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Fof and consonants

Date2005-11-29 07:43
FromSimon Stump
SubjectFof and consonants
Hey,

    So, I'm trying to write a song right now where I
do vocal synthesis with the fof command.  I've got
plenty of tables and websites for how to generate
vowels, but none for consonants.  Does anyone know how
to generate an "m" sound (or any others for that
matter)?

Simon


		
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Date2005-11-29 11:46
FromJean Piche
SubjectRe: Fof and consonants
Hello,

Olivier Bélanger, a doctoral student here, and myself have tackled this 
problem over the past few years. Our goal was precisely what you are 
aiming for: intelligeable sung text. I can certainly tell you that it 
is a very tough nut to crack.  Identifiable consonant signals are 
carried largely by the time-based behaviour of transients.  Timed 
onsets of formant shifts and noise components need to be calculated to 
very very precise thresholds in the transitory period between consonant 
generation and and following vowel.  Unfortunately, the set of time 
shift data for the same consonant varies considerably depending on the 
vowel that follows it, leading to an exponentially expanding database. 
We put together a modestly successful model consisting of a database of 
signal analysis data for  voiced and non-voiced consonants "B", "L", 
"M", "D", "K" and "S" (I may be wrong on the specific consonants, I'll 
have to check again with Olivier), a source filter synthesis consisting 
of a glottal simulator (gbuzz pulse train), noise generator and a bank 
of resonant filters. This was run from a Max control patch into the 
csound~ object. We have not made it past this (yet!) when we realised 
that the model falls apart spectacularly when applied to male or female 
voices and/or combined consonants such as "PR", "CL" or " SK". Each 
consonant type seems to need a generally adaptive dataset.

This would explain why all successful language synthesizers are 
developped using a concatenation technique that implies no real signal 
synthesis but rather, a very large bank of short (sampled) audio 
signals that are stringed together to form words. For the same voice, 
this work well for language comprehension but it is dreadful for 
general musical purposes. The company East-West (i think that is what 
it is called) has recently released an articualted choir sample library 
that uses concatenation to articulate text. What I have heard sounds 
quite remarkable, but  i suspect it is realistic because it is a choir 
and concatenation artifacts are blurred out by the "mass" effect.

If anyone has worked on this problem, I would be delighted to hear from 
you!

Best

jp

__________________________________________
http://jeanpiche.com


On 05-11-29, at 02:43, Simon Stump wrote:

> Hey,
>
>     So, I'm trying to write a song right now where I
> do vocal synthesis with the fof command.  I've got
> plenty of tables and websites for how to generate
> vowels, but none for consonants.  Does anyone know how
> to generate an "m" sound (or any others for that
> matter)?
>
> Simon
>
>
> 		
> __________________________________
> Yahoo! Music Unlimited
> Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.
> http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/
> -- 
> Send bugs reports to this list.
> To unsubscribe, send email to csound-unsubscribe@lists.bath.ac.uk
>

Date2005-11-29 11:57
FromVictor Lazzarini
SubjectRe: Fof and consonants
I know that the team at Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona worked hard on this,
under the sponsorship of Yamaha, and they developed  a vocal synthesis
method, which they have not fully explained anywhere, but it is possibly
based on analysis-synthesis methods. The Yamaha product (Vocoloid?)
is reputed to be very good, but I have neither seen nor heard it, and I really
don't know what it is capable of.

Victor

At 11:46 29/11/2005, you wrote:
>Hello,
>
>Olivier Bélanger, a doctoral student here, and myself have tackled this 
>problem over the past few years. Our goal was precisely what you are 
>aiming for: intelligeable sung text. I can certainly tell you that it is a 
>very tough nut to crack.  Identifiable consonant signals are carried 
>largely by the time-based behaviour of transients.  Timed onsets of 
>formant shifts and noise components need to be calculated to very very 
>precise thresholds in the transitory period between consonant generation 
>and and following vowel.  Unfortunately, the set of time shift data for 
>the same consonant varies considerably depending on the vowel that follows 
>it, leading to an exponentially expanding database. We put together a 
>modestly successful model consisting of a database of signal analysis data 
>for  voiced and non-voiced consonants "B", "L", "M", "D", "K" and "S" (I 
>may be wrong on the specific consonants, I'll have to check again with 
>Olivier), a source filter synthesis consisting of a glottal simulator 
>(gbuzz pulse train), noise generator and a bank of resonant filters. This 
>was run from a Max control patch into the csound~ object. We have not made 
>it past this (yet!) when we realised that the model falls apart 
>spectacularly when applied to male or female voices and/or combined 
>consonants such as "PR", "CL" or " SK". Each consonant type seems to need 
>a generally adaptive dataset.
>
>This would explain why all successful language synthesizers are developped 
>using a concatenation technique that implies no real signal synthesis but 
>rather, a very large bank of short (sampled) audio signals that are 
>stringed together to form words. For the same voice, this work well for 
>language comprehension but it is dreadful for general musical purposes. 
>The company East-West (i think that is what it is called) has recently 
>released an articualted choir sample library that uses concatenation to 
>articulate text. What I have heard sounds quite remarkable, but  i suspect 
>it is realistic because it is a choir and concatenation artifacts are 
>blurred out by the "mass" effect.
>
>If anyone has worked on this problem, I would be delighted to hear from you!
>
>Best
>
>jp
>
>__________________________________________
>http://jeanpiche.com
>
>
>On 05-11-29, at 02:43, Simon Stump wrote:
>
>>Hey,
>>
>>     So, I'm trying to write a song right now where I
>>do vocal synthesis with the fof command.  I've got
>>plenty of tables and websites for how to generate
>>vowels, but none for consonants.  Does anyone know how
>>to generate an "m" sound (or any others for that
>>matter)?
>>
>>Simon
>>
>>
>>
>>__________________________________
>>Yahoo! Music Unlimited
>>Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.
>>http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/
>>--
>>Send bugs reports to this list.
>>To unsubscribe, send email to csound-unsubscribe@lists.bath.ac.uk
>
>--
>Send bugs reports to this list.
>To unsubscribe, send email to csound-unsubscribe@lists.bath.ac.uk

Victor Lazzarini
Music Technology Laboratory
Music Department
National University of Ireland, Maynooth