Nice sounding Text to Speech voice hiding in my google navigation app?

kanethal · January 1st, 2011, 11:53 PM

Yesterday, I plugged in a navigation destination, and was greeted by a really really smooth, silky british female voice that narrated my trip!? Gave distances in meters/km. The next trip I programmed was back to the stock robot crap! Anyone else ever run into this? The only TTS library that showed up in the settings was pico. Really not sure what to make of this, but I want that silky voice back!!!

red97xj · January 2nd, 2011, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kanethal

Yesterday, I plugged in a navigation destination, and was greeted by a really really smooth, silky british female voice that narrated my trip!? Gave distances in meters/km. The next trip I programmed was back to the stock robot crap! Anyone else ever run into this? The only TTS library that showed up in the settings was pico. Really not sure what to make of this, but I want that silky voice back!!!

you really shouldn't drink and drive!

WoutersJ · January 4th, 2011, 03:20 AM

The nice UK English voice you heard was probably "Victoria" from the SVOX Classic TTS engine. SVOX offers 40 voices in 20 different languages in the Android market. Just search for "svox" or follow this link: Classic Text To Speech Engine - Android app on AppBrain.
The voices sound much more natural than the default "Pico" voices pre-installed on Android. They can be used together with Google Navigation and many other text-to-speech enabled apps.

takeshi · January 4th, 2011, 07:55 AM

Loquendo also has a much more natural sounding TTS engine. Neither are free though (SVOX's engine is free but all voices are pay).

red97xj · January 4th, 2011, 12:53 PM

Is there any free ones that sound better than stock?

chrlswltrs · January 4th, 2011, 01:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WoutersJ

The nice UK English voice you heard was probably "Victoria" from the SVOX Classic TTS engine. SVOX offers 40 voices in 20 different languages in the Android market. Just search for "svox" or follow this link: Classic Text To Speech Engine - Android app on AppBrain.
The voices sound much more natural than the default "Pico" voices pre-installed on Android. They can be used together with Google Navigation and many other text-to-speech enabled apps.

I use this and really like that voice!

It replaces all text to speech on your phone, not just navigation also so it's great.

JimSmith94 · January 8th, 2011, 09:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by takeshi

(SVOX's engine is free but all voices are pay).

Thanks, I almost missed that part!

EXWM · March 18th, 2011, 12:48 PM

Sorry to revive a quite old thread, but I think I'm on the same problem and have no clue... The fact is that I have a navigation standard setup (preinstalled in my froyo lg p500). Spanish setup btw. Until now I've always heard a standard synthesized female voice in navigation. But lately some messages IN THE MIDDLE of a trip are rendered using a softer female voice... Yes, in the same trip I hear two clearly different voices. Have no SVOX, no other TTS engine different than PICO. So what is happening and how can I enable the softer voice permanently? is Navigation rendering some of the messages not using PICO?

Any ideas?

Kind regards!

babirusa · March 18th, 2011, 04:34 PM

I had the same thing happen today. Just one line that was in a clear not overmodulated female voice! Maybe they are phasing in a voice upgrade? I hope so, because it was so much better than the original voice!!

nomarsgirl · March 20th, 2011, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EXWM

Sorry to revive a quite old thread, but I think I'm on the same problem and have no clue... The fact is that I have a navigation standard setup (preinstalled in my froyo lg p500). Spanish setup btw. Until now I've always heard a standard synthesized female voice in navigation. But lately some messages IN THE MIDDLE of a trip are rendered using a softer female voice... Yes, in the same trip I hear two clearly different voices. Have no SVOX, no other TTS engine different than PICO. So what is happening and how can I enable the softer voice permanently? is Navigation rendering some of the messages not using PICO?

Any ideas?

Kind regards!

I have noticed the same thing. Also the "nice" voice doesn't read the street names - it just says turn left or turn right.

I had installed SVOX at one point, but never purchased a voice and do not currently have the engine installed. Very strange.

Rob Eisenmann · May 2nd, 2011, 10:22 AM

Yes, I just took a trip last week from Ohio to GA and used navigation with the Grace SVOX voice. I didnt get Grace, I got the stock voice, and sometimes had a soft voice in the background, exactly as you are describing. My wife and I decided my phone has multiple personalities, since they are two distinctly different voices. We named one Grace (obviously) and the other Jeannie. We were hoping they would not start arguing with each other! If anyone knows a solution, please let me know!!!

larrycl · June 6th, 2011, 11:39 AM

Another "me too". Was using google nav, and in the middle of the trip heard a different voice. Very odd!

June 9th, 2011, 06:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kanethal

Yesterday, I plugged in a navigation destination, and was greeted by a really really smooth, silky british female voice that narrated my trip!? Gave distances in meters/km. The next trip I programmed was back to the stock robot crap! Anyone else ever run into this? The only TTS library that showed up in the settings was pico. Really not sure what to make of this, but I want that silky voice back!!!

Within the PICO engine is the option to change voices. On the Samsung Infuse I can move between German - English UK - English US - Italian; that sort of thing. From the home page try Settings - Voice Input Output - Text to speech settings - Language.

gonzalingui · June 14th, 2011, 08:18 AM

I hear two voices too, I'm using Navigation in Spanish.

I have used it many times that I can say the softer voice is just a pre-recorded voice just like the first Garmin GPS devices.

If you pay attention, all commands (turn-left turn-right) discances (1km, 500m, 200m, 100m) are the same and no street names are heared.

It's a good idea to include those pre-recorded voices in case you don't have any TTS engine installed.

larrycl · July 21st, 2011, 04:13 PM

Just found this:
if you look on your SD card in the directory [sdcard]\Android\data\com.google.android.apps.maps\testdat a\voice,
you will find lots of sub folders filled with .ogg voice files using the "nice" voice.

I wish I knew how to trigger this more generally!

toby1kenobi · March 6th, 2012, 04:57 PM

I'm using the IVONA UK English TTS voice "Amy" and frankly it sounds much better than the voice Google is slipping into Navigation.

Google's voice is quieter, of lower quality and doesn't read the street names. It's coming up more and more regularly and getting really annoying for me.

Is there any way of turning it off?

bosh · March 6th, 2012, 08:09 PM

I've been hearing voices lately too. They tell me to do things.
No one else seems to be able to hear them though.

Lolpoppa · May 7th, 2012, 02:43 PM

Hmmm, no soft and sexy female voice for me...

Out of the blue some bloke gruffly told me to cheer"take the next left." and then buggered off again. Sounded a bit like the guy off the Sygic system if you've tried it.

Google obvs phasing something in...

stuartgw · June 30th, 2012, 06:20 AM

I have recently experience exactly the same random switching of voices in the middle of directions. It's clearly been going on for a long time.
Methinks some not-so-subtle marketing involved here to get us to buy different voices.

alfredjarry69 · June 30th, 2012, 07:14 AM

SVOX is a great website. It's value at least looking at for the no cost interval. At iHear System, SVOX has more performs per audience of any website.

jennyfur · July 14th, 2012, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stuartgw

Methinks some not-so-subtle marketing involved here to get us to buy different voices.

Doubtful. I've noticed over the past few months that every once in awhile I'll get the "nice" voice in the middle of my navigation, and then it goes right back to the robotic voice. But around the update to 4.0.4, ALL of my navigation uses the nice voice now. I think this is just a transition/improvement to future versions of the voice engine. Jelly Bean uses voice for a lot more and it sounds very smooth and conversational... I think we were just stuck in between the old and the new for a bit.