How can I customize the speech on the 7330?

The 7330 has a built-in library of about 1,600 words that were created by professional announcer Sean Caldwell (www.seancaldwell.com).  In addition, custom recordings of words and phrases can be created. The 7330 has storage for up to 2,000 additional sound files totaling 13 minutes of playback time. 

You can contract with Sean if you want additional words or phrases in the same voice as the built-in vocabulary (he's a ham and offers favored pricing to 7330 owners). Or, you can create your own words with a PC and a sound editor such as Audacity. The resulting files are loaded into the controller via the serial port. So, you can end up with a combination of Sean's words and your own, and you can record over Sean's words if you wish. 

Of course, stringing together words sounds somewhat mechanical and never sounds quite as good as recording entire sentences. Many customers record their announcements using local talent; 13 minutes is plenty of recording time to inform listeners about hamfests, meetings, dues, nets, and so on. Chapter 23 of the 7330 User's Manual has instructions for using Audacity.  Here is a web site with instructions for using Audacity to create voice prompt files.

Recording Your Own Speech

Start Audacity.  Before you start recording, set the project defaults as described on page 23-15 of the 7330 manual and the device setup on page 23-16.  Now you can make the recording. 

FYI, we document how to use version 2.0.5, but newer versions are available.  Check here:

https://www.audacityteam.org/download/

Our instructions might not exactly match your version, but they will get you close.  Our instructions start on page 23-13.

You should edit the recording that you made.  What I do is delete the quiet at each end of the recording.  I also increase the level so there is a little clipping.  This increases the voice to fill the audio range and sound "normal" on the controller, at the same level as the 7330 voice library.  See Example 1 starting on page 23-17 for how to do this.

You will export the file in 8-bit raw uLaw.  Once you export the file, you build the Custom Audio Library as described on page 23-7.

After the library is built, using SBOOT (see page 8-18) you can save it to the flash memory of the controller as described on page 8-22.  Save it to location 4, the CUSTOM library location.  After you exit SBOOT returning to the 7330 repeater program, the words are loaded and you can add your customer words to a message and listen to them. 

 

 

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