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

[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!!!

 

[red97xj]

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]

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]

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]

Is there any free ones that sound better than stock?

 

[chrlswltrs]

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]

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

Thanks, I almost missed that part!

 

[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!

 

[babirusa]

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]

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]

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]

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

 

[togethersjg]

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]

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]

Just found this:
if you look on your SD card in the directory [sdcard]\Android\data\com.google.android.apps.maps\testdata\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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.