Figure 1. Modularised structure of a TTS system.
A text to speech synthesiser is a system whereby user inputs text and obtains synthesised speech in return. The figure above illustrates the modularised structure of a TTS system.
Speech synthesisers are used in various capacities such as computer voice, in mobile devices, as voice-mail and in-car navigation system. Generally there are 3 approaches to computer speech synthesis:
- Articulatory synthesis - uses the computational models of the articulators and their movements to synthesise speech.
- Rule-based synthesis/formant synthesis - a source-filter speech production method. The vocal tract filter is consturcted from a number of resonances similar to the formants of natural speech. One of the most widely known rule-based systems is the MITalk from MIT.
- Concatenative synthesis - is the process of synthesis by concatenating sub-speech units to form speech. This type of synthesis method has become popular of late due to the increasingly affordable cost of computing capabilities and memory and also the advances in speech modification techniques.
News
List of MPhil/PhD Projects in MultiMedia Mobile Digtial Signal Processing
Advanced Signal processing and Noise Reduction 3rd Ed, S. Vaseghi, John Wiley 2006
DeNoise Toolkit
This is a collection of established and new speech denoising methods developed at Brunel in collaboration with Southampton and UEA (Project sponsored by EPSRC).
Voice Morph
VoiceMorph is a software tool developed in our lab for analysis, modelling modification and of voice profile parameters including speaker correlates and Accent correlates of voice.
MSc Digital Signal Processing
Multimedia, communication and inteligent systems.