SpeechBot

Text to Speech on IRC

SpeechBot is a (very) simple IRC bot that connects to an IRC server and uses the FreeTTS speech synthesizer to read out loud all channel messages it receives.

Setting Up the SpeechBot

Download the SpeechBot.java file and place it in a directory structure that reflects its package name (org/jibble/speechbot/).

Before you compile SpeechBot, you will need to download the FreeTTS and PircBot libraries.

You will need to have the following JAR files in your lib directory:

cmu_time_awb.jar
cmu_us_kal.jar
cmulex.jar
cmutimelex.jar
en_us.jar
freetts.jar
pircbot.jar

Compiling the Java SpeechBot

You will be able to compile the bot with something like: javac -classpath .;./lib/pircbot.jar;./lib/freetts.jar org/jibble/speechbot/*.java

Running the Java SpeechBot

When you run the SpeechBot, you will have to tell it which server to connect to and which channel to join. For example: java -classpath .;./lib/pircbot.jar;./lib/freetts.jar org.jibble.speechbot.SpeechBot irc.freenode.net #mychannel

Make sure there are no spaces in your directory names, as FreeTTS seems to have trouble reading itself when there is a space in the path. Note that you must use : instead of ; as a classpath separator on Unix/Linux.

The Results

When the SpeechBot is up and running, you will hear it read every channel message it receives, rather like "Jibbler on #pie says: Hello". Modify the source code if you want it to output the speech in different ways.

Use the !send command to get the bot to record a message as a WAV file. The bot will send it to you via DCC file transfer. For example:

<Jibbler> !send how now brown cow

Here's an example ("I like pie"): SpeechBot-1081114233484.wav

Licensing

This software product is OSI Certified Open Source Software, available under the GNU General Public License (GPL). Since the GPL may be too restrictive for use in proprietary applications, a commercial license is also provided.

Purchase a commercial license for this software.

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