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Where is Female Synthetic Speech?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Caroline Henton
Caroline Henton
Affiliation:
fonix corporation, 180 West Election Road, Draper, UT 84020 e-mail: chenton@fonix.com
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Abstract

There is widespread, immediate and enduring demand for high quality, natural, intelligible synthetic female voices in the expanding speech technology industry. Yet synthetic female voices are scarce, both in parametric text-to-speech (TTS) systems and in concatenative ones. Current female synthetic speech largely lacks naturalness, pleasantness and tolerability. Some acoustic specifications of female voices that are relevant to synthesis are discussed in detail. Recent research pertaining to female voice quality is reported and a ranking of these various considerations is proposed. This paper reviews the present situation and considers why there is a paucity of female voice synthesis.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the International Phonetic Association , Volume 29 , Issue 1 , June 1999 , pp. 51 - 61
Copyright
Copyright © Journal of the International Phonetic Association 1999

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