Analysis of acoustic features affecting singing-voice perception and its application to singing-voice synthesis from speaking-voice using STRAIGHT
Takeshi Saitou, Masashi Unoki, Masato Akagi · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2006
A singing-voice synthesis method that can be transformed from a speaking voice into a singing voice using STRAIGHT is proposed. This method comprises three sections: the F0 control model, spectral sequence control model, and duration control model. These models were constructed by analyzing characteristics of each acoustical feature that affects singing-voice perception through psychoacoustic experiments. The F0 control model generates a singing-voice F0 contour through consideration of four F0 fluctuations: overshoot, vibrato, preparation, and fine (unsteady) fluctuation that affect the naturalness of a singing voice. The spectral sequence control model modifies the speaking-voice spectral shape into a singing-voice spectral shape by controlling a singer’s formant, which is a remarkable peak of a spectral envelope at around 3 kHz, and amplitude modulation of formants synchronized with vibrato. The duration control model stretches the speaking-voice phoneme duration into a singing-voice phoneme duration based on note duration. Results show that the proposed method can synthesize a natural singing voice, whose sound quality resembles that of an actual singing voice.