![]() ![]() The volumes of the contributions from the different tuning forks can be varied by partly opening or closing their resonance chambers. Driven by electromagnets, the tuning forks vibrate with perfect regularity in their basic frequencies. His synthesis machine consists of a battery of tuning forks equipped with resonance chambers, with frequencies in harmonious proportions. To synthesize vowels, Helmholtz did not imitate the human body, but built up the sounds from elementary, sinus-shaped components. ![]() In the second half of the nineteenth century, research into the phenomenon of sound had reached the stage where one could attempt to analyse the sounds of human speech into elementary components. But his work in the field of speech synthesis was less physiologically and more acoustically oriented. Hermann Helmholtz was a pupil of that same Müller. Hermann Helmholtz's synthesis machine - Virtual Voices (2) - published in Mediamatic Magazine Vol. ![]() By moving the lips, he even managed to generate some consonants. By blowing air into the larynx of the corpse, Müller produced vocalic sounds, which closely resembled human speech. Continuing the efforts of Liskovius, who in 1814 was the first to generate chest- and head-voice from the larynx of a corpse, he cut off the head of a corpse in such a way that the entire vocal apparatus and part of the tracheae were preserved. His working method is clearly characterized by his orientation toward experiments on living or dead objects. 206/207.Ī related technology, with a cyberpunk slant, is due to Johannes Müller, the father of modern physiology. Flanagan Speech Analysis Synthesis and Perception, second edition, Berlin 1972, pp. But on his own, he could never do better than the usual growl. His greatest linguistic accomplishment consisted of the sentence, How are you Grandmamma? The dog apparently started taking a 'bread and butter' interest in the project and would try to talk by himself. The dog's repertoire of sounds finally consisted of the vowels /a/ and /u/, the diphthong /ou/ and the syllables /ma/ and /ga/. At the same time, Bell manipulated the dog's vocal tract by hand. He taught the dog to sit up on his hind legs and growl continuously. Bell's youthful interest in speech production also led him to experiment with his pet Skye terrier. Bell also produced a detailed design that never got implemented, for a device that would have been a mechanical Vocoder.īut his most curious contribution to artificial speech synthesis was another early feat. When, several years later, Bell invented the telephone, he introduced the technique that would determine the future of sound processing: the representation of sounds by means of electric signals. Back home, the boys proceeded to build a similar speaking machine themselves. When he was young, his father took him and his younger brother to an exhibition where they saw a replica of one of Von Kempelen's speech machines. Alexander Graham Bell stands at a turning point in the history of speech synthesis. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |