EEEEEE N N 1 E NN N 1 1 E N N N 1 1 E N N N 1 EEEE N N N 1 E N NN 1 E N N 1 E N N 1 EEEEEEE N N 1111111 release 980910 Faculte Polytechnique de Mons (FPMs) Copyright (c) 1997 All Rights Reserved. (The original ROGER diphone database belongs to : Centre for Speech Technology Research University of Edinburgh, UK Copyright (c) 1996,1997 All Rights Reserved.) ------------------------------------------------------------ Table of Contents ------------------------------------------------------------ 1.0 License and disclaimer 2.0 A brief description of the EN1 database 3.0 Distribution 4.0 Installation, and tests 5.0 Acknowledgments ------------------------------------------------------------ 1.0 License and disclaimer (FPMs) ------------------------------------------------------------ This mbrola database is being provided to "You", the licensee, by the Faculte Polytechnique de Mons - mbrola team, the "Author of the Mbrola Database", under the following license. By obtaining, using and/or copying this database, you agree that you have read, understood, and will comply with these terms and conditions : Terms and conditions on the use of EN1 -------------------------------------- Permission is granted to use the MBROLA en1 encoding of the Roger database for synthesizing speech with and only with the Mbrola program made available from the MBROLA project www homepage : http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/mbrola.html following the terms and conditions on the use of the Mbrola program. Terms and conditions for the distribution of EN1 ------------------------------------------------ The distribution of this database is submitted to the same terms and conditions as the ones imposed by University of Edinburgh on the use and distribution of the ROGER database in an encoded form: "Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute this database for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, subject to the following conditions: 1. Redistributions retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 2. Redistributions in an encoded form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the redistribution. 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of contributors to this work may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission." In addition, the distribution of this database is submitted to the same terms and conditions as the ones imposed by Faculte Polytechnique de Mons on the distribution of the Mbrola program, in so far as they do not contradict the terms and conditions quoted above. This database may therefore be copied and distributed freely, provided that this notice is copied and distributed with it. Disclaimer ---------- THIS MBROLA DATABASE CARRIES NO WARRANTY, EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. THE USER ASSUMES ALL RISKS, KNOWN OR UNKNOWN, DIRECT OR INDIRECT, WHICH INVOLVE THIS DATABASE IN ANY WAY. IN PARTICULAR, THE AUTHOR OF THE MBROLA DATABASE DOES NOT TAKE ANY COMMITMENT IN VIEW OF ANY POSSIBLE THIRD PARTY RIGHTS. Additionally : THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH AND THE CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS WORK DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH NOR THE CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS WORK. ------------------------------------------------------------ 2.0 A brief description of EN1 ------------------------------------------------------------ EN1 release is a British English diphone database provided in the context of the MBROLA project : http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/mbrola.html It provides a British English male voice (known as "RogerÆs voice") to be used with the MBROLA program. It has been built from the original Roger diphones made available by CSTR, University of Edinburgh, as part of their generic text- to-speech system FESTIVAL : http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival.html Input files use the SAMPA phonetic notation, as adopted in other MBROLA databases. Below is a list of the English speech sounds it accounts for, with examples. We also give the correspondence with the MRPA phonetic notation used in the original distribution of RogerÆs voice in the FESTIVAL TTS system. MRPA SAMPA Example p p put b b but t t ten d d den k k can m m man n n not l l like r r run f f full v v very s s some z z zeal h h hat w w went g g game ch tS chain jh dZ Jane ng N long th T thin dh D then sh S ship zh Z measure y j yes ii i: bean aa A: barn oo O: born uu u: boon @@ 3: burn i I pit e e pet a { pat uh V putt o Q pot u U good @ @ about ei eI bay ai aI buy oi OI boy ou @U no au aU now I@ I@ peer e@ e@ pair u@ U@ poor MRPA also actually defines two allophones of [l] : a "light" one [l], as in "list", and a "dark" one [ll], as in "festival". We have used the character found in the IPA-SAM Truetype font [5]. ll 5 bolt Additionally, the notation for silence is the one used in previous mbrola databases : _ (MRPA uses #). However, in order to maintain a strict compatibility with the MRPA notation, and to allow any other notation to be used as well, we have included in the distribution of en1 a configuration file which performs automatic MRPA to SAMPA phoneme mapping (as accepted by the latest version of mbrola; see below). Notice finally that there is no support for SAMPA's glottal stop (?, as in "network" [ne?w3:k]) nor for the voiceless velar fricative (x, as in "loch" [lQx]). Limitations: ----------- In the FESTIVAL distribution of Roger's voice, not all 2116 diphones (i.e. 46x46) are available. For reasons of compactness, some diphones (like e-dZ and e- d, for instance) have been mapped into a single unit. This should not have a major influence on the quality of synthetic speech. Notice also that not all diphones are possible in English (like f-ng, for instance). However, in order to avoid problems when trying to synthesize such impossible combinations, we have systematically mapped impossible diphones to 3:-@ (as done by FESTIVAL itself). ------------------------------------------------------------ 3.0 Distribution ------------------------------------------------------------ This distribution of mbrola contains the following files : en1 : the database itself en1mrpa : a configuration file, which can follow en1 on the command line, and enables automatic phoneme mapping for use with the MRPA notation. readme.txt : this file and several example .PHO files : mbrola.pho : a small introduction to mbrola mbrolamr.pho: same thing, MRPA notation euler.pho : a famous quotation by Swiss mathematician Leonhard Euler eulerfr.pho : same thing in French with an English accent tobe.pho : mbrola metaphysics 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/mbrola.html 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. ------------------------------------------------------------ 4.0 Installation and Tests ------------------------------------------------------------ If you have not copied the MBROLA software yet, or if you have an older version, please consult the MBROLA project homepage and get it. Copy en1.zip into the mbrola directory and unzip it : unzip en1.zip (or pkunzip on PC/DOS) (don't forget to delete the .zip file when this is done) Try mbrola en1 euler.pho euler.wav to create a sound file. In this example the audio file follows the RIFF Wav format. But, depending on the extension, euler.au, euler.aif, or euler.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 ouput to the sound player. On a HP, for instance, do: mbrola en1 euler.pho - | splayer -srate 16000 -l16 Also refer to the readme.txt file provided with the mbrola software for using it. You can also very easily use the MRPA input file eulermrp.pho : mbrola en1 en1mrpa eulermrp.pho euler.wav ------------------------------------------------------------ 5.0 Acknowledgments ------------------------------------------------------------ We would like to thank Alan Black, Paul Taylor, Roger Burroughes, Alistair Conkie, and Sue Fitt for the remarkable contribution they have made to free speech synthesis by making the original Roger diphone database freely available without any restriction of use. It should be noted in that respect that mbrola-based synthesis using en1 is fully supported by the Festival text- to-speech system developed at CSTR and available at : http://www.cstr.ed.ac.uk/projects/festival.html (Other possible uses of the mbrola speech synthesizer within complete TTS systems are listed at : http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis/mbrtts.html) ------------------------------------------------------------ The MBROLA team Sep 1998 Faculte Polytechnique de Mons 31 Bvd Dolez B-7000 Mons Belgium Tel.: +32.65.374133 Fax.: +32.65.374129 e-mail: mbrola@tcts.fpms.ac.be, for general information, questions on the installation of software and databases.