IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
Concatenative Speech Synthesis Based on the Plural Unit Selection and Fusion Method
Summary :
This paper proposes a novel speech synthesis method to generate human-like natural speech. The conventional unit-selection-based synthesis method selects speech units from a large database, and concatenates them with or without modifying the prosody to generate synthetic speech. This method features highly human-like voice quality. The method, however, has a problem that a suitable speech unit is not necessarily selected. Since the unsuitable speech unit selection causes discontinuity between the consecutive speech units, the synthesized speech quality deteriorates. It might be considered that the conventional method can attain higher speech quality if the database size increases. However, preparation of a larger database requires a longer recording time. The narrator's voice quality does not remain constant throughout the recording period. This fact deteriorates the database quality, and still leaves the problem of unsuitable selection. We propose the plural unit selection and fusion method which avoids this problem. This method integrates the unit fusion used in the unit-training-based method with the conventional unit-selection-based method. The proposed method selects plural speech units for each segment, fuses the selected speech units for each segment, modifies the prosody of the fused speech units, and concatenates them to generate synthetic speech. This unit fusion creates speech units which are connected to one another with much less voice discontinuity, and realizes high quality speech. A subjective evaluation test showed that the proposed method greatly improves the speech quality compared with the conventional method. Also, it showed that the speech quality of the proposed method is kept high regardless of the database size, from small (10 minutes) to large (40 minutes). The proposed method is a new framework in the sense that it is a hybrid method between the unit-selection-based method and the unit-training-based method. In the framework, the algorithms of the unit selection and the unit fusion are exchangeable for more efficient techniques. Thus, the framework is expected to lead to new synthesis methods.
- Publication
- IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information Vol.E88-D No.11 pp.2565-2572
- Publication Date
- 2005/11/01
- Publicized
- Online ISSN
- DOI
- 10.1093/ietisy/e88-d.11.2565
- Type of Manuscript
- PAPER
- Category
- Speech and Hearing
Authors
Keyword
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Tatsuya MIZUTANI, Takehiko KAGOSHIMA, "Concatenative Speech Synthesis Based on the Plural Unit Selection and Fusion Method" in IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information,
vol. E88-D, no. 11, pp. 2565-2572, November 2005, doi: 10.1093/ietisy/e88-d.11.2565.
Abstract: This paper proposes a novel speech synthesis method to generate human-like natural speech. The conventional unit-selection-based synthesis method selects speech units from a large database, and concatenates them with or without modifying the prosody to generate synthetic speech. This method features highly human-like voice quality. The method, however, has a problem that a suitable speech unit is not necessarily selected. Since the unsuitable speech unit selection causes discontinuity between the consecutive speech units, the synthesized speech quality deteriorates. It might be considered that the conventional method can attain higher speech quality if the database size increases. However, preparation of a larger database requires a longer recording time. The narrator's voice quality does not remain constant throughout the recording period. This fact deteriorates the database quality, and still leaves the problem of unsuitable selection. We propose the plural unit selection and fusion method which avoids this problem. This method integrates the unit fusion used in the unit-training-based method with the conventional unit-selection-based method. The proposed method selects plural speech units for each segment, fuses the selected speech units for each segment, modifies the prosody of the fused speech units, and concatenates them to generate synthetic speech. This unit fusion creates speech units which are connected to one another with much less voice discontinuity, and realizes high quality speech. A subjective evaluation test showed that the proposed method greatly improves the speech quality compared with the conventional method. Also, it showed that the speech quality of the proposed method is kept high regardless of the database size, from small (10 minutes) to large (40 minutes). The proposed method is a new framework in the sense that it is a hybrid method between the unit-selection-based method and the unit-training-based method. In the framework, the algorithms of the unit selection and the unit fusion are exchangeable for more efficient techniques. Thus, the framework is expected to lead to new synthesis methods.
URL: https://global.ieice.org/en_transactions/information/10.1093/ietisy/e88-d.11.2565/_p
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@ARTICLE{e88-d_11_2565,
author={Tatsuya MIZUTANI, Takehiko KAGOSHIMA, },
journal={IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information},
title={Concatenative Speech Synthesis Based on the Plural Unit Selection and Fusion Method},
year={2005},
volume={E88-D},
number={11},
pages={2565-2572},
abstract={This paper proposes a novel speech synthesis method to generate human-like natural speech. The conventional unit-selection-based synthesis method selects speech units from a large database, and concatenates them with or without modifying the prosody to generate synthetic speech. This method features highly human-like voice quality. The method, however, has a problem that a suitable speech unit is not necessarily selected. Since the unsuitable speech unit selection causes discontinuity between the consecutive speech units, the synthesized speech quality deteriorates. It might be considered that the conventional method can attain higher speech quality if the database size increases. However, preparation of a larger database requires a longer recording time. The narrator's voice quality does not remain constant throughout the recording period. This fact deteriorates the database quality, and still leaves the problem of unsuitable selection. We propose the plural unit selection and fusion method which avoids this problem. This method integrates the unit fusion used in the unit-training-based method with the conventional unit-selection-based method. The proposed method selects plural speech units for each segment, fuses the selected speech units for each segment, modifies the prosody of the fused speech units, and concatenates them to generate synthetic speech. This unit fusion creates speech units which are connected to one another with much less voice discontinuity, and realizes high quality speech. A subjective evaluation test showed that the proposed method greatly improves the speech quality compared with the conventional method. Also, it showed that the speech quality of the proposed method is kept high regardless of the database size, from small (10 minutes) to large (40 minutes). The proposed method is a new framework in the sense that it is a hybrid method between the unit-selection-based method and the unit-training-based method. In the framework, the algorithms of the unit selection and the unit fusion are exchangeable for more efficient techniques. Thus, the framework is expected to lead to new synthesis methods.},
keywords={},
doi={10.1093/ietisy/e88-d.11.2565},
ISSN={},
month={November},}
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TY - JOUR
TI - Concatenative Speech Synthesis Based on the Plural Unit Selection and Fusion Method
T2 - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
SP - 2565
EP - 2572
AU - Tatsuya MIZUTANI
AU - Takehiko KAGOSHIMA
PY - 2005
DO - 10.1093/ietisy/e88-d.11.2565
JO - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
SN -
VL - E88-D
IS - 11
JA - IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Information
Y1 - November 2005
AB - This paper proposes a novel speech synthesis method to generate human-like natural speech. The conventional unit-selection-based synthesis method selects speech units from a large database, and concatenates them with or without modifying the prosody to generate synthetic speech. This method features highly human-like voice quality. The method, however, has a problem that a suitable speech unit is not necessarily selected. Since the unsuitable speech unit selection causes discontinuity between the consecutive speech units, the synthesized speech quality deteriorates. It might be considered that the conventional method can attain higher speech quality if the database size increases. However, preparation of a larger database requires a longer recording time. The narrator's voice quality does not remain constant throughout the recording period. This fact deteriorates the database quality, and still leaves the problem of unsuitable selection. We propose the plural unit selection and fusion method which avoids this problem. This method integrates the unit fusion used in the unit-training-based method with the conventional unit-selection-based method. The proposed method selects plural speech units for each segment, fuses the selected speech units for each segment, modifies the prosody of the fused speech units, and concatenates them to generate synthetic speech. This unit fusion creates speech units which are connected to one another with much less voice discontinuity, and realizes high quality speech. A subjective evaluation test showed that the proposed method greatly improves the speech quality compared with the conventional method. Also, it showed that the speech quality of the proposed method is kept high regardless of the database size, from small (10 minutes) to large (40 minutes). The proposed method is a new framework in the sense that it is a hybrid method between the unit-selection-based method and the unit-training-based method. In the framework, the algorithms of the unit selection and the unit fusion are exchangeable for more efficient techniques. Thus, the framework is expected to lead to new synthesis methods.
ER -
English
