Simultaneous plural-voice text-to-speech synthesizer

• US 7,249,021 B2
• Filed: 12/27/2001
• Issued: 07/24/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 12/28/2000
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha (Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd.)
• Inventors: Morio, Tomokazu, Kimura, Osamu
• Primary Examiner(s): {hacek over (S)}mits; Talivaldis Ivars
• Assistant Examiner(s): Serrou; Abdelali
• Application Number:
  US10/451,825
• Publication Number:
  US 20040054537A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,035 Days
• Field of Search: 704/258, 704/259, 704/260
• US Class Current: 704/258
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/033 Voice editing, e.g. manipulating the voice of the synthesiser
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/0335 Pitch control
• 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

Abstract

A multiple-voice instructing unit (17) instructs pitch deforming ratio and mixing ratio to a multiple-voice synthesis unit (16). The multiple voice synthesis unit (16) generates a standard voice signal by means of waveform superimposition based on voice element data read from a voice element database (15) and prosodic information from a voice element selecting unit (14), expands/contracts the time base of the above standard voice signal based on the prosodic information and instruction information from the multiple-voice instructing unit (17) to change a voice pitch, and mixes the standard voice signal with an expansion/contraction voice signal for outputting via an output terminal (18). Accordingly, a concurrent vocalization by multiple speakers based on the same text can be implemented without the need of time-division, parallel text analyzing and prosody generating and of adding pitch converting as post-processing.

Claims

1. A text-to-speech synthesizer for selecting necessary speech segment information from speech segment database based on reading and word class information on input text information and generating a speech signal based on the selected speech segment information, comprising:

text analyzing means for analyzing the input text information and obtaining reading and word class information;

prosody generating means for generating prosody information based on the reading and the word class information;

plural speech instructing means for instructing simultaneous speaking of an identical input text by a plurality of voices; and

plural speech synthesizing means for generating a plurality of synthesized speech signals based on prosody information from the prosody generating means and speech segment information selected from the speech segment database upon reception of an instruction from the plural speech instructing means.

2. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 1, wherein

the plural speech synthesizing means comprises:

waveform overlap-add means for generating a speech signal by waveform overlap-add technique based on the speech segment information and the prosody information;

waveform expanding/contracting means for expanding or contracting a time base of a waveform of the speech signal generated by the waveform overlap-add means based on the prosody information and the instruction information from the plural speech instructing means and generating a speech signal different in pitch of speech; and

mixing means for mixing the speech signal from the waveform overlap-add means and the speech signal from the waveform expanding/contracting means.

3. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 1, wherein

the plural speech synthesizing means comprises:

a first waveform overlap-add means for generating a speech signal by waveform overlap-add technique based on the speech segment information and the prosody information;

a second waveform overlap-add means for generating a speech signal by waveform overlap-add technique based on the speech segment information, the prosody information, and the instruction information from the plural speech instructing means at a basic cycle different from that of the first waveform overlap-add means; and

mixing means for mixing the speech signal from the first waveform overlap-add means and the speech signal from the second waveform overlap-add means.

4. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 1, wherein

the plural speech synthesizing means comprises:

a first waveform overlap-add means for generating a speech signal by waveform overlap-add technique based on the speech segment information and the prosody information;

a second speech segment database for storing speech segment information different from that stored in a first speech segment database as the speech segment database;

a second waveform overlap-add means for generating a speech signal by waveform overlap-add technique based on speech segment information selected from the second speech segment database, the prosody information, and instruction information from the plural speech instructing means; and

mixing means for mixing the speech signal from the first waveform overlap-add means and the speech signal from the second waveform overlap-add means.

5. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 1, wherein

the plural speech synthesizing means comprises:

waveform overlap-add means for generating a speech signal by waveform overlap-add technique based on the speech segment information and the prosody information;

waveform expanding/contracting overlap-add means for expanding or contracting a time base of a waveform of the speech signal based on the prosody information and the instruction information from the plural speech instructing means and generating a speech signal by the waveform overlap-add technique; and

mixing means for mixing the speech signal from the waveform overlap-add means and the speech signal from the waveform expanding/contracting overlap-add means.

6. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 1, wherein

the plural speech synthesizing means comprises:

first excitation waveform generating means for generating a first excitation waveform based on the prosody information;

second excitation waveform generating means for generating a second excitation waveform different in frequency from the first excitation waveform based on the prosody information and the instruction information from the plural speech instructing means;

mixing means for mixing the first excitation waveform and the second excitation waveform; and

a synthetic filter for obtaining vocal tract articulatory feature parameters contained in the speech segment information and generating a synthetic speech signal based on the mixed excitation waveform with use of the vocal tract articulatory feature parameters.

7. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 2, further comprising

a plurality of the waveform expanding/contracting means.

8. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 3, further comprising

a plurality of the second waveform overlap-add means.

9. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 4, further comprising a plurality of the second waveform overlap-add means.

10. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 5, further comprising a plurality of the waveform expanding/contracting overlap-add means.

11. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 6, further comprising

a plurality of the second excitation waveform generating means.

12. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 2, wherein

the mixing means performs the mixing operation with a mixing ratio based on the instruction information from the plural speech instructing means.

13. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 3, wherein

the mixing means performs the mixing operation with a mixing ratio based on the instruction information from the plural speech instructing means.

14. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 4, wherein

the mixing means performs the mixing operation with a mixing ratio based on the instruction information from the plural speech instructing means.

15. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 5, wherein

the mixing means performs the mixing operation with a mixing ratio based on the instruction information from the plural speech instructing means.

16. The text-to-speech synthesizer as defined in claim 6, wherein

the mixing means performs the mixing operation with a mixing ratio based on the instruction information from the plural speech instructing means.

17. A computer readable program storage medium, storing a text-to-speech synthesis processing program for causing the computer, having

the text analyzing means the prosody generating means the plural speech instructing means, and the plural speech synthesizing means to perform the functions as defined in claim 1.

18. A computer readable program storage medium. storing a text-to-speech synthesis processing program for causing a computer to perform the steps of:

analyzing input text information and obtaining reading and word class information;

generating prosody information based on the reading and the word class information;

instructing simultaneous speaking of an identical input text by a plurality of voices;

generating a plurality of synthesized speech signals based on prosody information and speech segment information selected from a speech segment database upon reception of an instruction.