SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR BLENDING SYNTHETIC VOICES

• US 20090063153A1
• Filed: 11/04/2008
• Published: 03/05/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 01/08/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Interactions, LLC
• Original Assignee: AT&T Corporation (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Schroeter, Juergen, Kapilow, David A., Rosen, Kenneth H.
• Granted Patent: US 7,966,186 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/260
• CPC Class Codes: G10L 13/033 Voice editing, e.g. manipulating the voice of the synthesiser

Abstract

A system and method for generating a synthetic text-to-speech TTS voice are disclosed. A user is presented with at least one TTS voice and at least one voice characteristic. A new synthetic TTS voice is generated by blending a plurality of existing TTS voices according to the selected voice characteristics. The blending of voices involves interpolating segmented parameters of each TTS voice. Segmented parameters may be, for example, prosodic characteristics of the speech such as pitch, volume, phone durations, accents, stress, mis-pronunciations and emotion.

Claims

1. A tangible computer-readable medium storing instructions for controlling a computing device to generate a synthetic voice, the instructions comprising:

receiving a user selection of a TTS voice and a voice characteristic;

selecting the TTS voice from a plurality of TTS voices; and

presenting the user with a new TTS voice comprising the selected TTS voice blended with at least one other TTS voice to achieve the selected voice characteristic.

2. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 1, the instructions further comprising:

presenting the new TTS voice to the user for preview;

receiving user-selected adjustments; and

presenting a revised TTS voice to the user for preview according to the user-selected adjustments.

3. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein generating the new TTS voice further comprises interpolating between corresponding segment parameters of the first TTS voice and the at least one other TTS voice.

4. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 2, wherein the segment parameters relate to prosodic characteristics.

5. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 4, wherein the prosodic characteristics are selected from a group comprising pitch contour, spectral envelope, volume contour and phone durations.

6. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 5, wherein the prosodic characteristics are further selected from a group comprising:

syllable accent, language accent and emotion.

7. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the blended voice is generated by extracting a prosodic characteristic from the LPC residual of the first TTS voice and the LPC residual of the second TTS voice and interpolating between the extracted prosodic characteristics.

8. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the user-selected voice is blended with a plurality of other TTS voices to generate the new TTS voice.

9. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the prosodic characteristic is pitch and wherein the interpolation of the extracted pitches from the first TTS voice and the second TTS voice generates a new blended pitch.

10. The tangible computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the voice characteristic relates to mis-pronunciations.

12. The method of claim 10, wherein the selected TTS voice exhibiting the selected voice characteristic is generated by blending the selected TTS voice with at least one other TTS voice.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the other TTS voice includes the selected voice characteristic.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the new TTS voice is generated to exhibit the selected voice characteristic by blending the selected TTS voice with at least one other TTS voice.

11. A method of generating a synthetic voice, the method comprising:

receiving a user selection of a TTS voice and a voice characteristic;

selecting the TTS voice from a plurality of TTS voices; and

presenting the user with a new TTS voice comprising the selected TTS voice blended with the selected voice characteristic.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising:

presenting the TTS voice to the user for preview;

receiving user-selected adjustments associated with the selected voice characteristic; and

presenting a revised TTS voice for the user for preview according to the user selected adjustments to the selected voice characteristic.

16. The method of claim 11, wherein the voice characteristic relates to mispronunciations.

17. A system for generating a synthetic voice, the system comprising:

a module for receiving a user selection of a TTS voice and a voice characteristic;

a module for selecting the TTS voice from a plurality of TTS voices; and

a module for presenting the user with a new TTS voice comprising the selected TTS voice blended with the selected voice characteristic.

18. The system of claim 17, the system further comprising:

a module for presenting the new TTS voice to the user for preview;

a module for receiving user selected adjustments associated with a selected voice characteristic; and

a module for presenting a new TTS voice to the user for preview according to the user-selected adjustments of the selected voice characteristic.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein each voice of the plurality of TTS voices has speaker-specific parameters.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the speaker-specific parameters comprise at least prosodic parameters associated with each TTS voice.

21. The system of claim 20, wherein the speaker-specific parameters further comprise speaker-specific pronunciations.