AWS Text-To-Speech

Command-line tool to convert a text file of any size to speech using the AWS Polly API.

Requirements / Installation

• Node.js/npm v6+
• ffmpeg
• An Amazon/AWS account

You can then install the package globally:

$ npm install aws-tts -g

You'll also need to get your AWS access keys and configure your machine with your credentials.

Usage

$ aws-tts [inputfile] outputfile [options]

Example:

# Using a text file as the input, changing the default voice, and specifying the AWS keys.
$ aws-tts test.txt test.mp3 --voice Brian --access-key ABCDEFG --secret-key hwl500CZygitV91n

# Passing a string of text as the input.
$ echo "Hello world! How are you?" | aws-tts test.mp3

Standard arguments:

• inputfile is the text file you want to convert to speech. It should be encoded as UTF-8. If excluded, aws-tts will read in the text from stdin.
• outfile is the filename to save the audio to.

Options:

• --access-key KEY -- AWS access key ID
• --ffmpeg BINARY -- Path to the ffmpeg binary (defaults to the one in PATH)
• --format FORMAT -- Target audio format (mp3, ogg_vorbis, or pcm) (default mp3)
• --lexicon NAME -- Apply a stored pronunciation lexicon. Can be specified multiple times.
• --region REGION -- AWS region to send requests to (default us-east-1)
• --sample-rate RATE -- Audio frequency, in hertz. See the API docs for valid values.
• --secret-key KEY -- AWS secret access key
• --throttle SIZE -- Number of simultaneous requests allowed against the AWS API (default 5)
• --type TYPE -- Type of input text (text or ssml) (default text)
• --voice VOICE -- Voice to use for the speech (default Joanna). See the API docs for the full list of voices. You can also test out the voices in the AWS console.

What It Does

• Splits the text into the maximum size allowed by the AWS API (1500 characters).
• Compresses the white space inside the text to minimize the AWS cost.
• Uses your AWS credentials in ~/.aws/credentials.
• Calls the AWS API (in a throttled manner) to get each text part converted to audio.
• Combines the audio together into a single file.

Troubleshooting

• Make sure Node.js is working. Running node --version on the command line should give a version of v6.0.0 or higher.
• Make sure ffmpeg is installed. Running ffmpeg -version on the command line should give you the version information.
• Make sure you can connect to AWS normally. Going to https://polly.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/v1/speech (or whatever AWS region you're using) should give you a "Missing Authentication Token" message. You can use the AWS CLI tool to check your configuration -- installing that and running aws sts get-caller-identity should return your user info.
• Run export DEBUG=* first (Linux or Mac) to turn on debugging output. On Windows you'll need to use set DEBUG=* (command prompt) or $env:DEBUG = "*" (PowerShell).

Contributing

Pull requests and suggestions are welcome. Create a new issue to report a bug or suggest a new feature.

Please add tests and maintain the existing styling when adding and updating the code. Run npm run lint to lint the code.

Small Print

Copyright 2017 Eric Heikes.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.

This project is not affiliated with Amazon.