DailyDirt: Computers Talking Back

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We've covered the uncanny valley of various visual works before, but it's interesting that synthetic speech doesn't seem quite as polished as digital photo and video editing. Apple's Siri might be able to respond with some pretty witty comebacks, but everyone can still tell that the voice is computer generated. Here are a few interesting links on artificially-generated sounds and voices. By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.
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Filed Under: audio editing, autotune, photoshop, software, stephen hawking, synthetic speech, voices
Companies: vocaloid


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  1. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Jan 2012 @ 6:15pm

    Is Stephen Hawking robo voice actually his voice?

    I've always wondered if the voice that Hawkings uses is based on his actual real voice in some way...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. icon
    kyle clements (profile), 4 Jan 2012 @ 6:55pm

    Re: Is Stephen Hawking robo voice actually his voice?

    Nope.

    Also: in one of his books, he complains that the synthetic voice has an American accent, but since he's had the robot voice longer than his real voice, he's gotten used to it by now.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Jan 2012 @ 7:59pm

    Spectral editing now we are talking :)

    Finally something better than:
    steinberg - WaveLab
    WaveLab (Math software)
    MAGIX - Sequoia
    Algorithmix - reNOVAtor
    Algorithmix - easyNOVA
    SPEAR (Sinusoidal Partial Editing Analysis and Resynthesis).
    Photosounder
    Adobe - Soundbooth (ended)

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 4 Jan 2012 @ 10:19pm

    Voicing copyrights

    If the software is used to re-create a dead singers voice, who owns the copyright on the voice after it has been re-created? For that matter, I wonder if the software could be used to create new voices which could then be copyrighted, forcing future singers to pay licensing fees to whomever holds the copyright on their voice...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    whitecorp, 5 Jan 2012 @ 12:17am

    On the topic of computers snapping back at you,.......

    You guys may wanna take a look at this:

    http://www.oddee.com/item_98000.aspx

    Laughed my socks off reading this. Peace.

    link to this | view in thread ]


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