Can I use VC and Eventghost to voice control my music software?

[mikehende]

Hey guys, I am looking for a way to voice control my music player's basic functions. I use a software called OTSAV DJ which is a hybrid of a Radio automation software and DJ software. I use it to simply play back my fav playlists just anyone would do with itunes, MediaMoneky e.t.c

I had gotten help for a couple of guys from the Evenghost forum who wrote a script for this enabling me to use the Snapstream remote to contol OTSAV main controls [Play, Next track e.t.c]. Now I wish to control my music player via voice commands via Android, can VC do this in any way please? If not, anything else which might work?

[jitterjames]

Basic control of almost any program is usually possible using keyboard emulation.

Essentially you issue a voice command and VoxCommando pushes a keyboard button for you.

Of course this only works if it's possible to get the level of control you are seeking using the keyboard. That will depend on the program and on what level of control you are after.

[jitterjames]

Even better. I looked at your script that you posted at eventGhost and it appears that the software can be controlled by simple URL commands.

I can probably knock something out for you pretty quickly.

[mikehende]

Thanks but I wouldn't need some sort of app for the android phone?

What I was thinking which led me back to this forum was seeing that one can use VC to control itunes, mediamonkley "and more". What is unclear to is if VC can control those app's with voice commands from an android. If it can then I see no reason why it won't work with my media player.

[jitterjames]

sure:

 http://voxcommando.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=VoxWav

[mikehende]

Thanks, will look indepth into the link soon as I get the chance, get back to you.

[mikehende]

Ok looking at the voxwav app, seems similar to the app I had tried last year which works over wifi and same functions.

So 2 questions for clarity please.

1] The key function I must have work efficiently with my music software is a specific tune search function, has anyone here tried it and can give feedback?

2] Would I need to get voxwav, VC and also EG all working together to get what I need out of my OTSAV DJ player or would I need to use only VC and voxwav?

[jitterjames]

1 - I don't know if this is possible with OTSAV. The script you posted on the EventGhost forum which I was able to find did not implement any such functionality. Please send us the script you have for EventGhost which does this.

2 - You probably don't need EventGhost. But I'd like an answer to 1 before I fully commit to that.

[mikehende]

The guy who had originally written the script for me he could not implement the search function to search for specific tunes in the Media Library so he only did the regular Play, stop e.t.c functions. That doesn't mean someone else can't do it.

There is another software app which can do the search with OTSAV without EG so I know it's definitely possible but with that software when I speak a tune it automatically clears the playlist. The search function searches the HDD and loads and plays the tunes so I would need to continuously keep commanding the tunes one by one, that was the issue with that app.

Also one Jarvis coder was able to write a script to to search and play from the library [playlist] too but I had many problems with the phone app's functions not being consistent at all therefore I had to abandon it.

[jitterjames]

Also one Jarvis coder was able to write a script to to search and play from the library [playlist] too but I had many problems with the phone app's functions not being consistent at all therefore I had to abandon it.

What do you mean "search and play from the library [playlist]"

What phone app?  What was not consistent?

Can you please give me a bit more of an idea of what you are trying to accomplish?  What is the usage scenario?  What type of command would you like to say and what would you expect to happen.

I doubt that anyone here has ever used OtsAV (including me) so please try not to make any assumptions about our knowledge of that program or how it works.

Where are your songs located.  How many are there?  Why are you using voice commands?  Why does it need to run on Android?  How loud is the environment you are in / the music you are playing?

[mikehende]

Oh sorry, I didn't want to give too many details about the other softwares if that would be breaking any rules here but since you asked, here's the skinny on everything then.

OTSAV DJ is the best automated mp3 player on the planet, at least for me, there is a free trial here is anyone would like to try it out: http://www.otsav.com/download-otsav-free-trial/

I have been using it for around 15 years and have always been looking for way to remotely control it and closest I have ever gotten was using the Snapstream handheld remote to control the basic play functions. The main function I was always after is to speak a command "play x song" from the playlist or ""play x song by x artist" e.t.c. My mp3 collection of 15k tunes physically resides on my laptop's internal hard drive but I need to search for and play a tune either from my playlist or even better from the music library within the OTSAV software.

My scenario is having a playlist played back with shuffle and crossfading while I am relaxing or going about my household chores but mainly when hanging out with my family/friends. Whenever I wish to hear any specific tune I would like to speak the name of the tune from wherever I may be sitting and have the song played back or speak "play next song" or "volume up/down" so I won't have to physically walk to my laptop and search and load a tune.

Having tried different ways and softwares and apps to speak a command from a distance away from my music equipment has been an ordeal with lots of headaches, trial and error and wasted money. I paid for a software called "Braina" which comes with an android app to remotely control Braina's music functions. Braina works good to control OTSAV but maybe the only issue with it is whenever I speak the name of a tune it will find and play the tune accurately but in the process it clears my existing playlist so I could not use it for that reason. I think the reason why this happens is because Braina is designed to search for play music from the hard drive and not the OTSAV playlist or library.

One of the developers from Jarvis coded a script for me to control OTSAV and utilize the search and play function which worked but the android app used to work with Jarvis would not work consistently. Sometime is would find the song and play it from my playlist or library then sometimes when I spoke the commands nothing at all happened.

I don't absolutely need to use my phone for the search and play or other functions just that using my phone always seemed to be the best option for this. Ideally I would like to simply speak the command from whenever I am but doing so would require an open mic system where crowd noise would be an issue. This is where I'm at always searching for something which might work "effectively".

[jitterjames]

We have no such rules here.  If someone appears to be here for the sole reason of spamming the forum then their account will be deleted but other than that, pretty much anything goes, within reason.  I don't have any problem talking about the "competition" because I don't believe there is any other program that can do what VoxCommando does anyway.

The short answer is that yes, I think VC can do exactly what you want.  There are a few factors which are hard to explain without spending a lot of time going into details and educating you about how different types of speech recognition work.  You are trying to automate a program that is a bit "obscure" and dated in my opinion, and that's probably partly why you've been having trouble finding a solution.  OtsWav isn't exactly set up to be automated in that way.  However VoxCommando is flexible enough that one could almost certainly adapt it to work the way you want.  This would take a fair amount of work though because one must get clever finding ways to work with the limited "API" that OtsAV offers.  The size of your library may be a bit of an issue.  Asking for songs by name AND artist creates even more strain on the system.

See: http://voxcommando.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=Large_music_libraries for some idea of what I'm talking about here.

I know, we all like to use the software we are familiar with, but I have to say, it seems like OtsAV is overkill for your usage scenario.  For managing and consuming one's personal music collection at home I think something like MediaMonkey would be much better and as a bonus it can be fully automated using VoxCommando and the existing MediaMonkey plugin.

I'm still a bit fuzzy about a couple of things.

1 - I notice on the Braina forums that you are asking about playing .ots files.  What are those?  Again, no familiarity with OtsAV here...  Here's what I found on that forum:

I want all .ots files in E:\Ots and also F:\HalloweenOts but I also have .ots files elsewhere on the hard drive that I want Braina to ignore.
and I don't want to use any .mp3 or .wav for this particular gig.

2 - Can you elaborate on what you mean by "playlist".  I know what the word means of course but specifically in this context.  Is it the "now playing" list, or some other list.  If it is the "now playing" then what do you want to do, change the playback order?  I mean, it's already set to play right?  And if it's not "now playing" then where does this other playlist exist?  Is there a file with a list of songs in it on your harddrive somewhere?  Are you saying you want to specify a single song that is in some playlist, or do you want to ask to have an entire playlist added to the now playing queue?

I need to search for and play a tune either from my playlist

[mikehende]

I can see you do a lot of research like me, I appreciate that.

I am not sure why you would say OTSAV is outdated? When compared to MM, WMP, itunes and all other mp3 players OTSAV is waaay more advanced. OTSAV is a "Radio station" type software so it has advanced automatic playback features but the main reason I use it is for precision volume levelling and perfect crossfading [just like any FM radio station] which the others cannot do or as well. I like MM but problem with it is some tunes have different volume levels and frequencies variations. Being a half Radio software, OTSAV has a built-in compressor limiter so I never have to adjust either volume or bass or any frequencies.

If playing music at low volumes with MM and the others you won't notice much of a difference but when playing at loud volumes and especially on heavy equipment, this definitely becomes an issue, needless to say when using heavy bass. So those are my reasons for using OTSAV over the others for automated playback. For remote functionality OTSAV has a RAC [Remote Access Server] which is what enables EG and other 3rd party softwares to work with it.

Regarding Braina and the ots files. I have certain files native to otsav on the hard drive so that is what I was trying to include but not necessary as I have those same files as regular mp3's on the hard drive too.

Reason why I say "play x song by x artist" as an option is because some tunes have the exact same names but I can get by without that command if VC can't do it although I don;t see why not since both Jarvis and Braina can do it? Also the size of the mp3 collection is not an issue with those two softwares.

By Playlist I mean that I have created many different playlists of my fav tunes from the software's music library [songs I have imported into the OTSAV's Media Library from the hard drive]. So depending on my mood I will load a particular playlist into the Playlist window and OTSAV will play and shuffle only from within that playlist of tunes. Now when I wish to hear a particular tune either from within the current playlist or from the media library I want to speak the name of the tune and either have it play right now or set as next in line to be played. So no, I do not wish to load any other playlist, only the requested tune.

Hope I have accurately addressed every item you have mentioned but please feel free to ask anything at all, thanks.

[mikehende]

The short answer is that yes, I think VC can do exactly what you want. 

Ok, I am willing to try if it can be done with trial versions of VC and woxwav, can you link me to instructions for this to work with OTSAV please?

[jitterjames]

I can engineer a fully functional custom solution to work with OtsAV for you for only $350.  Canadian.