DDD EEEEEEE 1 D D E 1 1 D D E 1 1 D D E 1 D D EEEE 1 D D E 1 D D E 1 D D E 1 DDD EEEEEEE 1111111 release 2.050 -------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents -------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 A brief description of the DE1 database 2.0 Distribution 3.0 Installation, and tests 4.0 Acknowledgments -------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 A brief description of DE1 -------------------------------------------------------------- DE1 1.00 release is a German diphone database provided in the context of the MBROLA project (see http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis). It provides a German female voice to be used with the MBROLA program. Input files use the SAMPA (SAM Phonetic Alphabet) notation as recommended by the EEC-SAM Project. Here is a list of the German speech sounds it accounts for, with examples. (NB : the table below is encoded as ASCII ISO8859-1; use an ASCII editor to see it correctly ) -------------------------------------------------------------- SAMPA EXAMPLES (orthographic) _ (silence, no signal) p Pier, aB b Bier, KraBBe t Tier, GraD d Dir, eDel k Kasse, taG g Gasse, eGal f Vogel, schlaF v Wasser, eVentuell s aSt, haSS z Sieb, beSen S Spät, aSCHe Z Genie, DSCHungel x naCH, doCH C diCH, honiG h Hut, aHorn pf PFerd, toPF ts Zwei, plaTZ tS kuTSCHe, Cello m Mut, haMMer n Nase, kaNNe N eNG, baNGe l Liebe, haLLe R Riese, kRaut 6 opER, deR j Jetzt, Jagd aI EIns, kAIser OY ÄUßerung, nEU aU AUf, schAU @ sehEn, bEsagt i: Igel, bIEten I In, bItten y: Übung, hÜten Y Ypsilon, hÜtten e: bEten, schnEE E bEtten, gÄste E: Äsen, geblÄse 2: Öfen, mÖgen 9 Öffnen, kÖnnen u: bUHlen, gUt U lUstig, bUtter o: Ofen, kOHl O Offen, tOpf a: wAr, wAHr a An, kAnn Only rudimentary implemented: E^ (= E~:) bulletIN a^ (= a~:) pendANT 9^ (= 9~:) parfUM o^ (= o~:) feuilletON E~ IMpair a~ pENdant o~ nONchalant at breath noise (only in conjunction with silence: at-_, _-at) -------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: Short closed vowels (e.g. [i, e, u, o]) should be synthesized using the corresponding long vowels (e.g. [i:, e:, u:, o:]) with approbiate duration values. For best synthesis results it is recommended to avoid pauses [_] between words, however, if a vowel should be produced with a glottal stop [?], a pause has to occur before the vowel. Limitations: ----------- Notice that not all diphones are possible in German. Impossible ones will trigger an error message (e.g. h-N or 9-9) -------------------------------------------------------------- 2.0 Distribution -------------------------------------------------------------- This distribution of mbrola contains the following files : de1 : the database itself de1.txt : This file and .PHO examples in a TEST directory Additional languages and voices, as well as other example command files, are or will be available in the context of the MBROLA project. Please consult the MBROLA project homepage : http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis Registered users will automatically be notified of the availability of new databases. To freely register, simply send an email to mbrola-interest-request@tcts.fpms.ac.be with the word 'subscribe' in the message title. -------------------------------------------------------------- 3.0 Installation and Tests -------------------------------------------------------------- If you have not copied the MBROLA software yet, please consult the MBROLA project homepage and get it. Copy de1.zip into the mbrola directory and unzip it : unzip de1.zip (or pkunzip on PC/DOS) (don't forget to delete the .zip file when this is done) Try mbrola de1/de1 TEST/wetter2.pho wetter2.wav to create a sound file. In this example the audio file follows the RIFF Wav format. But depending on the extension wetter2.au, wetter2.aif, or wetter2.raw you can obtain other file formats. Listen to it with your favorite sound editor, and try other command files (*.pho) to have a better idea of the quality of speech you can synthesize with the MBROLA technique. On Unix systems you can pipe the audio output to the sound player as on a HP : mbrola de1 wetter2.pho - | splayer -srate 16000 -l16 Also refer to the readme.txt file provided with the mbrola software for using it. -------------------------------------------------------------- 4.0 Acknowledgments -------------------------------------------------------------- I would like to thank Vincent Pagel for his help in building an efficient version of this database. -------------------------------------------------------------- Dr Fred Englert Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universitaet Institut für Phonetik PF 11 19 32 D-60054 Frankfurt am Main Tel.: +49.69.79823744 Fax.: +49.69.79823774 e-mail: englert@ieee.org, for questions concerning the database de1. e-mail: mbrola@tcts.fpms.ac.be, for general information, questions on the installation of software and databases.