Method of changing a pitch of a VCV phoneme-chain waveform and apparatus of synthesizing a sound from a series of VCV phoneme-chain waveforms

• US 5,950,152 A
• Filed: 09/19/1997
• Issued: 09/07/1999
• Est. Priority Date: 09/20/1996
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Mochizuki, Ryou, Nishimura, Hirofumi, Honda, Takashi, Arai, Yasuhiko, Minowa, Toshimitsu
• Primary Examiner(s): Hudspeth, David R.
• Assistant Examiner(s): MCFADDEN, SUSAN IRIS
• Application Number:
  US08/933,993
• Time in Patent Office: 718 Days
• Field of Search: 704/207, 704/200, 704/205, 704/258, 704/267, 704/268
• US Class Current: 704/207
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/04 Details of speech synthesis systems, e.g. synthesiser structure or memory management
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/08 Text analysis or generation of parameters for speech synthesis out of text, e.g. grapheme to phoneme translation, prosody generation or stress or intonation determination
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/013 Adapting to target pitch
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 21/04 Time compression or expansion

Abstract

A composite pitch pattern of an artificial waveform of a composite sound indicating characters is produced according to a general pitch pattern producing model, and a pitch pattern of a VCV phoneme-chain waveform of each of VCV phoneme-chains corresponding to the characters is produced from an actual voice sample. Each VCV phoneme-chain composed of a preceding vowel, a consonant and a succeeding vowel has a pitch fine structure and a pitch fluctuation. Thereafter, an overall inclination of the pitch pattern of each VCV phoneme-chain waveform is adjusted to that of a portion of the composite pitch pattern corresponding to the-same VCV phoneme-chain to overlap transitional portions of preceding and succeeding vowels in a changed pitch pattern of each VCV phoneme-chain waveform with those in the corresponding portion of the composite pitch pattern. Therefore, when changed pitch patterns of the VCV phoneme-chain waveforms are connected with each other, a synthesized sound of the characters can be obtained while the synthesized sound maintains a pitch fine structure and a pitch fluctuation.

Claims

1. A pitch changing method of a VCV phoneme-chain waveform, comprising the steps of:

producing a composite pitch pattern of an artificial waveform of a composite sound indicating characters written in a text, the composite pitch pattern being drawn in plane co-ordinates of a pitch frequency and a time;

specifying a VCV phoneme-chain portion of the composite pitch pattern corresponding to a VCV phoneme chain composed of a preceding vowel, a consonant and a succeeding vowel;

producing a pitch pattern of a VCV phoneme-chain waveform of the VCV phoneme chain from an actual voice sample;

defining an inclination of a straight line connecting a transitional portion of the preceding vowel and a transitional portion of the succeeding vowel in the plane co-ordinates as an overall inclination of a pitch pattern of a waveform corresponding to the VCV phoneme chain;

changing a pitch of the VCV phoneme-chain waveform to form a changed pitch pattern of the VCV phoneme-chain waveform while making the overall inclination of the changed pitch pattern of the VCV phoneme-chain waveform agree with the overall inclination of the VCV phoneme-chain portion of the composite pitch pattern and overlapping the transitional portion of the preceding vowel in the changed pitch pattern of the VCV phoneme-chain waveform with that in the VCV phoneme-chain portion of the composite pitch pattern; and

adopting the changed pitch pattern of the VCV phoneme-chain waveform as a pitch pattern of a waveform corresponding to the VCV phoneme chain.

2. A pitch changing method according to claim 1 in which the step of producing a pitch pattern of a VCV phoneme-chain waveform comprises the steps of:

producing a pitch pattern of a low-high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform of the VCV phoneme chain, in which a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the preceding vowel is low and a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the succeeding vowel is high, from an actual voice sample;

producing a pitch pattern of a high-high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform of the VCV phoneme chain, in which a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the preceding vowel is high and a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the succeeding vowel is high, from an actual voice sample;

producing a pitch pattern of a high-low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform of the VCV phoneme chain, in which a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the preceding vowel is high and a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the succeeding vowel is low, from an actual voice sample;

producing a pitch pattern of a low--low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform of the VCV phoneme chain, in which a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the preceding vowel is low and a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the succeeding vowel is low, from an actual voice sample;

producing a pitch pattern of an exceptional type VCV phoneme-chain waveform of the VCV phoneme chain, which is placed at the top of a word or includes a voiceless vowel, from an actual voice sample; and

selecting a particular pitch pattern of one type VCV phoneme-chain waveform as the pitch pattern of the VCV phoneme-chain waveform of the VCV phoneme chain from among the pitch patterns of the low-high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform, the high--high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform, the high-low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform, the low--low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform and the exceptional type VCV phoneme-chain waveform on condition that a difference in the pitch frequency between the particular pitch pattern and the VCV phoneme-chain portion of the composite pitch pattern is the smallest.

3. A pitch changing method according to claim 1 in which the step of changing a pitch of the VCV phoneme-chain waveform includes the steps of:

calculating a first ratio of a pitch frequency Fc1 of the composite pitch pattern to a pitch frequency F1 of the pitch pattern of the VCV phoneme-chain waveform at a first time-point T1;

calculating a second ratio of a pitch frequency Fc2 of the composite pitch pattern to a pitch frequency F2 of the pitch pattern of the VCV phoneme-chain waveform at a second time-point T2;

setting the first ratio Fc1/F1 to a pitch changing coefficient C1 at the first time-point T1;

setting the second ratio Fc2/F2 to a pitch changing coefficient C2 at the second time-point T2;

calculating a pitch changing coefficient Cx at an arbitrary time-point Tx as follows

space="preserve" listing-type="equation">Cx=C1+(C2-C1)/(T2-T1)*(Tx-T1); and

multiplying a pitch frequency of the pitch pattern of the VCV phoneme-chain waveform by the pitch changing coefficient Cx to form the changed pitch pattern of the VCV phoneme-chain waveform.

4. A sound synthesizing apparatus comprising:

storing means for storing a large number of VCV phoneme-chain waveforms of VCV phoneme-chains produced from actual voice samples, each VCV phoneme-chain being composed of a preceding vowel, a consonant and a succeeding vowel;

receiving means for receiving characters written in a text;

VCV phoneme-chain determining means for determining a string of particular VCV phoneme-chains corresponding to the characters received by the receiving means;

composite pitch pattern producing means for producing a composite pitch pattern of an artificial waveform of a composite sound corresponding to the characters according to the string of particular VCV phoneme-chains determined by the VCV phoneme-chain determining means;

VCV phoneme-chain waveform selecting means for selecting a series of particular VCV phoneme-chain waveforms corresponding to the string of particular VCV phoneme-chains determined by the VCV phoneme-chain determining means from the VCV phoneme-chain waveforms stored in the storing means;

pitch changing means for changing a pitch of each particular VCV phoneme-chain waveform selected by the VCV phoneme-chain waveform selecting means to form a changed pitch pattern of the particular VCV phoneme-chain waveform while making an overall inclination of the changed pitch pattern of the particular VCV phoneme-chain waveform agree with an overall inclination of a portion of the composite pitch pattern produced by the composite pitch pattern producing means and overlapping a transitional portion of the preceding vowel in the changed pitch pattern of the particular VCV phoneme-chain waveform with that in the portion of the composite pitch pattern;

VCV phoneme-chain waveform connecting means for connecting the changed pitch patterns of the particular VCV phoneme-chain waveforms obtained by the pitch changing means with each other while overlapping a transitional portion of a succeeding vowel of a first particular VCV phoneme-chain waveform with a transitional portion of a preceding vowel of a second particular VCV phoneme-chain waveform following the first particular VCV phoneme-chain waveform for each particular VCV phoneme-chain waveform to produce a synthesized pitch pattern of a synthesized waveform of a synthesized sound; and

synthesized sound outputting means for outputting the synthesized sound produced by the VCV phoneme-chain waveform connecting means.

5. A sound synthesizing apparatus according to claim 4 in which the storing means comprises:

a low-high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform data base for storing a large number of low-high type VCV phoneme-chain waveforms, in which a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the preceding vowel in each low-high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform is low and a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the succeeding vowel in each low-high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform is high, from actual voice samples;

a high--high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform data base for storing a large number of high--high type VCV phoneme-chain waveforms, in which a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the preceding vowel in each high--high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform is high and a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the succeeding vowel in each high--high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform is high, from actual voice samples;

a high-low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform data base for storing a large number of high-low type VCV phoneme-chain waveforms, in which a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the preceding vowel in each high-low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform is high and a pitch frequency at a positional portion of the succeeding vowel in each high-low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform is low, from actual voice samples;

a low--low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform data base for storing a large number of low--low type VCV phoneme-chain waveforms;

in which a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the preceding vowel in each high-low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform is low and a pitch frequency at a transitional portion of the succeeding vowel in each low--low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform is low, from actual voice samples; and

an exceptional type VCV phoneme-chain waveform data base for storing a large number of exceptional type VCV phoneme-chain waveforms of the VCV phoneme chains, which are respectively placed at the top of a word or include a voiceless vowel, from actual voice samples,

a particular low-high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform, a particular high--high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform, a particular high-low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform, a particular low--low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform and a particular exceptional type VCV phoneme-chain waveform corresponding to each particular VCV phoneme-chain are extracted by the VCV phoneme-chain waveform selecting means from the low-high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform data base, the high--high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform data base, the high-low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform data base an the low exceptional type VCV phoneme-chain waveform data base, and

one particular type VCV phoneme-chain waveform is selected by the VCV phoneme-chain waveform selecting means as one particular VCV phoneme-chain waveform corresponding to each particular VCV phoneme-chain from among the particular low-high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform;

the particular high--high type VCV phoneme-chain waveform, the particular high-low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform, the particular low--low type VCV phoneme-chain waveform and the particular exceptional type VCV phoneme-chain waveform on condition that a difference in the pitch frequency between the particular type VCV phoneme-chain waveform and a corresponding portion of the composite pitch pattern is the smallest.

6. A sound synthesizing apparatus according to claim 4 in which the pitch changing means includes

pitch changing coefficient calculating means for calculating a first ratio of a pitch frequency Fc1 of the composite pitch pattern to a pitch frequency F1 of the pitch pattern of the VCV phoneme-chain waveform at a first time-point T1, calculating a second ratio of a pitch frequency Fc2 of the composite pitch pattern to a pitch frequency F2 of the pitch pattern of the VCV phoneme-chain waveform at a second time-point T2, setting the first ratio Fc1/F1 to a pitch changing coefficient C1 at the first time-point T1, setting the second ratio Fc2/F2 to a pitch changing coefficient C2 at the second time-point T2, and calculating a pitch changing coefficient Cx at an arbitrary time-point Tx as follows