Statistical modeling of dynamic spectral patterns for a speech synthesizer Free

A new method called the spectral locus control method (SLCM) is proposed, which can approximate the dynamic characteristics of the speech spectrum, such as in the transition from vowels to consonants or from consonants to vowels, effectively and accurately. The main procedures of the method are as follows. Continuous speech is segmented into VCV units, and these units are grouped according to the consonants. The spectrum patterns of the V1CV2 units in each group are analyzed to construct a statistical model which, given the spectra of V1 and V2, generates the spectrum loci for V1CV2 units. To synthesize continuous speech, a spectrum appropriate for a given consonantal context is first selected for each vowel V in every CVC sequence in the text. Then, the temporal sequence of the spectrum patterns for the entire V1CV2 is calculated based on the spectrum of the stationary parts in V1 and V2. Since VCV segment spectra are adapted to their consonantal environment, the synthesized speech is highly natural, especially in transitions.