Hi dadexix86,
Its not a matter about whether the mic is working fine or not. There are many things that come into picture when speech is processed by software like background noise, accent etc. What appears as normal speech for us (when we, say, record sound and replay it or hear it on skype) may appear as distorted speech to software. So adjusting the mic so that speech recognition works fine is necessary.
A good way to adjust the mic would be to open the sound settings and check the mic input level. If the mic is detecting sounds even when you are not speaking then it means that there is lot of (white) noise around. Reduce the mic input level such that the mic input level changes only when you speak.
There is also a way to make speech recognition work in noisy environment. I haven't tested it and so I cannot guarantee you success. But if it works do let me know.
Replace the file /usr/lib/VEDICS/vedics.config.xml with the following:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<!-- an4 configuration file -->
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<config>
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<!-- frequently tuned properties -->
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<property name="logLevel" value="CONFIG"/>
<property name="absoluteBeamWidth" value="-1"/>
<property name="relativeBeamWidth" value="1E-80"/>
<property name="wordInsertionProbability" value="1E-36"/>
<property name="languageWeight" value="8"/>
<property name="frontend" value="epFrontEnd"/>
<property name="recognizer" value="recognizer"/>
<property name="showCreations" value="false"/>
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<!-- word recognizer configuration -->
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<component name="recognizer" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.recognizer.Recognizer">
<property name="decoder" value="decoder"/>
<propertylist name="monitors">
<item>accuracyTracker </item>
<item>speedTracker </item>
<item>memoryTracker </item>
</propertylist>
</component>
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<!-- The Decoder configuration -->
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<component name="decoder" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.Decoder">
<property name="searchManager" value="searchManager"/>
</component>
<component name="searchManager"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.search.SimpleBreadthFirstSe archManager">
<property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
<property name="linguist" value="flatLinguist"/>
<property name="pruner" value="trivialPruner"/>
<property name="scorer" value="threadedScorer"/>
<property name="activeListFactory" value="activeList"/>
</component>
<component name="activeList"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.search.PartitionActiveListF actory">
<property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
<property name="absoluteBeamWidth" value="${absoluteBeamWidth}"/>
<property name="relativeBeamWidth" value="${relativeBeamWidth}"/>
</component>
<component name="trivialPruner"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.pruner.SimplePruner"/>
<component name="threadedScorer"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.decoder.scorer.ThreadedAcousticScor er">
<property name="frontend" value="${frontend}"/>
<property name="isCpuRelative" value="true"/>
<property
name="numThreads" value="2"/>
<property name="minScoreablesPerThread" value="50"/>
<property
name="scoreablesKeepFeature" value="true"/>
</component>
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<!-- The linguist configuration -->
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<component name="flatLinguist"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.linguist.flat.FlatLinguist">
<property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
<property name="grammar" value="jsgfGrammar"/>
<property name="acousticModel" value="wsj"/>
<property name="wordInsertionProbability"
value="${wordInsertionProbability}"/>
<property name="languageWeight" value="${languageWeight}"/>
<property name="unitManager" value="unitManager"/>
</component>
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<!-- The Grammar configuration -->
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<component name="jsgfGrammar" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.jsapi.JSGFGrammar">
<property name="dictionary" value="dictionary"/>
<property name="grammarLocation"
value="resource:/vedics!/vedics/"/>
<property name="grammarName" value="vedics"/>
<property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
</component>
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<!-- The Dictionary configuration -->
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<component name="dictionary"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.linguist.dictionary.FastDictionary">
<property name="dictionaryPath"
value="resource:/edu.cmu.sphinx.model.acoustic.WSJ_8gau_13dCep_16k_ 40mel_130Hz_6800Hz.Model!/edu/cmu/sphinx/model/acoustic/WSJ_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_130Hz_6800Hz/dict/cmudict.0.6d"/>
<property name="fillerPath"
value="resource:/edu.cmu.sphinx.model.acoustic.WSJ_8gau_13dCep_16k_ 40mel_130Hz_6800Hz.Model!/edu/cmu/sphinx/model/acoustic/WSJ_8gau_13dCep_16k_40mel_130Hz_6800Hz/dict/fillerdict"/>
<property name="addSilEndingPronunciation" value="false"/>
<property name="allowMissingWords" value="true"/>
<property name="unitManager" value="unitManager"/>
</component>
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<!-- The acoustic model configuration -->
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<component name="wsj"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.model.acoustic.WSJ_8gau_13dCep_16k_ 40mel_130Hz_6800Hz.Model">
<property name="loader" value="wsjLoader"/>
<property name="unitManager" value="unitManager"/>
</component>
<component name="wsjLoader"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.model.acoustic.WSJ_8gau_13dCep_16k_ 40mel_130Hz_6800Hz.ModelLoader">
<property name="logMath" value="logMath"/>
<property name="unitManager" value="unitManager"/>
</component>
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<!-- The unit manager configuration -->
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<component name="unitManager"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.linguist.acoustic.UnitManager"/>
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<!-- The frontend configuration -->
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<component name="frontEnd" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.FrontEnd">
<propertylist name="pipeline">
<item>microphone </item>
<item>preemphasizer </item>
<item>windower </item>
<item>fft </item>
<item>melFilterBank </item>
<item>dct </item>
<item>liveCMN </item>
<item>featureExtraction </item>
</propertylist>
</component>
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<!-- The live frontend configuration -->
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<component name="epFrontEnd" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.FrontEnd">
<propertylist name="pipeline">
<item>microphone </item>
<item>dataBlocker </item>
<item>speechClassifier </item>
<item>speechMarker </item>
<item>nonSpeechDataFilter </item>
<item>preemphasizer </item>
<item>windower </item>
<item>fft </item>
<item>wiener</item>
<item>melFilterBank </item>
<item>dct </item>
<item>liveCMN </item>
<item>featureExtraction </item>
</propertylist>
</component>
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<!-- The frontend pipelines -->
<!-- ************************************************** ****** -->
<component name="dataBlocker" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.DataBlocker">
<!--<property name="blockSizeMs" value="10"/>-->
</component>
<component name="speechClassifier"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.endpoint.SpeechClassifier">
<property name="threshold" value="13"/>
</component>
<component name="nonSpeechDataFilter"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.endpoint.NonSpeechDataFilt er"/>
<component name="speechMarker"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.endpoint.SpeechMarker" >
<property name="speechTrailer" value="50"/>
</component>
<component name="preemphasizer"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.filter.Preemphasizer"/>
<component name="windower"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.window.RaisedCosineWindowe r">
</component>
<component name="fft"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.transform.DiscreteFourierT ransform">
</component>
<component name="melFilterBank"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.frequencywarp.MelFrequency FilterBank">
</component>
<component name="dct"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.transform.DiscreteCosineTr ansform"/>
<component name="liveCMN"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.feature.LiveCMN"/>
<component name="featureExtraction"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.feature.DeltasFeatureExtra ctor"/>
<component name="microphone"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.util.Microphone">
<property name="closeBetweenUtterances" value="false"/>
</component>
<!-- ************************************************** ***** -->
<!-- monitors -->
<!-- ************************************************** ***** -->
<component name="accuracyTracker"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.instrumentation.BestPathAccuracyTra cker">
<property name="recognizer" value="${recognizer}"/>
<property name="showAlignedResults" value="false"/>
<property name="showRawResults" value="false"/>
</component>
<component name="wiener"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.frontend.endpoint.WienerFilter">
<property name="classifier" value="speechClassifier"/>
</component>
<component name="memoryTracker"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.instrumentation.MemoryTracker">
<property name="recognizer" value="${recognizer}"/>
<property name="showSummary" value="false"/>
<property name="showDetails" value="false"/>
</component>
<component name="speedTracker"
type="edu.cmu.sphinx.instrumentation.SpeedTracker">
<property name="recognizer" value="${recognizer}"/>
<property name="frontend" value="${frontend}"/>
<property name="showSummary" value="true"/>
<property name="showDetails" value="false"/>
</component>
<!-- ************************************************** ***** -->
<!-- Miscellaneous components -->
<!-- ************************************************** ***** -->
<component name="logMath" type="edu.cmu.sphinx.util.LogMath">
<property name="logBase" value="1.0001"/>
<property name="useAddTable" value="true"/>
</component>
</config>
For details visit: http://nsh.nexiwave.com/2010/02/noise-reduction-filtering-in-sphinx4.html