Computer created voices

[NewsMaker]

Forum: CG News
Posted By: kelgy
Post Time: 03-02-2010 at 05:38 AM
Text:

Not graphics but maybe some sort of graphics component is involved--I have always wondered about this area of digital technology--especially the part at the end about turning one voice into another.I think Bugs Bunny is one of the hardest--none of the post Mel Blanc voices have been able to get the high voice range or singing voice he could do up until the early 1960s.

From IMDB

Film critic Roger Ebert is scheduled to return to television on Tuesday using a voice synthesizer developed by Dr. Matthew Aylett, chief technical officer of Scotland-based CereProc that used old Ebert recordings to produce a "prototype" that can speak the words he types on his computer. Ebert will be demonstrating the system, which he calls Roger Jr., when he is interviewed by Oprah Winfrey on her syndicated afternoon show. In a Chicago Sun-Times article on Sunday, he wrote that the voice "needs to be smoother in tone and steadier in pacing, but the little rascal is good. ... To hear him coming from my own computer made me ridiculously happy." It has been reported that advances in speech synthesis have been coming at a remarkable rate. Some predict that the original voices of classic cartoon characters could soon be recreated (Donald Duck, Bugs Bunny) or even that Leonardo DiCaprio's voice could be transformed into Frank Sinatra's when Martin Scorsese's planned biopic of the singer is produced

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