Patent · US Expired

Speech transformation system

US5327521A · kind A · utility

290Cited by
12References
11Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateAug 31, 1993
Grant dateJul 5, 1994
Priority date
Expiry dateAug 31, 2013

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG10L2021/0135
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A high quality voice transformation system and method operates during a training mode to store voice signal characteristics representing target and source voices. Thereafter, during a real time transformation mode, a signal representing source speech is segmented into overlapping segments, analyzed to separate the excitation spectrum from the tone quality spectrum. A stored target tone quality spectrum is substituted for the source spectrum and then convolved with the actual source speech excitation spectrum to produce a transformed speech signal having the word and excitation content of the source, but the acoustical characteristics of a target speaker. The system may be used to enable a talking, costumed character, or in other applications where a source speaker wishes to imitate the voice characteristics of a different, target speaker.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.