Morse-Code-Ninja

The software used to generate Morse Code Ninja practice sets as found on Morse Code Ninja and Kurt Zoglmann's YouTube Channel.

Required Software

These must be installed and available in your Shell's PATH.

• ebook2cw
• ffmpeg
• lame
• Perl 5
• Python 3
• Boto3

Cloud Setup

1. Set up an AWS Account. Feel free to follow these instructions.

2. Create an IAM user. For ease, I recommend using the "console" for this. During creation, give the IAM user "Programmatic access." When prompted save the key ID and secret access key. During the creation, attach the AmazonPollyFullAccess policy to the user.

3. Edit the aws.properties file. Set the key ID and secret access key. As an alternative, you may define AWS_KEY_ID and AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY as environmental variables.

4. Run this command to make sure that you don't accidentally check in your key! git update-index --assume-unchanged aws.properties

Usage

EXAMPLE:

perl render.pl -i example.txt

NAME:

render.pl -- create mp3 audio files defined by an text file.

SYNOPSIS:

perl render.pl -i file [-o directory] [-c directory] [-s speeds] [-p pitch] [-pr]
               [-m max processes] [-z 1] [-rr 1] [--test] [-l word limit]
               [--norepeat] [--nospoken] [--nocourtesytone] [-e NEURAL | STANDARD] 
               [--sm] [--ss] [--sv] [-x] [--lang ENGLISH | SWEDISH]

Uses AWS Polly and requires valid credentials in the aws.properties file.

OPTIONS:

Required:

-i, --input           name of the text file containing the script to render

Optional:

-i, --input           name of the text file containing the script to render
-o, --output          directory to use for temporary files and output mp3 files
-c, --cache           directory to use for cache specific files
-s, --speeds          list of speeds in WPM. example -s 15 17 20 25/10 (Farnsworth specified as character_speed/overall_speed)
-p, --pitchtone       tone in Hz for pitch. Default 700
-pr, --pitchrandom    random pitch tone from range [500-900] Hz with step 50 Hz for every practice trial
-m, --maxprocs        maximum number of parallel processes to run
-z, --racing          speed racing format
-rr, --racingrepeat   repeat final repeat. Use with -z (Speed Racing format).
--test                don't render audio -- just show what will be rendered -- useful when encoding text
-l, --limit           word limit. 14 works great... 15 word limit for long sentences; -1 disables it
--norepeat            exclude repeat morse after speech
--nospoken            exclude spoken
--nocourtesytone      exclude the courtesy tone
--tone                include the courtesy tone
-e, --engine          name of Polly speech engine to use: NEURAL or STANDARD
--sm, --silencemorse  length of silence between Morse code and spoken voice. Default 1 second.
--ss, --silencesets   length of silence between courtesy tone and next practice set. Default 1 second.
--sv, --silencevoice  length of silence between spoken voice and repeated morse code. Default 1 second.
-x, --extraspace      0 is no extra spacing. 0.5 is half word extra spacing. 1 is twice the word space. 1.5 is 2.5x the word space. etc
-l, --lang            language: ENGLISH or SWEDISH

General Notes

The software has been used extensively to build the Morse Code Ninja Library. There are many opportunities to improve it.

Do not invoke more than one render.pl script at a time without specifying unique output directories. The script will collide with itself if multiple copies are executing at the same time using the same output directory.

Be aware that the script can create a huge number of temporary files, which is proportional to the input file. Some types of filesystems will deal with this better than others.

This set of scripts works on Linux and macOS.