Method for synthesizing voiceless consonants
First Claim
1. A method for synthesising speech using concatenation and Hanning-windows, in which a synthetic waveform is formed by concatenation of selected parts of diphones or polyphons of recorded human speech, said selected parts being out-windowed with a Hanning-window and copied into selected locations in the synthetic waveform, characterised in that said method is adapted to synthesise unvoiced consonants and includes the steps of palindromically copying suitably selected parts of a waveform of said recorded diphones or polyphones to form a synthesized waveform for said unvoiced consonant using concatenation.
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Abstract
A method for synthesizing speech using concatenation and Hanning-windows, in which a synthetic waveform is formed by concatenation of suitably selected parts of recorded human speech, the selected parts being windowed out with a Hanning window and copied into suitably selected locations in the synthetic waveform. The method is adapted to synthesize unvoiced consonants and includes the steps of palindromically copying suitably selected parts of the recorded human speech to form a synthesized waveform for the unvoiced consonant using concatenation. The method may be used for diphone, or polyphone, synthesis. The advantage of this palindromic synthesis method is that when the copying process has been reversed the second time there is either no repetition of identical blocks, or else the time difference between repetitions is markedly larger in comparison with known methods, thus minimizing unwanted periodic artifacts in the synthesized speech.
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Citations
20 Claims
- 1. A method for synthesising speech using concatenation and Hanning-windows, in which a synthetic waveform is formed by concatenation of selected parts of diphones or polyphons of recorded human speech, said selected parts being out-windowed with a Hanning-window and copied into selected locations in the synthetic waveform, characterised in that said method is adapted to synthesise unvoiced consonants and includes the steps of palindromically copying suitably selected parts of a waveform of said recorded diphones or polyphones to form a synthesized waveform for said unvoiced consonant using concatenation.
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3. A method for synthesising speech using concatenation and Hanning-windows, in which a synthetic waveform is formed by concatenation of selected parts of diphones or polyphones of recorded human speech, said selected parts being out-windowed with a Hanning-window and copied into selected locations in the synthetic waveform, characterised in that said method is used for diphone synthesis and includes the steps of:
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selecting a first part of said recorded waveform, said first part being a diphone, a first phoneme of which is a vowel and the other phoneme of which is a consonant required to be synthesised; selecting a second part of said recorded waveform, said second part being a diphone, a first phoneme of which is the consonant required to be synthesised and the other phoneme of which is a vowel; palindromically copying the start of a synthesised waveform for said consonant from said other phoneme of said first part of said recorded waveform using a first half of a Hanning-window function used to synthesis said vowels; palindromically copying the end of the synthesised waveform for said consonant from said first phoneme of said second part of said recorded waveform using the other half of said Hanning-window function; and concatenating said start and said end of said synthesised waveform, resulting from said palindromic copying, to form a synthesised waveform for said consonant. - View Dependent Claims (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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16. A speech synthesis apparatus for synthesising speech using concatenation and Hanning-windows, said apparatus including concatenation means for linking together selected parts of a waveform of diphones or polyphones of recorded human speech to form a synthetic waveform for said speech, said selected parts being out-windowed with a Hanning-window, and means for copying said out-windowed parts into selected locations in the synthetic waveform, characterised in that said apparatus is adapted to synthesis unvoiced consonants and in that said selected parts of a waveform of said diphones or polyphones are palindromically copied and concatenated to form a synthesized waveform for an unvoiced consonant.
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17. A speech synthesis apparatus for synthesising speech using concatenation and Hanning-windows, said apparatus including concatenation means for linking together selected parts of a waveform of diphones or polyphones of recorded human speech to form a synthetic waveform for said speech, said selected parts being out-windowed with a Hanning-window, and means for copying said out-windowed parts into selected locations in the synthetic waveform, characterised in that said apparatus is used for diphone synthesis and includes:
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first selection means for selecting a first part of said recorded waveform, said first part being a diphone, a first phoneme of which is a vowel and the other phoneme of which is a consonant required to be synthesised; second selection means for selecting a second part of said recorded waveform, said second part being a diphone, a first phoneme of which is the consonant required to be synthesised and the other phoneme of which is a vowel; first palindromic copying means for copying the start of a synthesised waveform for said consonant from said other phoneme of said first part of said recorded waveform using a first half of a Hanning-window function used to synthesis said vowels; second palindromic copying means for copying the end of the synthesised waveform for said consonant from said first phoneme of said second part of said recorded waveform using the other half of said Hanning-window function; and
in that said concatenation means are adapted to link together said start and said end of said synthesised waveform, resulting from said palindromic copying, to form a synthesised waveform for said consonant. - View Dependent Claims (18, 19, 20)
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Specification