Searching Different Methods For Open Air Mic

[RickyD333]

Okay, this is sort of a continuation from my last thread on figuring out a way to accomplish a wireless mic system. I was on the Raspberry Pi forum and someone suggested this (obviously, in relation to using the Raspberry Pi for my solution):

Running VoxCommando on the Pi is probably a non-starter. Can VoxCommando accept input from an http (or other protocol) stream? If so, the Pi can probably provide that stream

I was going through the Vox action list and found the "Post" action under "Scrape". I'm thinking this would work... I haven't got around to playing with scraping yet, so this would be new for me.

[jitterjames]

Maybe I am misunderstanding what you are going for here, but the Scrape.Post action is not going to help you with this in any way.  Post is for sending information from VoxCommando to a web service and getting a response back.

You can send events and actions from the Pi using our extensive api options: http://voxcommando.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=API_Application_Programming_Interface

That is not going to help you get audio to VoxCommando though, so you would need to have a program on the Pi doing speech to text conversion which is probably not likely.

One possible option is to install Android on a Pi and then use VoxWav but I'm not sure what kind of audio input options you would have in that situation since Android does not support USB microphones as far as I know.

Another possibility would be for someone to write a program similar to VoxWav for Linux which could be run on a Pi but that person is not likely to be me, or at least not any time soon.  If anyone is interested (and serious about it) I can provide information on how to talk to the TcpMic plugin in order to send audio data to it, the same way that VoxWav does.

Another option for a programmer if it is easier, is to record a wav and save it to the wav directory watcher folder: http://voxcommando.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Options#Directory_Watcher

[Haddood]

why don't you opt to good quality wireless mic from ebay? like the ones that TV presenters use?... will be much simpler and could be way cheaper !!!

[RickyD333]

why don't you opt to good quality wireless mic from ebay? like the ones that TV presenters use?... will be much simpler and could be way cheaper !!!

I'm thinking those might still be quite high in price. But I'll give it a look and see if it would be compatible.

James, I may have found a solution using an Android phone. I'm going to look at it a little bit more and then perhaps give it a test run. There's this thing called "My Connector". It connects to your phone and disables the internal mic and allows you to use a high quality external mic. So I'll end up using VoxWav. And it should be easy to find a super cheap Android phone out there in install VoxWav on.

http://mymyk.com/index.php/my-myk-connector-cable/

[RickyD333]

It works!

I ended up getting a different microphone adapter than the one I linked to earlier because I found one that does the same deal, but is $5 instead of $18. And it works! So I am using VoxWav Pro on my Android phone with my Acoustic Magic microphone.
Here is the adapter I am using: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00V1W9YM6/ref=s9_simh_gw_p107_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=desktop-1&pf_rd_r=08NGTQVNM5N95YG5BE5F&pf_rd_t=36701&pf_rd_p=2118394622&pf_rd_i=desktop

The only problem I am having is the command recognition abilities with VoxWav. Is there a way to improve this? Or might it have to do with the version of Voxcommando I am using? Currently I am running on version 2.1.4.2 and it looks like I can update to version 2.1.5.1.

[jitterjames]

The only problem I am having is the command recognition abilities with VoxWav. Is there a way to improve this? Or might it have to do with the version of Voxcommando I am using? Currently I am running on version 2.1.4.2 and it looks like I can update to version 2.1.5.1.

I'm not sure what you mean.  Do you mean that it is not understanding you as well with VoxWav as when you have the same microphone directly connected to your PC?

Upgrading to the latest version of VC is usually a good idea, however it won't have any effect on recognition accuracy regardless of whether or not you are using VoxWav.  Did you already read the VoxWav wiki?  http://voxcommando.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=VoxWav_Installation

[RickyD333]

Do you mean that it is not understanding you as well with VoxWav as when you have the same microphone directly connected to your PC?

Yes, exactly. I've fiddled around with the TCP mic settings (dropped the volume down to 25%), but VoxWav still doesn't recognize my commands as well as it does when a mic is directly plugged into my PC.

I just did a little more testing and it seems that VoxWav works really well without my mic attached to the phone (so long as it is at least at arms length). I'm guessing it may not be an issue with VoxWav, but rather with the microphone (driver issue?) or the adapter.