Compatible text to speech software for Dorico and Cubase?

Hello everybody, I’m happy to have switched over to Dorico! Here’s a question though: I live with many impairments including visual deficits. Is there any text to Speech software that works with Dorico/cubase? It seems that my mac text to speech doesn’t seem to work and neither does Claro. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, and I definitely look forward to using this product as I compose my new projects!

That’s a tough question. (I don’t know the answer)

If there are few responses to this, I’ll move it to the Dorico forum, which might give it more visibility to the right users.

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Thank you so much!

Can I ask exactly what sort of functionality you’re looking for? Do you want interface text to be spoken when you access it?

MacOS’s VoiceOver seems to be a partial success, as it speaks menu headings and submenu titles, but not the menu items themselves. I don’t know whether that’s a bug in Dorico or a limitation of the Qt software that Dorico uses (to code the interface once for both Mac and Windows).

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Hi, thank you for taking the time to answer this question. Because of my visual impairments, I more or less need everything on the screen read to me so I know what I am clicking/what my option are for choosing. Yes, voiceover and Claro works sometimes so I use it when I can, but it is not able to read to me set instructions for instance and I’m sure there are other things it is not reading to me as well but I can’t see it so I don’t know what they are. College will have taken in many years to complete, and the disability resource center has had to turn everything (textbooks, worksheets, etc) into audio files so I can listen to them and learn information I need to know. I was just curious if there was a similar solution out there for Dorico/cubase! I hope there is something I can use!

I’m not sure that there’s been an official update on this in the past few years.

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While not great, thank you for letting me know.

I came back after surviving a Glasgow scale 3, severe traumatic brain injury in 2013… One of the deficits I live with now are visual impairments, I am so thankful that the structure of my eyes are NOT the main problem with my vision, but the cognitive processing of words instead. I can no longer really read and retain. This, exacerbated by my unexplainable sleep deprivation /exhaustion is very limiting in my life. I am so thankful for the odd day where I have the energy to do more over the course of a day, and I am optimistic that my follow up treatments the summer help eliviate this problem to some extent! The good news is that you never stop healing from an injury like this, so over time, I will keep improving.

In the meantime, I escape my situation by immersing myself in playing piano and composing.

l will try and figure out how to listen to videos and remember what they tell me and listen to the typed explanations for the time being. I do hope that this problem is remedied for Dorico and cubase so that these programs are made more accessible to a wider audience of users.

It is Ironic that I had to switch from Sib to Dorico; I just could not remember how to use that program and it overwhelms me. Dorico is much more user friendly from what I have managed to figure out so far! :slight_smile:

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A very interesting comment. I use both programs a lot and I find Dorico much more language-intensive. In Sib I do more things visually with less need for English descriptions and labels. On the other hand, though Dorico has many more options and settings, it is easier to find them because of the logical organization.

Our sincere sympathies for your condition, and hopes for your continued recovery!

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Maybe that’s why I prefer Doricowith my disability; I really can’t do things visually and understand them on computers anymore, and trying to figure out my Sebelius product makes me rather sick and is migraine inducing with the amount of looking I have to do compared to just intuitive clicking and listening, if that makes any sense, haha.

Thank you so much for the well wishes, and I look forward to figuring out my own way of mastering the Steinberg products, be it with private lessons/tutorials or listening to YouTube videos :slight_smile: (I definitely advocate for eventually making the products more accessible overall though!)

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I would think the new remote interface would be a good opportunity to enable this. Back when I was just programming in the early days of voice recognition I got into the whole thing, I don’t quite recall but I’m pretty sure Dragon by Nuance has an API - yeah here it is. So without looking at it in theory I would expect you could write a module for Dorico using the Dorico API, which requires approval from Steinberg I believe.

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