FreeTTS mbrola not able to find path

Question

When I try to use the FreeTTS library I get the error:

Could not validate any MBROLA voices at

Some/Location/That/IThought/Held/mbrola

Make sure you FULLY specify the path to
the MBROLA directory using the mbrola.base
system property.

I'm using System.setProperty("mbrola.base", "Path/here"); to set mbrola.base but I have no idea how to point to the path or set up mbrola. Here's my project setup, I'm using processing.

+SketchBook
++AI
+++Src.pde
+++data
++libraries
+++freetts-1.2
++++lib
+++++mbrola
++++mbrola
+++++mbrola

I'm running windows 8 so idk if that has any effect..

Answer 1

I had the same error, after installing MBROLA FreeTTS ran on my Windows 8 box.

Download MBROLA Files

If you haven't already you will need to download 2 binary and 3 voice zips from MBROLA:

• PC/Windows
• PC/DOS
• us1: American English Female
• us2: American English Male
• us3: American English Male

Then follow the Setting up MBROLA for FreeTTS guide.

Setup MBROLA Voices

Unzip the mbr301d files and copy the folders us1, us2 & us3 into the unzipped mbr301d folder:

Directory of C:\Users\Phil\Downloads\mbr301d

[mbr302a]    
mbrola.exe   
readme.txt
[us1]        
[us2]        
[us3]

Test MBROLA Voices

Test the MBROLA voices from the command prompt:

cd C:\Users\Phil\Downloads\freetts-1.2.2-bin\freetts-1.2
java -Dmbrola.base="C:\Users\Phil\Downloads\mbr301d" -jar lib/mbrola.jar

You should see a description of each voice, e.g:

Name: mbrola_us1
Description: MBROLA Voice us1
Organization: mbrola
Domain: general
Locale: en_US
Style: standard
Gender: FEMALE
Age: YOUNGER_ADULT
Pitch: 180.0
Pitch Range: 22.0
Pitch Shift: 1.0
Rate: 150.0
Volume: 1.0

Test FreeTTS Synthesis

At the command prompt run:

java -Dmbrola.base="C:\Users\Phil\Downloads\mbr301d" -jar lib/freetts.jar -voice kevin16 -dumpAudio 42.wav -text forty two
42.wav