HMM-based Speech Synthesis with an Acoustic Glottal Source Model

Abstract

A major cause of degradation of speech quality in HMM-based speech synthesis is the use of a simple delta pulse signal to generate the excitation of voiced speech. This paper describes a new approach to using an acoustic glottal source model in HMM-based synthesisers. The goal is to improve speech quality and parametric flexibility to better model and transform voice characteristics.