How to manipulate spoken text with Speak?

Question

I need to vary the speed, pause, reverse and in general control aspects of the playback of Speak[] is this possible?

Answer 1

"<volume level=\"100\">  <emph> Update 2 ! </emph> 
 <volume level=\"50\">
 Some examples of text-to-speech <spell> xml </spell> 
 tags that you can inject into the string input for Speak 
 from <spell> XML TTS </spell> Tutorial. 
For example the following <spell> url </spell> is spelled out 
     <spell> https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms717077(v=vs \
.85).aspx. 
     </spell> 
 and the following text is read backwards at 
 <rate absspeed=\"-5\"> lower speed 
 <voice required=\"Gender=Female\">
    by a female
      <silence msec=\"500\"/> 
        esrever ni nekops eb dluohs txet sihT
      </rate>
 </voice>
 and  <rate absspeed=\"5\"> higher speed <silence msec=\"500\"/>
        esrever ni nekops eb dluohs txet sihT
      </rate>
   </rate>
   </volume> " // Speak

See: XML TTS Tutorial (SAPI 5.3)

"<rate absspeed=\"5\">
    This text should be spoken at rate five.
    <rate absspeed=\"-5\">
       This text should be spoken at rate negative five.
    </rate>
 </rate>
 <rate absspeed=\"10\"/>" // Speak

"<volume level=\"50\">
 This text should be spoken at volume level fifty.
    <volume level=\"100\">
     This text should be spoken at volume level one hundred.
    </volume>
 </volume>" // Speak

"<rate absspeed=\"5\">
     Next text should be spoken in reverse.
     <rate absspeed=\"-5\">
        esrever ni nekops eb dluohs txet sihT
     </rate>
  </rate>
  <rate absspeed=\"10\"/>" // Speak

Update: You can insert XML tags into to string input to Speak to control voice gender, speed, volume, pitch etc.

Using few examples from sapisynth

"<voice required=\"Gender=Male\"/> <rate absspeed=\"-10\"/> the list  \
<silence msec=\"100\"/> 1 <volume level=\"200\"/> comma  <silence \
msec=\"100\"/> 2 <pitch middle=\"15\"/>  <silence msec=\"100\"/> 3 \
comma  <silence msec=\"100\"/> <volume level=\"20\"/> 4  <rate speed=\
\"10\"/> <voice required=\"Gender=Female\"/> 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12  " //Speak

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Original post:

To play with the speed, you can process the string expression output of SpokenString to change the length of silence elements.

SpokenString[Range[10], Options[Speak], "PostProcess" -> False]

For example:

StringReplace[SpokenString[Range[10], Options[Speak], "PostProcess" -> False], 
   {"100" -> "0", "comma" -> ""}] // Speak