# Speech Customization The Astromech Vocalizer features customization options for creating a unique droid: ### Vocabulary The smallest building blocks of the vocalizer's speech are called phonemes. The Astromech Vocalizer lets users shape the droid's vocabulary by prioritizing or deprioritizing phonemes by category. This can produce a droid that communicates exclusively in beeps, or a droid that never whistles or chirps. ### Pitch Pitch shifting in the Astromech Vocalizer is achieved through a formant-preserving pitch shifting algorithm. This technique is significantly more advanced than traditional pitch shifting methods and produces a more natural voice. A crude pitch shifter simply retimes a sound. This has the side effect of altering the sound's duration (think fast-forward on a cassette tape). An improved pitch shifter alters pitch without altering the sound's duration. However, it also shifts the formant, which is like resizing the vocal tract. This makes a voice sound like it's coming from a very small or very large creature. The pitch shifting algorithm used by the Astromech Vocalizer shifts the pitch independently of the formant. The result is a voice that, when shifted upward, sounds like a regular astromech who happens to have a high voice, as opposed to a miniature creature with a tiny vocal tract. {% hint style="info" %} On the embedded platform, each vocalizer software file contains one pitch. The .hex file you choose to install during [software setup](broken://pages/HW4UCQIYlWwa1xuEREro) determines the pitch of your droid. {% endhint %} ### Drawl Drawl affects the astromech's overall rate of delivery. This causes reduction/prolongation of both the phonemes themselves and the spacing between them. Because the Drawl effect is achieved through sample rate conversion, it also impacts the astromech's pitch. ### Speed Speed only affects the spacing between phonemes. A droid with a slow speed setting will pause longer between phonemes, and vice versa. ### Effects Realtime postprocessing effects provide further treatment to sounds produced by the speech AI. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.humancyborgrelations.com/astromech/features/speech/speech-customization.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.