Kun-Shan Lin

Low data rate speech encoding employing syllable pitch patterns

The present invention is a speech encoding technique useful in low data rate speech. Spoken input is analyzed to determine its basic phonological linguistic units and syllables. The pitch track for each syllable is compared with each of a predetermined set of pitch patterns. A pitch pattern forming the best match to the actual pitch track is selected for each syllable. Phonological linguistic unit indicia and pitch pattern indicia are transmitted to a speech synthesis apparatus. This synthesis apparatus matches the pitch pattern indicia to syllable groupings of the phonological linguistic unit indicia. During speech synthesis, sounds are produced corresponding to the phonological linguistic unit indicia with their primary pitch controlled by the pitch pattern indicia of the corresponding syllable. This achieves some measure of approximation to the primary pitch of the original spoken input at a low data rate. In the preferred embodiment, each pitch pattern includes an initial pitch slope, which may be zero indicating no change in pitch, a final pitch slope and a turning point between these two slopes.

Electronic apparatus for simulating singing of song

An electronic apparatus in which the operator inputs both the textual material and a sequence of pitches which upon synthesization simulates singing qualities. The operator inputs a textual material, typically through a keyboard arrangement, and also a sequence of pitches as the tune of the desired song. The text is broken into syllable components which are matched to each note of the tune. The syllables are used to generate control parameters for the synthesizer from their allophonic components. The invention allows the entry of text and a pitch sequence so as to simulate electronically the singing of a tune.

The Texas Instruments TMS320C25 Digital Signal Microcomputer

Capable of 10 million operations per second, the newest member of the TMS320 family can serve as an inexpensive alternative to bit-slice processors or custom ICs in digital signal processing applications.

Text-To-Speech Using LPC Allophone Stringing

A low cost voice response system is presented, which performs text-to-speech conversion of any English text. The system is built around an LPC synthesizer chip and a microprocessor. Text-to-allophone rules are used to convert an input string of ASCII characters into allophonic codes. LPC parameters are then drawn from an allophone library, which takes very little storage space, and concatenated using a fast and simple algorithm to produce natural sounding speech.

The role of digital signal processing in personal communications networks

Digital signal processors (DSPs) are playing a major role in personal communications networks (PCNs). DSPs impact not only the new digital networks but also analog systems. The reasons for this impact are the advances in integrated circuit (IC) process technology, the manipulation of signals in the digital domain, and the advantages of selectively using programmable solutions and hard wired solutions. The authors discuss these advantages along with examples.<<ETX>>

The Application of a Synthesis-by-Rule System to Singing

Much has been accomplished in the area of speech technology in order that machines can talk to people. Various stringing techniques such as phoneme, allophone and diphone have been demonstrated to give those machines virtually unlimited vocabularies. The subject to be covered in this paper is not a new speech construction technique, but how a construction technnque can be combined with a speech synthesizer to allow the machine to sing. The system which will be discussed uses linear predictive coding (LPC) as its synthesis method and allophiones as its constructoin technique. In this paper, each segment of the system will be discussed in some detail.

The advantages of digital signal processors in PCN

Digital signal processors (DSPs) play a major role in personal communications networks (PCNs). The benefits of making DSPs the ideal processing element for digital PCN systems are considered. DSPs affect not only the new digital networks but also analog systems. This results from the advantages of digital integrated circuit process technology, of manipulating signals in the digital domain, and of programmable solutions over hard-wired solutions. These advantages are discussed, along with examples. >

Pitch encoding using simple unit pitch patterns

In encoding synthetic speech for vocabulary storage and reproduction, current techniques require storing at least five or six bits of coded pitch value per frame. Due to the slow variation of pitch contours, it is possible to describe these contours as a sequence of simple pitch patterns. If each pattern in the sequence is applied to a subunit of the coded phrase or word, each subcontour can furthermore be approximated in terms of simple linear functions. The pitch pattern is selected by picking the best match between the target or natural subcontour and one contour from a library of predefined simple pitch contours. By storing one pitch pattern contour per specific subunit in speech, a considerable savings in vocabulary storage may be achieved. Informal listening tests show that the degradation in speech quality is minor.

Implementation of a prosody scheme in a constructive synthesis environment

In a constructive synthesis environment, lack of natural prosody detracts both from the naturalness and from the intelligibility of synthetic speech. It is time consuming and frustrating for the linguistically untrained user of a constructive‐synthesis system to assign pitch patterns and unit durations by mere guesswork. A semi‐automatic prosody assignment scheme has been designed here which takes the majority of the prosody‐assignment burden off the user and which is capable of assigning fairly natural‐sounding pitch patterns to a constructive synthesis string of allophones. The user is required only to mark the primary and secondary stress locations in the text or in the allophone string, plus an indication of whether the constructed phrase should rise or fall in pitch at the end. These stress marks serve as anchor points for the system to compute both an intonation contour and a timing‐adjustment contour for the whole phrase. Thus, with a minimum of effort and linguistic knowledge, the user may achieve...

A Reading Machine Using Bar Coded Allophone Stringing Technique

Abstract-This paper introduces a reading learning aid which is designed to be a low cost consumer product. The design of the machine required the marriage of the recent advancements in both speech and optical technologies. An inexpensive optical wand is used to read bar coded allophone strings from the printed book. Natural sounding speech is then constructed by an 8-bit microcomputer using an LPC synthesizer. The system is self- contained with the flexibility of producing songs, sound effects, and speech. All the speech related data are embodied in the printed material along with games and activities to make the reading learning process fun and rewarding.