Troubleshooting "System property mbrola.base is undefined. Will not use MBROLA voices" when converting text to speech with JSAPI

Question

I'm getting the following error:

System property "mbrola.base" is undefined.  Will not use MBROLA voices.

import javax.speech.*;
import javax.speech.synthesis.*;
import java.util.Locale;

public class HelloWorld
 {

public static void main(String args[]) 
{

try 
{
// Create a synthesizer for English

Synthesizer synth = Central.createSynthesizer(
new SynthesizerModeDesc(Locale.ENGLISH));

// Get it ready to speak

synth.allocate();

synth.resume();

// Speak the “Hello world” string

synth.speakPlainText("Hello", null);

// Wait till speaking is done

synth.waitEngineState(Synthesizer.QUEUE_EMPTY);

// Clean up

synth.deallocate();

} 
catch (Exception e)
 {
e.printStackTrace();
}

}

}

@user481404 - FYI, the button with ones and zeroes on it helps format any code that you put in your question properly. — Jagmag, Oct 20 '10 at 09:00
@user481404 - Also, using capitals is usually considered rude! — Jagmag, Oct 20 '10 at 09:01

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Dec 01 '12 at 23:29

For those who are still struggling with this one, here's how I got it to work on Windows in a plain notepad, no Eclipse involved.

I went to http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/mbrola.html and downloaded 2 packages under downloads of binary voices: PC/Windows and PC/DOS
unzip it all and put PC/Windows binary in the same directory as PC/DOS executable mbrola.exe. Please note mbrola.exe didn't work for me b/c it's 16-bit (go figure!), but i found this link:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/freetts/forums/forum/137669/topic/1219083
which had a zip file with 2 binaries, one from 2004 that appeared to work on my 64-bit Windows.
Then I downloaded the voices on mbrola website up above in section 1 I wanted a female voice so I grabbed us1 and put the whole folder into the same directory as
PC/Windows binaries above and PC/DOS executable.
In the code i specified the following: System.setProperty("mbrola.base", "C:\devsrc\main\Head-Rev\src\java\freetts-1.2\mbrola"); voice=vm.getVoice("mbrola_us1");

And I got my female voice. I didn't need any compile or runtime flags.

Hope this helps someone.

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 05 '14 at 13:02

2

For me :

I downloaded Mbrola Tool
I downloaded Mbrola Base folder
Downloaded the required voice from Getting the MBROLA Voices section of Mbrola Site
Unziped the file from step 3 to the unziped directory got from step2 .
Set property "mbrola.base" by using : System.setProperty("mbrola.base", "E:\\xxx\\xxx\\mbrxxx");

answered Feb 05 '14 at 13:02

Sujith PS

4,776
3
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Please what we must download from the step 3 and where we must install it Please ? – Abderrahim Jan 05 '17 at 10:21
1

Site : http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/mbrola.html Scroll down , and download any voice that you want. – Sujith PS Jan 06 '17 at 07:11
for the mbrola base file should we put it somewhere? :D – gumuruh Dec 30 '17 at 03:02

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 25 '15 at 08:06

Works on Windows Systems for setting the mbrola.base: - set environment variable "MBROLA_HOME" in the windows os - use this code snippet to set the property mbrola.base

public class FreeTTSVoice {

private static String path = System.getenv("MBROLA_HOME");
//  System.out.println(path);  

public FreeTTSVoice(){
    System.setProperty("mbrola.base", path);
    listAllVoices();
}

public static void listAllVoices() {
    System.out.println("All voices available:");        
    VoiceManager voiceManager = VoiceManager.getInstance();
    Voice[] voices = voiceManager.getVoices();
    for (int i = 0; i < voices.length; i++) {
        System.out.println("    " + voices[i].getName()
                           + " (" + voices[i].getDomain() + " domain)");
    }

}

...

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Jun 11 '15 at 05:33

Because I used maven repository for mbrola instead of downloading it, I had to override this file in my java project: com.sun.speech.freetts -> internal_voices.txt and to add there:

# Uncomment to allow MBROLA voices:
de.dfki.lt.freetts.en.us.MbrolaVoiceDirectory

score 0 · Answer 5 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:27

0

Your code needs MBROLA app which is in the system. So you need to tell your application that MBROLA is here:

From command line or eclipse launch configuration: -Dmbrola.base=/location/to/mbrola OR
System.setProperty("mbrola.base", Morbola.class.getName()) and put the mbrola JAR is the classpath.

See this similar question

(You can use any one of the solution)

edited May 23 '17 at 10:27

Community

1
1

answered Oct 20 '10 at 09:05

zengr

38,346
37
130
192

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Oct 31 '16 at 10:51

I am using ubuntu If you are using windows you will required only step 1 and 2 .

Created a folder called mbrola 1. put downloaded mbrola-base for my operating system linux to it 2. put downloaded us1, us2, us3 extracted folders to this folder 3. Install the mbrola in ubuntu by command line. sudo apt-get istall mbrola

After installation use this commad to check where your files has located
dpkg -L mbrola

Copied /usr/bin/mbrola file to the above mbrola folder
Update the program with the path to above program System.setProperty("mbrola.base", "/home/ngs/INCUBATOR/egg-8/libries/MBROLA/mbrola");

Now it should work

Troubleshooting "System property mbrola.base is undefined. Will not use MBROLA voices" when converting text to speech with JSAPI

6 Answers6