Whistler: a trainable text-to-speech system

Whistler is introduced, a trainable text to speech (TTS) system that automatically learns the model parameters from a corpus through the use of probabilistic learning methods that have been successfully used for speech recognition.

Abstract

We introduce Whistler, a trainable text to speech (TTS) system that automatically learns the model parameters from a corpus. Both prosody parameters and concatenative speech units are derived through the use of probabilistic learning methods that have been successfully used for speech recognition. Whistler can produce synthetic speech that sounds very natural and resembles the acoustic and prosodic characteristics of the original speaker. The underlying technologies used in Whistler can significantly facilitate the process of creating generic TTS systems for a new language, a new voice, or a new speech style.