[comp.dsp] Getting the sounds for speech synthesis

pcolmer@acorn.co.uk (Philip Colmer) (04/17/91)

My apologies if this is the wrong group to post to with the following
question ... in which case, can someone point me at a better or correct
group?

What I would like to know is ... when people are building speech
synthesisers, typically based on allophones or phonemes, how are they
getting the samples? I've tried recording whole words and then using sample
manipulating software to cut the required bits out, but because of the
variation in pitch, the concatenated samples sound like a drunk :-) Not
quite the result I'm after.

My current technique is to sample an existing sound chip, but it didn't have
a particularly good sound in the first place, and I am now interested in
female, French and German voices.

Can anyone help?

--Philip Colmer

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Philip Colmer, OA Project Leader, Acorn Computers Ltd (pcolmer@acorn.co.uk)