A new voice processing system could help you 鈥渆volve鈥� your voice so that it sounds the way you want it to when you speak through a microphone. The technology could turn weak and weedy voices into the expressive and clear ones needed for effective public speaking.
For some, having the right voice can make the difference between success and failure. Britain鈥檚 ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher famously had voice training to lower the pitch of her voice, making her sound more authoritative.
If you want to command respect, having a strong, authoritative voice helps, says Yuji Sato at Hosei University in Tokyo. So to help people develop it, he鈥檚 devised a voice processing system that makes people sound more 鈥渏oyful, calm or manly鈥� 鈥� even the women.
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His system uses a genetic algorithm to 鈥渆volve鈥� an improved voice, he told the Genetic and Evolutionary Computing conference in New York last week.
Voice chromosomes
Starting with sample sentences, the algorithm analyses the voice signal to work out which aspects of it need to be enhanced or suppressed to produce the required effect.
To do this, it randomly creates a series of 鈥渧oice chromosomes鈥� representing ways in which the voice could be modified. Each chromosome is made up of three genes, corresponding to changes in voice pitch, volume and speed.
Individual chromosomes are applied to the waveform of the recorded speech, and the results played to observers who rank them according to the required criteria.
Rich and authoritative
After the group has ranked the new voices, the system takes the most successful voice chromosomes and swaps genes between them to produce a new generation of chromosomes. In addition, the software can randomly tweak certain genes, producing potentially interesting variations in the calmness, manliness or joyfulness of the voice.
Within a few generations, Sato鈥檚 system has been able to create speech chromosomes that turn a feeble voice into a clear, rich authoritative one.
Unfortunately, Sato鈥檚 system cannot yet reproduce the converted voice in real time, but he is working on it. However, even the current version should be good enough to make recorded TV soundtracks and computer game narratives more interesting.