around with Voice Studio for quite a while but i think it only does much the same thing as turboccc's Non-TTS VoiceEditor, that is it uses the basic non-tts voices as a basis to record your new wav files to, does it?? If that's the case it doesn't matter which one he's used. But even if he can use Garmin VE and save as something else to still have his normal English American voice, he's still got the same work to do over as using Non-TTS VoiceEditor with a different voice 'shell' i think.....