Subject: From: Date:

RE: [ECS] recommended microphone Richard V.C. Tinker Sun, 11 Jul 1999 11:14:07 -0400

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Greetings,

>
> > I think I would consider using the home pbx.  While visiting sir David
> > Kindred in Mary Land I watched as he simply picked up the phone and told
> > HAL to turn on a lamp or give him the weather report.  Since I have a phone
> > in every room I would not want to go to the expense to multiple microphones
> > and an expensive mixer etc, I would go for a telephone link to VR.....
>
> I don't use HAL, I use HomeVoice and a number of Crown PZM11 mics.
> Thought I'd weigh in...
>
> The PZM-11s look a lot like a light switch wall plate (and can mount in a
> normal single gang box).  They use the entire wall as a sounding board and
> are much more sensitive than a PC microphone.  They are also designed to
> pick up voice and as such, cut out low frequencies (HVAC noise,
> compressors, and such) as well as high frequency stuff.  In otherwords,
> they are mostly about picking up only voice spectrum stuff (about 3Khz to
> 10Khz).
>

Actually, the PZM microphones do not do the limiting/compressing of the audio
channel - it picks up EVERYTHING.  It is the limiter/compressor that you got
with your HomeVoice multi-room kit that does the attenuation of the frequency
range outside voice and adds the 'punch' to the voice frequency range.

> I use a Rolls 8 input mic mixer - cost about $250 and mixes 8 mics.  A 2
> channel mic mixer at RatShack of similar quality is about $100, so this
> really isnt a bad deal.  This is the unit HomeVoice "recommends" as well.
>

It is a good mixer, but it is not an automatic mixer (more in a minute) -
furthermore, it is modified by Rolls for use with their compressor/limiter
(which means the HomeVoice multi-room kit) such that you lose half of your
microphone phantom power voltage and can only gate two of the input channels.

> I also use a few Rolls 2 channel gate/limitors.  This is useful when you
> have a number of mics because even if they are all in "quite" rooms, the
> collective background noise can get high enough to make the voice
> recognition software have some problems.  I'd recommend any install over 2
> mics have one unit of these for every 2 mics (one unit can handle two
> mics) and they should be configured so the mics go into the gate/limitor
> and then the output of that goes into the mic mixer - not the other way
> around.
>

A gate is very important, which is why only having two is not very good.  Each
input should be gated, and preferably against the other inputs so that only one
can be open at a time.  An automatic mixer provides the microphone mixing
feature as well as the gating with priority.  In other words, if somebody
starts talking in one microphone, the others are closed off.  When silence is
heard (or not heard more correctly) at the microphone with the now open gate,
then after a period of time is resets and now the other inputs are able to be
activated.  It works great.  If you want to use a cheap mixer, then there are
microphones where each microphone has a gate, and a guy is selling them at
http://www.iAutomate.com.  They do not, as I mentioned, prevent several
microphones from being activated at the same time, but they do prevent
background noise from activating the microphone with the built in gate.  (They
also have some limited compression in them.)

> The idea of mics with built in gate/limitors sounds very  attractive.  The
> price though seems a bit high (though I guess it's comparable with a
> PZM-11 and 1/2 a gate/limitor).  I've not yet tried one out.
>

Sounds like that one I mentioned has already been discussed and I missed it...
Oops.

> The ability to issue voice commands anywhere in a room by just speaking is
> really great.  This is an area that HomeVoice seems to handle well -
> efficiant/accurate voice recognition in open-air mic configurations.  The
> software is very forgiving without causing false recognitions.
>

Yes, so long as you don't ask a house guest to try to turn on a light...  :-o

> HAL says they support open air mics too and that they have installs, but
> I've personally not encountered anyone succesfully using it with open air
> mics.  I don't mean to discredit them in anyway, but since I've not heard
> anyone report success, I have heard from a number of public posts of
> success with HomeVoice, I've not had a chance myself and the fact that HAL
> is marketed toward the phone handset crowd, I'd be sure to be able to test
> a reasonable install before buying in.  Make sure it works for you - get
> samples of the hardware and give it a try.  I'd love to hear back on
> peoples success with it.  Personally, the idea of having to find and
> activate a phone to just turn on a light seems like a step backward, after
> you get used to just talking "out loud".
>

You don't hear about it because this is an ECS user's list, not a HAL user's
list.  For one, contact the dealer at http://www.homecontrolinc.com and he can
give you a few customers that talk to their house from anywhere in the house.
His customers have been written up in an American Express magazine.  We have
another user, Don Marquardt (if I spelled the last name correctly) that
recently had 10 hours of recording done at his home for an HGTV show to be
aired in November.  He has already written up his home at the HomeToys site
too.  There are plenty of examples.

We provide both methods of input, microphone and telephone, because we know
that not everybody is building a new home and can run microphone wires.  The
thing about us compared to HomeVoice, however, is that HomeVoice CANNOT do the
telephone!!

> One thing - there are real limits to what is useful to control via voice.
> Beyond just controlling lights and such, I also tried to use HomeVoice to
> allow me to play albums from my CD jukebox (since switched to MP3) in the
> house (I've got speakers/mics in many rooms).  Problem is, you just can't
> remember the exact titles to every album or track (well, I couldn't at
> least with 100 titles up).  You'd get close, but no cigar. That sort of
> thing seems better handled with other interfaces (touchscreens, etc).
> Simple commands - like "stop", "pause", "next track" and such work well
> though.
>

I agree.  We do not believe that you should only use voice to control your home
either.  The voice interface with a CD jukebox or MP3 software would work great
for things such as "Play Jazz in the Living Room" instead of memorizing a
particular artist or album title.

> Hope that wasn't too much.  It's defaintly more than asked for and not
> 100% relavant to ECS (I've not had any experience with ECSs VR engine),
> but for someone getting into voice control, I figure the more experiences
> heard from, the better.
>
> Gerry Duprey                     EMAIL: gerry@msage.com
> Micro Sage Software Systems      VOICE: (734) 663-0444
> 130 South First Street             WWW: http://www.msage.com/~gerry
> Ann Arbor, MI 48104 USA
>

This is true - a lot of other product information for the ECS list, but... I
love ECS and think that Mark is a FANTASTIC programmer.  So getting back to the
original content, let me point out that the reason also that you don't see HAL
advertising hardware is because we do not resell the hardware.  If you notice
what HomeVoice sells the Applied Digital ir-X board for, you'll see that over
$200 is added to it.  Worthington Distribution (and other distributors) sell it
for as little as $90 with the TW-523.  What do you think HomeVoice is doing to
the audio equipment then? ...

You need these components to make ECS or HAL voice recognition to work:

1. Good microphones.  Crown PZM-11s (wall mount) or PZM-10s (ceiling mount) are
certainly the industry leaders and deserve it.
2. A mixer.  The mixer simply combines those microphones down to a single input
for the sound board of the PC.
3. Gating.  The preferred location for gating is at each microphone, with an
open gate at one microphone closing down the others.  Gating is simply a method
for detecting an audio level (which you set) that will begin to allow audio to
pass through the gate.
4. Optional compression/limiting:  Compression/Limiting means to take the
undesired audio frequencies and attenuate them, and the desired frequencies are
amplified.  This is not really necessary with the ASR engine that HAL uses, but
your mileage may vary with others.


Regards,



Rick

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