Voice synthesis device, voice synthesis method, and recording medium having a voice synthesis program recorded thereon

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9711123-B2
Application number	US-201514934627-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 6, 2015
Priority date	Nov 10, 2014
Publication date	Jul 18, 2017
Grant date	Jul 18, 2017

Abstract

Provided is a voice synthesis device, including: a voice synthesis information acquisition unit configured to acquire voice synthesis information for specifying a sound generating character; a replacement unit configured to replace at least a part of sound generating characters specified by the voice synthesis information with an alternative sound generating character different from the sound generating character; and a voice synthesis unit configured to execute a second synthesis process for generating a voice signal of an utterance sound obtained by the replacing.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A voice synthesis device comprising:
a processor configured to implement instructions stored in a memory and execute:
a voice synthesis information acquisition task that acquires voice synthesis information for specifying a sound generating character, a pitch, and a sound generation period for each note, wherein the sound generating character is a symbol for expressing a mora formed of one of a single vowel and a combination of a consonant and a vowel;
a display control task that:
causes a display device to display an edit image, in which a note pictogram for representing each note specified by the voice synthesis information is arranged in a musical notation area defined by setting a time axis and a pitch axis;
causes a display mode of the note pictogram to differ between an execution time of one selective operation mode and an execution time of another selective operation mode; and
displays, on the display device, a plurality of candidates of alternative sound generating characters selectable by a user viewing the display device;

a replacement task that, in the one selective operation mode, replaces at least a part of sound generating characters specified by the voice synthesis information with an alternative sound generating character, which is different from the part of sound generating characters, selected by the user from the plurality of candidates displayed on the display device by the display control task, wherein the alternative sound generating character is formed of the vowel obtained by omitting the consonant of the sound generating character;
a voice synthesis task that, in the one selective operation mode:
replaces the sound generating character of a first class, which exhibits a large delay amount between a start of sound generation of a consonant and a start of sound generation of a vowel immediately after the consonant, among a plurality of sound generating characters specified by the voice synthesis information with the alternative sound generating character;
inhibits the sound generating character of a second class different from the first class from being replaced; and
generates a voice signal of an utterance sound with the synthesis information that has been altered by the replacement task.

2. The voice synthesis device according to claim 1 , wherein:
the processor is further configured to execute an information editing task that sequentially generates first information for specifying a predetermined sound generating character in response to an instruction issued from the user to an input device and add the first information to the voice synthesis information,
the voice synthesis task, in the one selective operation mode, also generates the voice signal of the utterance sound with the synthesis information that has been altered by the replacement task and further specified by the first information in real time in parallel with the instruction issued to the input device.

3. The voice synthesis device according to claim 1 , wherein the voice synthesis task, in the another selective operation mode, generates the voice signal of the utterance sound of the sound generating character using the voice synthesis information for specifying the sound generating character.

4. The voice synthesis device according to claim 2 , wherein the voice synthesis task, in the another selective operation mode, generates the voice signal of the utterance sound of the sound generating character using the voice synthesis information for specifying the sound generating character.

5. The voice synthesis device according to claim 4 , wherein:
the voice synthesis task further:
controls a duration of a consonant of the voice signal based on a first control variable specified by the first information;
controls a volume of the voice signal based on a second control variable specified by the first information; and
control, in the one selective operation mode, the volume of the voice signal based on the first control variable corresponding to an operation with respect to the input device; and

the information editing task further sets, in the one selective operation mode, a numerical value of the first control variable as a numerical value of the second control variable specified by the first information.

6. The voice synthesis device according to claim 1 , wherein the alternative sound generating character is defined in advance.

7. The voice synthesis device according to claim 1 , wherein the alternative sound generating character is formed by changing the consonant of the sound generating character to another consonant.

8. The voice synthesis device according to claim 1 , wherein the alternative sound generating character is repeatedly used to synthesize a singing voice over a plurality of notes.

9. A voice synthesis method comprising the steps of:
acquiring voice synthesis information for specifying a sound generating character, a pitch, and a sound generation period for each note, wherein the sound generating character is a symbol for expressing a mora formed of one of a single vowel and a combination of a consonant and a vowel;
controlling a display device to:
cause the display device to display an edit image, in which a note pictogram for representing each note specified by the voice synthesis information is arranged in a musical notation area defined by setting a time axis and a pitch axis;
cause a display mode of the note pictogram to differ between an execution time of one selective operation mode and an execution time of another selective operation mode; and
display, on the display device, a plurality of candidates of alternative sound generating characters selectable by a user viewing the display device;

replacing, in the one selective mode, at least a part of sound generating characters specified by the voice synthesis information with an alternative sound generating character, which is different from the part of sound generating characters, selected by the user from the plurality of candidates displayed on the display device in the controlling step, wherein the alternative sound generating character is formed of the vowel obtained by omitting the consonant of the sound generating character;
voice synthesizing, replacing, in the one selective operation mode, by:
replacing the sound generating character of a first class, which exhibits a large delay amount between a start of sound generation of a consonant and a start of sound generation of a vowel immediately after the consonant, among a plurality of sound generating characters specified by the voice synthesis information with the alternative sound generating character; and
inhibiting the sound generating character of a second class different from the first class from being replaced; and
generating a voice signal of an utterance sound obtained with the synthesis information that has been altered in the replacing step replacing at least a part of sound generating characters specified by the voice synthesis information with an alternative sound generating character.

10. A non-transitory recording medium storing a voice synthesis program executable by a computer to execute a voice synthesis method comprising the steps of:
acquiring voice synthesis information for specifying a sound generating character, a pitch, and a sound generation period for each note, wherein the sound generating character is a symbol for expressing a mora formed of one of a single vowel and a combination of a consonant and a vowel;
controlling a display device to:
cause the display device to display an edit image, in which a note pictogram for representing each note specified by the voice synthesis information is arranged in a musical notation

Assignees

• Yamaha Corp

Inventors

• Ogasawara Motoki

Classifications

• G10H1/0066

  using a MIDI interface · CPC title

• G10L13/033

  Voice editing, e.g. manipulating the voice of the synthesiser · CPC title

• G10H2250/455

  Gensound singing voices, i.e. generation of human voices for musical applications, vocal singing sounds or intelligible words at a desired pitch or with desired vocal effects, e.g. by phoneme synthesis · CPC title

• G10L13/06 Primary

  Elementary speech units used in speech synthesisers; Concatenation rules · CPC title

• G10H7/02

  in which amplitudes at successive sample points of a tone waveform are stored in one or more memories · CPC title