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Voder Speech Synthesizer

griffin.moe

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Re: Voder Speech Synthesizer

#21

Post by luguenth »

bradrn wrote: post #8

A short explanation as to how this works: The voice can be modeled using two main components. The vocal chords are a periodic source of sound, which is then filtered by the mouth and tongue to produce vowel sounds [0]. The filter can be modeled as a set of band-pass filters, each of which let through a specific band of frequencies — these are called ‘formants’ in acoustic phonetics. Different vowel sounds are produce…

There's also a very nice simulation, where you can play with the very different parts of vocal chords:

https://imaginary.github.io/pink-trombone/

Re: Voder Speech Synthesizer

#22

Post by bradrn »

stavros wrote: post #19
bradrn wrote: post #8

A short explanation as to how this works: The voice can be modeled using two main components. The vocal chords are a periodic source of sound, which is then filtered by the mouth and tongue to produce vowel sounds [0]. The filter can be modeled as a set of band-pass filters, each of which let through a specific band of frequencies — these are called ‘formants’ in acoustic phonetics. Different vowel sounds are produce…

Apparently the Voder had a pitch pedal: https://imgz.org/i9TzhzWu/

Ah, that would explain it. Thanks for finding that image!

Re: Voder Speech Synthesizer

#23

Post by stavros »

bradrn wrote: post #22
stavros wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently the Voder had a pitch pedal: https://imgz.org/i9TzhzWu/

Ah, that would explain it. Thanks for finding that image!

No problem! It's from a video linked in a thread below (the extended World's Fair presentation).

Re: Voder Speech Synthesizer

#24

Post by JoeDaDude »

I've been interested in how these were actually played. If anyone has access to the material used to train the operators, I'd love to hear about it.

BTW, there was one fellow who built one, something I'd like to try someday. See his recreation here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv9m0Z7mhXY

Re: Voder Speech Synthesizer

#26

Post by jmiskovic »

luguenth wrote: post #21
bradrn wrote: post #8

A short explanation as to how this works: The voice can be modeled using two main components. The vocal chords are a periodic source of sound, which is then filtered by the mouth and tongue to produce vowel sounds [0]. The filter can be modeled as a set of band-pass filters, each of which let through a specific band of frequencies — these are called ‘formants’ in acoustic phonetics. Different vowel sounds are produce…

There's also a very nice simulation, where you can play with the very different parts of vocal chords: https://imaginary.github.io/pink-trombone/

I made a fork with few more features, it might even work on your phone browser:

https://jmiskovic.github.io/voicebox

Re: Voder Speech Synthesizer

#27

Post by hahamrfunnyguy »

chaosprint wrote: post #6

Interesting! thanks for sharing. I have added this to my feature list for https://glicol.org the source code looks fairly straightforward. very cool ```js function makeFormantNode(ctx, f1, f2) { const sinOsc = ctx.createOscillator(); sinOsc.type = 'sawtooth'; sinOsc.frequency.value = 110; sinOsc.start(); const bandPass = ctx.createBiquadFilter(); bandPass.type = 'bandpass'; bandPass.frequency.value = (f1 + f2) / 2; b…

Just checked out GLICOL. It's quite cool! Is there MIDI support or any plans to add it?

Re: Voder Speech Synthesizer

#28

Post by civilitty »

jmiskovic wrote: post #26
luguenth wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a very nice simulation, where you can play with the very different parts of vocal chords: https://imaginary.github.io/pink-trombone/

I made a fork with few more features, it might even work on your phone browser: https://jmiskovic.github.io/voicebox

Thank you for this. I had a lot of fun scaring my cat in bed and it inspired me to become a late middle aged opera savant.

Re: Voder Speech Synthesizer

#29

Post by BizarroLand »

kypro wrote: post #12

This is quite off topic, but it reminded me of something I have been thinking about recently – perhaps at the limit all highly capable narrow AI systems must become generally intelligent. I was thinking about the complexity of expression in TTS voice synthesizers recently and it struck me just how difficult a problem that is. To be as expressive as a human the AI model would need to fully "understand" the context of…

I think our current gen AI is only 1 piece of the puzzle.

This gen understands how to put words together to satisfy its internal requirement to please the instruction it is given, but it has no volition of its own and no drive it arrived at of its own cognition.

I believe GAI will need to have multiple current gen systems running simultaneously, (in unison if not in harmony) simply to form a subconscious layer that a truly next gen AI would then pick and choose from.

Re: Voder Speech Synthesizer

#30

Post by lbriner »

Something somebody told me was that it seems really amazing but without the host prompting the listener as to the phrase, "she saw me", most of the time you wouldn't know what it was saying.

I heard a sample of "Say, good afternoon radio audience", then the Voder produces something very similar, but listen to it without the prompt and you would have to guess what it meant.

A Derren Brown kind of trick :-)

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