Customise PBPhonics

It is possible to replace the speech sounds in PBPhonics by adding them as documents in iTunes.

Before undertaking this, be aware that:

  1. This capability is only available in PBPhonics version 1.1 onwards.
  2. Changing the sounds does not alter the text, groupings or phonemes.
  3. Recording sounds - even single words - takes practice. Take the time to record a few sounds and make sure that you are getting clear audio.
  4. You will also need to edit your sounds after recording, if only to crop them. We used Audacity to process all the speech in PBPhonics.

Storing the Sound Files

Sound files may be in aiff, caf, mp3, aac, m4a, mp4 or wav formats. The filenames must be all lower-case and begin with the exact text in the list below. The text may be followed by a plus (+) sign and an identifier; this allows multiple files for the same sound.

Files in PBPhonics 1 to 3

Files in PBPhonics 1 to 7

Adding the Sounds to PBPhonics

Once you have some sound files, you can add them to PBPhonics by following these steps:

  1. Connect your iOS device (iPad, iPhone or iPod touch) to your computer.
  2. Open iTunes.
  3. Select your iOS device.
  4. Select the 'Apps' tab.
  5. Scroll down to 'File Sharing'.
  6. Choose PBPhonics. (If you have both 1 to 3 and 1 to 7 installed, make sure you choose the right icon.)
  7. Add your files to the list under 'PBPhonics Documents' by clicking on the 'Add...' button or by dragging them.

Example Files

If you want to test this capability, download these two files and add them to PBPhonics as described above.

After adding them, your documents list should look like this:

Screenshot showing custom sound files in iTunes

If you play either the 'a' phoneme or the 'a' word, the voice will announce that you are playing a custom version of each.