This is a step-by-step walkthrough for installing the mimic TTS engine developed by Mycroft A.I. for their AI system.

Dependencies

sudo apt-get install gcc make pkg-config automake libtool libasound2-dev

Installation

Let’s keep the software in ~/projects. Keeps it simple and accessible. Watch out: this is a 700 MB repository.

mkdir -p ~/projects && cd ~/projects
git clone https://github.com/MycroftAI/mimic.git
cd ./mimic

Build stuff. The make command takes a while; if you’re on a multi-core machine, try parallel compilation.

./dependencies.sh --prefix="/usr/local"
./autogen.sh
./configure --prefix="/usr/local"

Do this to play it safe.

make 
make check

Do this if you’re a steely-eyed missile man.

CORES=$(nproc --all 2>&1)
make -j $CORES
make check

One of the checks failed for me - looks like the pcre2 doesn’t actuall install correctly. However, it still worked fine for audio generation, and I have no complaints.

Use

Pretty simple, actually. Make sure you’re still in the directory of the repository that you downloaded (“cloned”). Then,

./mimic -t "I am a computer."

The system has a fantastic British accent. Also, it looks like all you actually need is the ./mimic file itself - which you can put anywhere in your system that you like.