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Evolution of Audio Synthesis and Speech Recognition Through History

Delve into the journey of audio synthesis from Wheatstone's Speaking Machine in 1837 to the modern HMM synthesis method. Understand the basics of machine and human recognition alongside a historical perspective on generating sounds. Explore early speaking machines like Riesz's in the 1930s and the Voder showcased at the 1939 World's Fair. Learn about Voder controls and speech synthesis methods like phonemic synthesis by rule and concatenation. Discover electronic music instruments such as Theramin and analog synthesizers like Moog. Uncover the common electronic waveforms used in audio synthesis and speech recognition. The text provides a comprehensive look at the advancement of sound generation and speech technology.

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Evolution of Audio Synthesis and Speech Recognition Through History

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  1. EE 225D, Section I:Broad background • Synthesis/vocoding history (chaps 2&3) • Recognition history (chap 4) • Machine recognition basics (chap 5) • Human recognition basics (chap 18)

  2. Synthetic Audio A Brief Historical Introduction

  3. Generating sounds • Synthesis can be “additive” or “subtractive” • Additive means combining components (e.g., sinusoids) • Subtractive means filtered • Analogy to physical mechanisms • The human speech example …

  4. Von Kempelen’s chess-playing “automaton” (~1770)

  5. Wheatstone speaking machine, 1837 (after von Kempelen, ~1780)

  6. Wheatstone’s Speaking Machine(from von Kempelen) • Vibrating reed to simulate vocal cords • Nasal passage • Bellows for producing pressure • Leather “vocal tract” • Whistles for “s” and “sh” sounds

  7. Riesz’s speaking machine (1930s)

  8. The Voice Operation Demonstrator (Voder) • Shown at New York World’s Fair, 1939; also San Francisco Exhibition, 1939 • Apparently the first electronic synthesizer • Required a human operator, long training • Related to human voice production, but not a physical model (no tongue analogy, etc.) • Used filters to model the effect of varying vocal tract shape

  9. (Extremely) Simplified Model of Speech Production Periodic source voiced Filters Coupling Speech unvoiced Noise source What does the spectrum of a periodic source look like?

  10. Voder controls

  11. The Voder at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York

  12. VODER EXAMPLES Daisy Extended demo

  13. Excitations for speech sounds • Periodic: vowels, glides, liquids • Noise: voiceless fricatives (f,s) • Both: voiced fricatives (v,z) • Burst-like sounds: p-b,k-g,t-d

  14. Lesson 1 of the voder instructions

  15. Later Speech Synthesis methods • Phonemic Synth by rule: 1961 • Cascaded resonances (Fant, 1953) • Parallel resonances (Holmes, 1973)(synth followed by natural) • KlattTalk -> DECTalk (1970’s) • Speak & Spell (1979) • Concatenation (unit selection) • The newest: HMM synthesis • More on synthesis later in course

  16. The Klatt synthesizer, later implemented for DEC as DECtalk

  17. Speech frequency components • CNMAT site

  18. Music Machines • Barrel organs (water or spring powered) • Like music boxes, pins pluck or depress keys • Melography (18th century) - writable medium • Punched cards, as in Jacquard loom • Player pianos -> modern digital versions (Bosendorfer) • Telharmonium - additive sinusoidal synthesis • Lots of 1900 generators = one huge machine

  19. 17th century drawing of a water-powered barrel organ

  20. Electronic music • Theramin - player varies capacitances, alters frequency and amplitude for sinusoid • Analog synthesizers - oscillators, mixers, etc. - Moog, later FM synthesis • Digital synthesizers - the modern way

  21. Clara Rockmore at the theremin

  22. Léon Theremin (originally Lev SergeyevichTermen) at his instrument

  23. Common electronic waveforms • CNMAT site

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