Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Super cool. Is there a gender button somewhere? sounds very male to me but there's no difference in voice/sound production between genders other than just the exact pitch, right? Can you get it to make sounds like a woman or only a man?



There is (typically) a difference other than pitch. Formants will be in slightly different locations [1]; the energy in the spectrum is balanced differently; there is more aspiration noise [2]. You can model the latter somewhat with this tool by moving the voice source box down.

I've been creating a speech synthesiser recently and it does seem like simple approaches produce a voice that is more passably 'male' than 'female', even accounting for the pitch. Aspiration added with white noise sounds better but doesn't quite get that breathy quality across. I think more sophisticated techniques may be needed.

[1]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220531604_Phonetic_...

[2]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8653179


Thank you! Super interesting and a lot of info...


Can't you just turn the pitch all the way up?


Or way down to synthesize vocal fry!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vocal_fry_register


The length of the canal would be different, wouldn't it?


Vocal cord thickness too.




Consider applying for YC's Spring batch! Applications are open till Feb 11.

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: