@hackage mmsyn7ukr0.16.0.0

A program and a library that can be used as a simple basic interface to some SoX functionality or for producing the approximately Ukrainian speech with your own recorded voice (actually it produces the needed sound representations).

The program starts with CAUTION to be responsible for usage and to use it personally. Then the program guides you through the creating and using your Ukrainian "voice". Please, use it carefully. After the execution you can execute mmsyn7h program to produce some records with your newly created "voice". During the execution of the last one you can choose whether to remove (clean) all the created sound files in the current directory for security reasons. If the programs terminate by interruption (or generally) it is a good practice to remove the current directory sound files manually.

    ***** CAUTION! *****
    ====================

"The possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility."

                                      (William Lamb)

The program mmsyn7ukr produces the "voice" represented as an ordered set of sounds each of which corresponds (represents) one of the Ukrainian sounds so that using them together by mmsyn7h program can be a background for sound synthesis. If you pronounce sounds as the appropriate Ukrainian ones, close to proper Ukrainian speech with your own voice. This program approximates your voice with a sequence of recorded separate sounds with your control over the duration of the sounds. They are then precessed by the SoX binaries already installed in the system to produce the needed sounds and then you can pronounce some Ukrainian text with your recorded "voice" using mmsyn7h program. In-between you can do some additional processing as you need. Moreover, you can substitute whatever sounds you like (consider being sensible) instead of your own voice.

Be aware that if somebody can get access to the sounds of your voice or to the recorded speech (except you) then this possibility itself creates security issues and concerns. So, please, do NOT give access to such records to anybody else except you.

In such a case, the program is for personal usage of every user ONLY!

Being given as an advice in such a case, run the program in the empty directory with the current user permissions to write, read and search and provide some proofs and evidence that nobody else can even read the files in the directory. May be, it is better to execute the program being in the directory located in the RAM, then consequently wait until the program ends and then reboot the computer.

If the program ends earlier, you must then remove (better wipe) the directory contents. No other users should have access to the computer after you have begun to run the program and have not deleted (or better wiped) the contents of the directory. Please, be aware, that there are possibilities to read sensitive information from the drives after you have deleted the files in a usual way. You can use wiping for better security. Besides, if somebody can get access to the memory of the computer or to the directory contents where you run the program or (may be) to the temporary files created by SoX or to the drive where you run the program (not in the RAM, or may be in it) then your voice can be stolen and / or used inappropriately. Use all possible precautions and measures to avoid the situation.

Be aware also that the given by the program technology (or documentation for it in any form) of the voice processing can be improved so there is NO guarantees that the given technology or its successors cannot be used in violating your voice identity to produce from some available voice records the voice for the inappropriate usage. Therefore, better is to prove your identity not only with the solely voice itself but with some additional independent sources and measures.

The author of the program accordingly to the LICENSE (MIT) does not response for any possible issues, but by this notification tries to intent you to be aware of some possible issues.

    ***** Command Line Arguments *****
    ==================================

If you specify as a first command line argument one of the numbers below the program behaves as follows:

-1 -> the program does not reduce noise, it only resamples
   the audio to the needed 22050 Hz and adjusts the amplitude.

If you specified something else then the program will reduce the noise using the created noise profile. If the first character is one of the following, then the program will do the following actions besides. After the first character (without any spaces) you can specify the level of noise reduction by 2 next digits. They are treated by the program as a fractional part of the number "0." ++ "..." so that the last number is passed to the sox as an amount parameter in the "noisered" effect (the greater number gives more aggressive noise reduction with the default one equal to 0.5). For more information, please, refer to the SoX documentation.

Therefore, if you specify as a first symbol in the first command line argument one of the next numbers, then the program will behave as follows:

0 -> after the noise reduction the program only resamples 
  the audio to the needed 22050 Hz and adjusts the amplitude;
  
1 -> after the noise reduction the program additionally 
  to the 0-processing truncates the silence from the beginning 
   and the end of the audio to the level given by the second 
    command line parameter;
    
2 -> after the noise reduction the program additionally to 
  the 1-processing applies a double band-reject filter to 
   the audio (SoX "sinc" effect);
   
3 -> after the noise reduction the program additionally to 
  the 2-processing applies fade-in and fade-out effects to 
   the audio;
   
_ -> is the same as 3. 

If you specify at the beginning of a second command line argument one of the numbers below the program behaves as follows:

0 -> if the first character in the first command line argument is greater or equal to 1,
  then the program trims the sound at the beginning and at the end of it.
    It firstly normalizes the sound (so its maximum amplitude is equal to 1)
      and then applies trimming. The parts of the audio at the beginning
        and at the end of the sound, which amplitudes in such a case are
          less than 0.01 are trimmed and the resulting sound data are processed
            further. 
   
1 -> if the first character in the first command line argument is greater or equal to 1,
  then the program trims the sound at the beginning and at the end of it.
    It firstly normalizes the sound (so its maximum amplitude is equal to 1)
      and then applies trimming. The parts of the audio at the beginning
        and at the end of the sound, which amplitudes in such a case are
          less than 0.02 are trimmed and the resulting sound data are processed
            further. 
   
2 -> if the first character in the first command line argument is greater or equal to 1,
  then the program trims the sound at the beginning and at the end of it.
    It firstly normalizes the sound (so its maximum amplitude is equal to 1)
      and then applies trimming. The parts of the audio at the beginning
        and at the end of the sound, which amplitudes in such a case are
          less than 0.04 are trimmed and the resulting sound data are processed
            further. 
   
3 -> if the first character in the first command line argument is greater or equal to 1,
  then the program trims the sound at the beginning and at the end of it.
    It firstly normalizes the sound (so its maximum amplitude is equal to 1)
      and then applies trimming. The parts of the audio at the beginning
        and at the end of the sound, which amplitudes in such a case are
          less than 0.08 are trimmed and the resulting sound data are processed
            further. 
   
_ -> if the first character in the first command line argument is greater or equal to 1,
  then the program trims the sound at the beginning and at the end of it.
    It firstly normalizes the sound (so its maximum amplitude is equal to 1)
      and then applies trimming. The parts of the audio at the beginning
        and at the end of the sound, which amplitudes in such a case are
          less than 0.04 are trimmed and the resulting sound data are processed
            further. So effectively it is the same as 2 (the default value).

After the number as its ending you can specify the letter 's' to shorten the printed informational messages by the program. More information is further below.

If you specify the third command line argument, it must be a list of Strings that can be obtained by executing the mmsyn7s program. The program will create just that non-silent representations for the Ukrainian sounds, which are given. The list must be sorted.

       ***** More Information *****
       ============================

You can create a sound in either a 'sharp' mode or in a usual mode. The first one means that the program does not check whether the specified duration for recording the initial sound data is greater than 3 seconds. In such a case the duration can be much smaller. This mode needs more mastership in interacting with a program. For speech synthesis (as an advice) use this mode for the very short sounds (like the sound representation for "ь") or for the sounds, you can articulate for a long time continually (for example, vowels and some consonants). The 'sharp' mode delegates the responsibility for the sound to much broader extent to the user, so for a beginning it is not recommended (though you can give it a try).

       ***** Noise Reduction *****
       ===========================

At the beginning the program also creates a noise profile (once per execution). It is now used to reduce the noise level for the recorded sound representations. By default, the program uses the default SoX noise reducing settings with a hope that for you they can be sufficient. You can change the level of reduction by the first command line argument as it is written above. If you see that the program removes some sensitive and important sound data from the recorded by it sound representations, then you can specify as a first command line argument "-1". The program in such a case will create a noise profile as usual, but will not reduce the noise at all.

       ***** Ukrainian Localization *****
       ==================================

Please, before using the program check that uk_UA.UTF8 localization is present in your system as one of the system locales. Otherwise, the program will possibly (in some cases surely) cycle. In such a case, you can terminate it in a usual way by sending interruption signals.

       ***** SoXBasics and SoXBasics1 *****
       ====================================

The library have two similar modules with partially overlapping function names (so it is recommended to import them qualified). SoXBasics1 functions after creation of the resulting file try to replace by it the initial one and to clean the space from the temporary files. This can be helpful in writing sequentially applied functions but needs somewhat more resources.

       ***** Test Sound Duration *****
       ===============================

You can now test the sound duration needed as a 0.5 second pause before the program can record every non-silent sound. This pause is caused not by the program itself, but by some sound recording equipment specific time needed to normalize the behaviour of the recording (it depends on your equipment, but for a wide range of possible its configuration the pause for 0.5 second is valid). To test a needed 0.5 second duration of the pause, you can use as a first command line argument "-t" and the program will only play the test sound with just that duration. Remember its duration -- it is the duration of the needed pause before you can start your recording of the every sound representation.

       ***** Specifying the Pause before SoX Actually Starts Recording *****
       =====================================================================

You can specify the pause before SoX actually starts recording of the sound data for every sound representation. For this, please, specify after the needed ratio a '#' sign and after it the needed duration of the pause in seconds as a Double value. The program will try to use it. If not specified or not properly specified, the program uses a default one (compatible with the previous versions) equal to 0.5 second pause.

       ***** The Possibility to Shorten the Printed Information *****
       ==============================================================

You can shorten the information printed during the program execution by specifying as the last symbol in the second command line argument an 's'. In such a case, the program omits printing the much of its informational messages that are used mostly for the learning to deal with the program. If you specified the second command line argument without the 's' at the end, then the program prints all the additional information that is considered important.