NN NN LL 333333 NN N NN LL 33 33 NN N NN LL 33 NN N NN LL 33 NN N NN LL 33 NN N NN LL 33 NN N NN LL 33 NN N NN LL 33 33 NN NN LLLLLLLLL 333333 release 0.1 - Aug 98 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NL3 - Dutch female voice for the MBROLA speech synthesizer Created by Leo Vogten and Esther Klabbers IPO, Center for Research on User-System Interaction, Eindhoven/NL December 1996 - April 1997 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- UPDATE INFORMATION -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Table of Contents -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 Description of the NL3 diphone database 2.0 Distribution 3.0 Installation and tests 4.0 More information on SPENGI 5.0 Acknowledgements -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1.0 Description of the NL3 diphone database -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- NL3 is a diphone database for Dutch for a female voice, consisting of 1955 diphones. The following SAMPA phoneme symbols are used in our diphone sets. Examples of the use of the phonemes in English and German are included. ========================================= vowels sampa Dutch English German ----------------------------------------- @ gemak [x@mAk] among getan ----------------------------------------- A pad [pAt] star - E pet [pEt] - Bett I pit [pIt] pit Mitte O pot [pOt] board Frost Y put [pYt] - zwoelf i vier [vir] ease Lied u voer [vur] lose Blut y vuur [vyr] - suess a laan [lan] - hat e veer [ver] pet eben o voor [vor] - rot 2 deur [d2r] - bloed ========================================= vowels sampa Dutch English German ----------------------------------------- Ei reis [rEis] - - 9y huis [h9ys] - - Au koud [kAut] - - ----------------------------------------- ai haai [hai] - - oi mooi [moi] - - ui boei [bui] - - ----------------------------------------- Ai ai! [Ai] - - Oi hoi! [hOi] - - ========================================= consonants sampa Dutch English German ----------------------------------------- p pas [pAs] pin Panne t tas [tAs] task Tat k kas [kAs] cat kam b bas [bAs] bad Bein d das [dAs] dad doch g goal [goL] give Gabel c matje [mAc@] - - ----------------------------------------- f fiets [fits] fine viel v vaas [vas] vocal wir s sap [sAp] sit Gas z zak [zAk] zip sieben S sjiek [Sik] sheep schoen Z gage [xaZe] measure Genie x lach [lAx] loch ach G regen [reG@n] - - h hand [hAnd] hit Hand ----------------------------------------- m man [mAn] man Mensch n nam [nAm] name nein N lang [lAN] long Ding J oranje [orAJ@] ----------------------------------------- r rand [rAnd] wrong Rost l lief [lif] leave Leben L bal [bAL] ball - j jas [jAs] year Jahr w wat [wAt] we - ========================================= variants sampa Dutch English German ----------------------------------------- variants E: beige [bE:Z@] - - 9: freule [fr9:l@] - O: roze [rO:z@] - - ========================================= diacritics, special sampa Dutch English German ----------------------------------------- diacritics, special _ silence ? glottal stop -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.0 Distribution -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This distribution of nl3.zip contains the following files : nl3 - Dutch female voice nl3.txt - this file and a number of example .pho files : hagel.pho - "Vandaag trekt een aantal hagel- en sneeuwbuien over het land, waarbij het lokaal glad wordt." hoort.pho - "U hoort nog van ons." nummer.pho - "040-2475258" weltrusten.pho - "Welterusten!" kat.pho - "Als de kat van huis is, dansen de muizen op tafel." spengi.pho - "U hoort nu een voorbeeld van SPENGI. Het IPO-systeem voor het automatisch genereren van difoonspraak vanuit een verrijkte foneemnotatie." All files have been generated by SPENGI, the IPO system for automatic generation of diphone speech from an enriched phoneme notation. For more information on SPENGI see Section 4.0 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.0 Installation and Tests -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you have not copied the MBROLA software yet, please consult the MBROLA project home page and get it. Copy nl3.zip into the mbrola directory and unzip it : unzip nl3.zip (or pkunzip on PC/DOS) Try, for example, mbrola nl3 weltrusten.pho weltrusten.wav to create a sound file for a good night wish. In this example the audio file follows the RIFF Wave format. But depending on the extension .au, .aift, or .raw other file formats can be obtained. 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 that can be synthesized with MBROLA and the NL3 database. On Unix systems you can pipe the audio ouput to the sound player as on a HP : mbrola nl3 weltrusten.pho - | splayer -srate 16000 -l16 Also refer to the readme.txt file provided with the mbrola software for using it. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4.0 More information on SPENGI -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SPENGI is the IPO system for automatic generation of diphone speech from an enriched phoneme notation. It can be used running independently with IPO databases or on top of MBROLA and the NL3 database. It runs on PCs and some UNIX systems and has user-modifiable rules for duration and intonation control. For example, the enriched phonetic string y hort ny @n "vor-beLt vAn "spEN-xi /// @t "?i-po sis-tem vor @t ?o-to"ma-tis xe-n@"re-r@n vAn "di-fon-sprak // vAn-9yt @n v@"rEikt@ fo"nem-no%ta-si ///// results in the example file spengi.pho, presented in Section 2.0. For more information consult the author of this document. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5.0 Acknowledgments -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The NL3 database was developed at IPO by Leo Vogten and Esther Klabbers. The voice is Ineke Burema's. She is a professional news reader. We would like to thank Vincent Pagel for his efforts in converting our diphone database to the MBROLA format. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- August 20, 1998 Raymond Veldhuis IPO, Center for Research on User-System Interaction P.O. Box 513 5600 MB Eindhoven The Netherlands Tel. : +31 40 2475258 Fax. : +31 40 2431930 E-mail : veldhuis@ipo.tue.nl URL (IPO) : http://www.tue.nl/ipo/ URL (personal) : http://www.tue.nl/ipo/people/veldhuis/index.html ================================================================================