FFFFFFF RRRRR F R R 4 F R R 4 4 F R R 4 4 FFFFF RRRR 4 4 F R R 4444444 F R R 4 F R R 4 F R R Release 2.069 -------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents -------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 A brief description of the FR4 database 2.0 Distribution 3.0 Installation, and tests 4.0 Author -------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 A brief description of FR4 -------------------------------------------------------------- FR4 2.069 release is a French diphone database provided in the context of the MBROLA project see: http://tcts.fpms.ac.be/synthesis It provides a French female voice to be used with the MBROLA program. The central pitch of the database is 200Hz, and the nominal sampling rate is 22050Hz. Input files use the SAMPA (SAM Phonetic Alphabet) notation as recommended by the EEC-SAM Project. Here is a list of the French phonemes 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 i idiot, ami e ému, été E perdu, maison a alarme, patte O obstacle, corps o auditeur, beau u coupable, loup y punir, élu 2 creuser, deux 9 malheureux, peur @ petite, fortement e~ peinture, matin a~ vantardise, temps o~ rondeur, bon 9~ lundi, brun j piétiner, choyer w quoi, fouine H huile, nuage p patte, repas, cap t tête, net k carte, écaille, bec b bête, habile, robe d dire, rondeur, chaud g gauche, égal, bague f feu, affiche, chef s soeur, assez, passe S chanter, machine, poche v vent, inventer, rêve z zéro, raisonner, rose Z jardin, manger, piège l long, élire, bal R rond, charriot, sentir m madame, aimer, pomme n nous, punir, bonne N ping, pong _ (silence marker) Limitations: ----------- Notice that SAMPA 'h' (halte,hop) is not defined. SAMPA 'J' (agneau, peigner, règne) should be entered as two separate phonemes : 'n' and 'j'. -------------------------------------------------------------- 2.0 Distribution -------------------------------------------------------------- This distribution of mbrola contains the following files : fr4 : the database itself fr4.txt : This file license.txt: must read before using the database and a number of example .PHO files : bonjour.pho Greetings hier.pho Oldies kundera.pho Milan Kundera, Unbearable lightness of being mbrola.pho My voice is synthesized thanks to a new bla bla bla 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 fr4.zip into the mbrola directory and unzip it : unzip fr4.zip (or pkunzip on PC/DOS) (don't forget to delete the .zip file when this is done) On PC-Windows register fr4 with the Wizard in the control panel. On unix platforms, try: mbrola fr4 TEST/bonjour.pho bonjour.wav to create a sound file for the word 'bonjour'. In this example the audio file follows the RIFF Wav format. But depending on the extension bonjour.au, bonjour.aif, or bonjour.raw you can obtain other file formats. Listen to it with your favorite sound editor, and try the 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 as on a HP : mbrola fr4 TEST/bonjour.pho - | splayer -srate 16000 -l16 Also refer to the readme.txt file provided with the mbrola software for using it. -------------------------------------------------------------- 4.0 Author -------------------------------------------------------------- This database was recorded by Babel Technologies SA - Belgium. For questions concerning the database itself contact pagel@babeltech.com Contact mbrola@tcts.fpms.ac.be, for general information, questions on the installation of software and databases.