Basic text-to-speech with mod_flite

Sometimes you need a fast, simple, and free text-to-speech implementation for some quick testing. In FreeSWITCH you can use mod_flite for simple TTS testing. While it is not suitable for professional, production environments, it meets the criteria of being quick, easy, and free.

Getting ready

Other than a phone and a text editor there is not much you need. Keep in mind that on Windows the mod_flite module is pre-built but it is not automatically loaded. On Linux/Unix systems you will need to perform a few steps listed below.

How to do it...

If you are in Windows then skip to step 3. If you have Linux/Unix then follow these steps to enable mod_flite:

1. Open modules.conf in the FreeSWITCH source and uncomment the line with #asr_tts/mod_flite by removing the # at the beginning of the line.

2. Save and exit. Run the install command:

   make mod_flite-install
   

3. If you wish to have mod_flite load by default when FreeSWITCH starts then open conf/autoload_configs/modules.conf...