Cant find voice: Davis Neural

Roasted Phoenix LLC 21

Hello,
I was using the Cognitive Services > TTS feature, and noticed that some of the neural voices have disappeared. In particular was the one known as 'Davis', that I know existed as of 3/22 and is now missing as of 4/16.

I am curious of the product life cycle on voices, in particular if there is a schedule (adding / retirement).

High quality voices are critical to my business needs, and while I can expect changes as a part of business, I need to know if the TTS service is something we can count on with future persistence. (aka Voices being available over a foreseeable time) or if this is more of a temp / toy service and is unstable for future concerns at best?

Please understand that I have a background with MS, and would prefer not to have to shop around however I need product stability over brand loyalty.

Please advise

YutongTie-MSFT 46,986 Reputation points

2022-04-17T22:31:42.637+00:00

Hello @Roasted Phoenix LLC

Thanks for reaching out to us for this, I am sorry for your experience and I am checking this internally about this issue. Could you please kindly ignite me what language you are mentioning for "Davis Neural"? Could you please let me know where you are doing TTS training, the Audio Content Creation or Speech SDK?

Sorry again and thanks for your understanding.

Regards,
Yutong
Roasted Phoenix LLC 21 Reputation points

2022-04-17T23:31:33.34+00:00

Hello Yutong,

The missing voice is specifically en-us-DavisNeural

While the missing voice is an issue, I am really looking to know the life cycle of the voices.

If you can also tell me the best way to know when new ones are added or removed, it would be appreciated.

Accepted answer

YutongTie-MSFT 46,986 Reputation points

2022-04-22T03:48:08.193+00:00

Hello @Roasted Phoenix LLC @Oxueillirep

I am sorry for your experinece again, I just got confirmation from product manager of TTS, the voice of Davis and other voices are in private preview but by mistake the engineering team showed it to public. When they found the bug, they rerolled the release. I am sorry about that, the engineering team will target releasing it on May 9th, please stay tuned.

In the future, the engineering team will avoid same issue happens again, they will not delete any existing voice unless officially announced deprecation. Please let us know if you still have any concern. Thanks.

Regards,
Yutong

-Pleaase kindly accept the answer if you feel helpful to support the community, thanks a lot.
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Roasted Phoenix LLC 21 Reputation points

2022-04-22T08:26:31.9+00:00

Hello Yutong,
Thank you for following up and identifying the issue. I am not certain of the bug you mentioned, as I found the voice worked quite well. I am surprised that it would take a month to fix a defect in a service that is listed as GA. I understand that you stated the 'voice' was preview, not the entirety of the Cognitive service? Let's be honest: It took 4+ days to tell me its a known bug.

I still have my questions about the product roadmap:

How many voices should be expected and/or is there a schedule (adding / retirement)?

Is there a way that I can find out about these things before they cost me two months of production? (1 to get it back online, another to undue all the damage for the delay)

I'll be honest, since my first day at MS back in 2003, until I formed my own company in 2020, in any of the projects and programs I ever managed, NEVER would I have thought I could get away with a shadow change in production with a C2C service like this.

I understand that there was a code defect, I don't like it but can understand it based on the complexity of the underlying technology. What I have issue is with the attempt at deception via omission. The fact that as a customer, I had to spend considerable time looking for some form of information, only to be directed to a $30 a month support plan, when it was an undisclosed but known product defect?

YutongTie-MSFT 46,986 Reputation points

2022-04-22T09:44:31.657+00:00

Hello @Roasted Phoenix LLC

I want to express my deeply understanding of your feeling and my apologies. Since I am not part of the product team, I am sorry I can just forward your feedback and bring back the product group's response for internal bug checking.

For your questions:
Release note is here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/speech-service/releasenotes?msclkid=82fdc934c21611ec9dbee632da2a9e54&tabs=speech-sdk
But since this update is not ready to release but exposed by mistake so the release note has not been posted.

How many voices should be expected and/or is there a schedule (adding / retirement)? This is not decided yet and will be public with the release note. For voice retirement, this retirement accidence is only by mistake, they don't have any retirement plan.

Is there a way that I can find out about these things before they cost me two months of production? (1 to get it back online, another to undue all the damage for the delay)
Sorry about the experience again, for change which will affect your business, the product group will send an email to users directly ahead. For normal update, they will post the release note, the new release should never affect the current business without any notice ahead.

Please accept my apologies and thank you for using this product. I have forwarded your experience directly to the product team, we will avoid those to happen again. Thank you.

Regards,
Yutong

Release note for reference:
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1 additional answer

Oxueillirep 131 Reputation points

2022-04-18T09:53:06.903+00:00

Hi,
I found the release notes quite helpful to stay updated about latest changes in voices supported and phased-out:
https://learn.microsoft.com/de-de/azure/cognitive-services/speech-service/releasenotes
best
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Roasted Phoenix LLC 21 Reputation points

2022-04-18T14:48:21.16+00:00

Thanks for that Qxueillirep, however the de-de- and en-us version of that link does not mention the Davis voice being pulled. I think it's good for basic info, but if we as customers are supposed to build LOB on their platform, then we need some level of consistency. A product roadmap, lifecycle or definitive source which companies can plan accordingly on, is needed.

A generic 'voices added / removed' is not helpful. Voices added is always great, as it is always new opportunities / possibilities. However the other side of that coin is a risk that you could be 90% in a project to have it side tracked by having to recast.

I did search the web, this forum prior, and the MS pages in depth, all with near nothing for this voice. I am not certain what is going on, but I expected better communication before it was pulled, and at minimum something on the page saying why after it was pulled. Nothing special, just the basics for a paid service that companies are investing time, energy and etc.

If it's broken or some other issue, then let's get it fixed.

YutongTie-MSFT 46,986 Reputation points

2022-04-18T14:51:13.047+00:00

Hello @Roasted Phoenix LLC @Oxueillirep

Thanks for the info you shared, I am still checking with product group to see why voice has been removed. I can understand adding is reasonable but removing sometimes is broken.

Regards,
Yutong
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