VBA Code to set SAPI Voice Pitch under Windows Vista

Question

Windows Vista allows you to change the pitch of the single voice provided by going through the Control Panel. Is there a SAPI (Speech Application Programming Interface) speech engine property that can be set in VBA code to change pitch? Below is a VBA code example of how I am using SAPI in an MS Access text-to-speech program I am developing.

Thanks.

 

Set VObj = CreateObject("SAPI.SpVoice")

VObj.Volume = CInt(volumeSetting)

VObj.Speak strText

 

Answer 1

Hello,

I looked at the properties of VObj in VBA (Debug mode, Locals window) - looks like there is none related to pitch. You can set Volume and Rate, other settings are picked up from whatever you do from Control Panel - Sound - (Device). Changes made from Control Panel for pitch have no effect on VObj.

Nadia

Answer 2

Thank you for your response. I was hoping to be able to change the voice, similar to the 3-voice options available in Windows XP. Microsoft Anna speaks well, but its too bad Vista only offers one voice.

Jerry

Answer 3

Actually, Vista offers a range of settings from Control Panel. If you go to Control Panel-Sounds-Speaker-Properties, then on the Enhancements tab you can select Pitch Shift check box and then, using Settings combo box change value to -3 or -4 to have a man's voice. There are also settings for Equalizer, Environment and more.

After doing some research, I found the way to change the pitch in VBA - you can do it using XML tag:

VObj.Speak "<pitch middle = '-10'/>" + strText  'low pitch

VObj.Speak "<pitch middle = '-10'/>" + strText  'high pitch

Look at the http://blogs.msdn.com/b/speech/ to find more about the speech APIs.

In addition, in VBE you can set a Reference to "Microsoft Speech Object Library" and then use its objects in VBA code.

Nadia

 

Answer 4

Thanks for enlightening me with the examples for changing SAPI voice pitch with XML. I tried it and it works.

Jerry

Answer 5

You are welcome,

Nadia