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VocalTractLab 2.0 User Manual

1. a ntti bh Time mark L da wee 31 st 0 Pa 1000 Pa Figure 13 Gestural score page The gestural score page allows you to create gestural scores for the synthesis of connected utterances The page has a control panel at the left side and a signal display and gestural score editor at the right 15 Fig 13 The signal display allows the side by side comparison of the synthetic speech signal and a natural speech signal and so helps to reproduce natural utterances by articulatory speech synthesis 6 1 The concept of gestural scores A gestural score is an organized pattern of articulatory gestures for the realization of an utterance This concept was originally developed in the framework of articulatory phonology Browman and Goldstein 1992h While the basic idea is the same in VTL the specification and execution of gestures differ from articulatory phonology and will be briefly discussed here In general a gesture represents movement toward a target configuration of the vocal tract model or the vocal fold model by the participating artic ulators parameters These gestures are organized in eight tiers as shown in Fig 13 Each tier contains gestures of a certain type From top to bottom these are vowel gestures lip gestures tongue tip gestures tongue body gestures velic gestures glottal shape gestures FO gestures and lung pressure gestures Within the same tier th
2. ger 2006 Vocal Tract Model Adaptation Using Magnetic Resonance Imaging In 7th International Seminar on Speech Production ISSP 06 Ubatuba Brazil pp 493 500 Birkholz Peter Bernd J Kroger and Christiane Neuschaefer Rube 201 1a Articulatory synthesis of words in six voice qualities using a modified two mass model of the vocal folds In First Interna tional Workshop on Performative Speech and Singing Synthesis p3s 2011 Vancouver BC Canada 2011b Model based reproduction of articulatory trajectories for consonant vowel sequences In IEEE Transactions on Audio Speech and Language Processing 19 5 pp 1422 1433 2011c Synthesis of breathy normal and pressed phonation using a two mass model with a trian gular glottis In Interspeech 2011 Florence Italy pp 2681 2684 Browman Catherine P and Louis Goldstein 1992 Articulatory Phonology An Overview In Pho netica 49 pp 155 180 Fant Gunnar 1959 Acoustic analysis and synthesis of speech with applications to Swedish Ericsson Stockholm Fant Gunnar Johan Liljencrants and Qi guang Lin 1985 A four parameter model of glottal flow In STL QPSR 4 pp 1 13 22 Ishizaka Kenzo and James L Flanagan 1972 Synthesis of Voiced Sounds From a Two Mass Model of the Vocal Cords In The Bell System Technical Journal 51 6 pp 1233 1268 Prom on Santhitam Yi Xu and Bundit Thipakorn 2009 Modeling
3. 75 i j E Lip protrusion 0 14 75 9 Vert lip distance 0 48 75 y ly Velum position 0 00 100 6 Tongue body X 0 72 75 aU begin aU end Tongue body Y 2 13 75 al begin al end Tongue tip X 5 10 100 OY begin OY end Tongue tip Y 0 19 100 u orig i orig Tongue blade X 2 25 75 a orig Habial clo Tongue blade Y 0 15 75 lI dental cons Tongue root X 1 69 50 tt alveolar cons tt alveolartat Tongue root Y 3 11 50 tt postalveolar cons tb palatal cons A tb velar do Tongue side elevation 1 0 50 75 tb velar cons Tongue side elevation2 0 50 75 Tongue side elevation3 9 70 75 Tongue side elevation4 0 00 100 Min area tongue body 9 99 75 Min area tongue tip 0 00 100 Min area teeth lips 0 00 75 Move up Move down add Replace Delete Rename Select Figure 8 Vocal tract shapes dialog 5 Time domain simulation of vocal tract acoustics Time domain simula tion page Fig 11 shows the time domain simulation page which was designed for the analysis of vocal tract acous tics during the time domain simulation Here you can analyze how the pressure and volume velocity flow distribution in the vocal tract changes over time during speech production There are three displays on the page The area function display at the bottom shows the discrete area function of the vocal system Each slice of the area function represents a short section of the vocal system tube The glottis represented by two ve
4. Tone and Intonation in Mandarin and English as a Process of Target Approximation In Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 125 1 pp 405 424 Sondhi Man Mohan and Juergen Schroeter 1987 A hybrid time frequency domain articulatory speech synthesizer In IEEE Transactions on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing ASSP 35 7 pp 955 967 Stevens Kenneth N 1998 Acoustic Phonetics The MIT Press Cambridge Massachusetts Titze Ingo R 1989 A Four Parameter Model of the Glottis and Vocal Fold Contact Area In Speech Communication 8 pp 191 201 23
5. calculated in the frequency domain similar to the method by Sondhi and Schroeter 1987 The other simulates the acoustic wave motion entirely in the time domain based on a finite difference scheme in combination with a model of the vocal folds attached to the transmission line model of the vocal tract Currently three vocal fold models are implemented the geometrical model by Titze 1989 the classical two mass model by Ishizaka and Flanagan 1972 and a modified two mass model by Birkholz Kroger and Neuschaefer Rube and Birkholz Kr ger and Neuschaefer Rube 201 1a These models can be individually parameterized and exchanged for the acoustic simulation Connected utterances based on gestural scores are always simulated in the time domain because this method can better account for dynamic and transient acoustic effects For the simulation of glottal and supraglottal noise sources a noise source model based on Stevens is used Coarticulatory effects of the vocal tract are modeled using a dominance model In this model for the formation of a certain consonantal constriction each articulator i e vocal tract parameter has an in dividual dominance value that defines how important the articulator is for that particular constriction For example for an apico alveolar closure as in t the parameters controlling the position of the tongue tip have a high dominance they are important and the parameter controlling the height of the laryn
6. example VirtualBox www virtualbox org Note that VTL comes with no warranty of any kind The whole software is under continual development and may undergo substantial changes in future versions 1 3 Download Installation Registration The program is free of charge and available for download as a ZIP file from It needs no special installation Simply unzip the downloaded file into a folder of your choice and start the program by calling VocalTractLab2 exe The ZIP archive contains a couple of other data files most of which are example files The only essential file next to the executable is JD2 speaker which is an XML file that defines the default speaker see Sec A T and is loaded automatically when VTL is started After downloading the program it has a limited functionality To get access to all functions please register your copy of VTL Just write a short email containing your name city and institution tolpeter birkholz vocaltractlab de with the request to register In response you will receive a personalized registration file activating all the functions described in this manual Note that the response may take a few days as it is done manually If you have a registration file for a previous version of the software you can also use it for the new version and don t need to register again Just copy the file registration txt into the folder with the new version 2 Overview 2 1 Computational models VTL implemen
7. is meant for the manual creation of gestural scores and the copy synthesis of natural utterances The following four sections will explain the basic functionality of the pages In general each of the pages consists of a main region that contains different displays and a control panel at the left side In addition to the main window many functions of VTL are controlled with individual dialogs that can be displayed or hidden on demand All the dialogs associated with the implemented synthesis models can be called from the menu Synthesis models The following abbreviations will be subsequently used LMB left mouse button RMB right mouse button 4 3 Basic signal analysis Signal page The signal page provides displays and functions for the basic analysis of audio signals VTL has three tracks to store sampled signals They are called Main track EGG track and Extra track In most cases all audio analysis and synthesis takes place on the main track The EGG track is meant to store the Electroglottogram EGG signal corresponding to a speech signal in the main track Finally the extra track can store a third signal for different purposes For the copy synthesis of speech based on gestural scores see Sec 6 the extra track must contain the original master speech signal Each track represents a buffer of 60 s length with a sampling rate of 22050 Hz and a quantization of 16 bit The menu File has five items to loa
8. the gestural score file banane synth ges with the menu item File Load gestural score The gestural score appears in the right bottom part of the page 18 7 3 7 4 Select a shape from the list for example a Press the button Synthesize in the control panel uncheck the checkbox Show animation press OK and wait for the synthesis to finish The oscillogram and spectrogram of the synthesized signal appear in the top right display Load the audio file banane orig wav to the extra track with the menu item File Load WAV Load the segment sequence banane orig seg with the menu item File Load segment se quence Check the checkboxes Show extra track and Show segmentation in the control panel to show the segment sequence and the master audio signal in the main track Your screen should look similar to Fig 13 now Press the play buttons next to the oscillograms of the original and the synthetic signal to compare them perceptually Compare the spectrograms of the original and the synthetic signal You can change the height of the spectrograms by dragging the splitter control right above the scrollbar for the time which separates the upper and lower displays Create and save a new vocal tract shape Select the vocal tract page with the corresponding tab below the toolbar Open the vocal tract shapes dialog and the vocal tract dia
9. to the area function shows a cross section through the 3D vocal tract model from which the area grey region was calculated at a certain position along the center line The position of this cross section is marked by the vertical dashed line in the area function and also shown in the vocal tract display when the box Show center line is checked in the dialog The position along the center line can be changed by dragging the corresponding control point The display in the bottom part of the vocal tract page shows one or more spectra The spectrum shown by default is the vocal tract transfer function corresponding to the current shape of the vocal tract This spectrum is calculated in the frequency domain based on the transmission line model of the vocal tract cf Sec 2 1 The formant frequencies are automatically determined and marked by vertical dashed lines e VocalTractLab2 Registered for Max Mustermann fo x File Export Synthesis models Help Pbx Signals Vocal tract Time domain simulation Gestural score Show vocal tract za Length 16 00 cm A 1 57 cm 2 C 2 2 cm nn ny Velum area 0 00 cm 2 Yelum pos 7 32 cm ama rca tract shapes ses 124 Cur area 1 57 cm 2 Teeth pos 15 32 cm asa phoneticpannetemaaa 11 i LF glottal flow pulse 104 S ee al Area function display Cross section through Ae fegan coran i the vocal tract Improve formants Edit pole zero plan Play short vowel Play lon
10. values are shown at the right side The concept of the dominance values was briefly introduced in Sec 2 i and is discussed in detail in Birkholz and Kr ger 2006 How the vocal tract shapes were obtained is also described in Birkholz and Kr ger 2006 The names chosen for the vocal tract shapes of vowels are the corresponding SAMPA symbols For each of the three diphthongs aU al and OY there is one initial and one final shape of the vocal tract in the list Shapes for consonantal constrictions and closures are sorted by the primary articulator They start with ll for the lower lip with tt for the tongue tip with tb for the tongue body The following part of the name indicates the place of articulation e g labial dental alveolar followed by clo for a full closure cons for a critical constriction and lat for a lateral constriction This naming scheme is later used in gestural scores to distinguish consonantal gestures with respect to the primary articulator The buttons at the bottom of the dialog allow to re sort the list and to add replace delete rename and select items When you click Add or Replace the current vocal tract configuration shown in the vocal tract dialog is added to the list or taken to replace an existing item Click Delete or Rename to delete or rename a selected item in the list The button Select takes the selected item in the list as the c
11. values of one time step of the simulation 44100 Hz sampling rate The data can be imported into MS Excel or other programs 6 Gestural score Gestural score page a VocalTractLab2 Registered for Max Mustermann Gesture sone properties lt Start tme 0 151s Duration 133ms lt Time constant 15 1ms r Time axis B Mark pos 0 0 Display choice Show gestural score Show motor program Audio signals F Show extra track V Show sonagram F Show segmentation Synthesize Show vocal tract Show glottis Analysis results Analysis settings F Show model FO curve Acoustics time domain Calculate FO Annotation dialog Main oscillo Main spectro Extra oscillo gt Extra spectro Vowel gestures Lip gestures Tongue tip g Tongue body g Yelic gestures Glottal shape g FO gestures Lung pressure g 2mm File Export Synthesis models Help bbx Signals I Vocal tract Time domain simulation Gestural score Gesture Segment sequence 0 1 0 0 20 0 30 0 40 0 50 0 60 0 70 H neutral absent Words Banane Value Phones a n a n tt alveolar do v JE ii Main track oscillogram and spectrogram Model F0 contour g Yeh ay i ETET TLL waned PULL LLL err J RREN AMMA NAH LNs ran Ad ddd td MA Wd ysl wait Extra track ane and ae W iai
12. you to define a transfer function by means of formant and anti formant frequencies and bandwidths To open the pole zero dialog shown in Fig 10 click the button Edit pole zero plot in the control panel The left side shows the location of the poles crosses and zeros circles in the bandwidth frequency plane To change the location of a pole or zero drag it with the LMB Right click in the display to call a context menu to add new or delete existing poles and zeros When the check box P Z spectrum next to the spectrum display on the vocal tract page is checked the transfer function corresponding to the current pole zero plot is shown In reality a vocal tract transfer function has an infinite number of poles When you want to approximate the effect of the higher poles the ones above the highest pole that you have placed in the plot according to Fant then check the box Higher pole correction in the pole zero dialog recommended To play the vowel sound corresponding to the current pole zero plot press the button Play The audio signal for the vowel is synthesized using the LF glottal pulse model with its current parameter settings and stored in the main audio track 10 a aaa ae CUT A Speaker C Arbeit Programmierung VocalTractLab2 Doc Manual V la Variable Value Domi 0 100 le Horz hyoid pos 0 53 50 ji IT Vert hyoid pos 4 87 50 o o Horz jaw pos 0 00 75 ju u Jaw angle deg 2 01
13. VocalTractLab 2 0 User Manual Contents 1 Introduction 1 1 Purpose 1 2 Requirements known issues Peter Birkholz April 26 2012 1 3 Download Installation Registration o o aaa ee 2 1 Computational models 2 2 Graphical user interface GUD 2 ee 3 Basic signal analysis Signal page 4 Vocal tract model analysis Vocal tract page 5 Time domain simulation of vocal tract acoustics Time domain simulation page 6 Gestural score Gestural score page 6 1 The concept of gestural scores 6 2 Editing a gestural score 6 3 Copy synthesis 7 Some typical uses 7 1 Analysis of the glottal flow for different supraglottal loads 0 7 2 Comparison of an utterance created by copy synthesis with its master signal 7 3 Create and save anew vocal tract shape 0 0000000008 0s 7 4 Fitting the vocal tract shape to contours in an image 2 000 A2 Gestural score file ges References 11 15 16 16 17 18 18 18 19 19 20 20 21 21 22 1 Introduction 1 1 Purpose VocalTractLab VTL is an articulatory speech synthesizer and a tool to visualize and explore the mecha nism of speech production with regard to articulation acoustics and control It is developed by Dr Peter Birkholz along with his research on articulatory speech synthesis With VTL you can for example e analyze the relationship between articul
14. al experiments Click the button Phonetic parameters in the control panel or select Synthesis models Phonetic parameters from the menu to open the phonetic parameter dialog shown in Fig 9 There are seven parameters which can be changed by scroll bars The parameters Tongue height and Tongue frontness specify the tongue shape for a vowel The actual shape is calculated by bilinear interpolation between the predefined shapes for the corner vowels a i and u The degrees of lip rounding and velum lowering are separately specified by the parameters Lip rounding and Velum position Finally the parameters Bilabial constriction degree Apico alveolar constriction degree and Dorso velar constriction degree can be used to superimpose consonantal constrictions of varying degrees on the vocalic configuration When a parameter is changed the corresponding changes in the vocal tract shape the area function and the transfer function are im mediately displayed Independently of the model of the vocal tract you can specify an arbitrary vocal tract transfer function in terms of a pole zero plot This function is mainly meant for educational experiments Generally a pole zero plot displays the poles and zeros of a rational transfer function in the complex plane In the case of the vocal tract system the poles correspond to formants and the zeros to anti formants Therefore the pole zero plot allows
15. ation and acoustics of the vocal tract e synthesize vowels for arbitrary vocal tract shapes with different models for voiced excitation e synthesize vowels from an arbitrary set of formants and anti formants e synthesize connected speech utterances based on gestural scores e analyze the time varying distribution of pressure and volume velocity within the vocal tract during the synthesis of speech However VTL is not a text to speech system At the moment connected utterances can only be synthe sized based on gestural scores as described in Sec 6 1 2 Requirements known issues VTL is currently developed for the Windows platform It was tested with Windows XP Vista and 7 The minimum screen resolution is 1024x768 but higher resolutions are preferable As the simulations are computationally intensive a fast computer is recommended For these reasons tablet computers and netbooks are generally not suited to work with VTL There was no extensive testing of the software but the parts of the program made available are considered to be relatively stable Please feel free to report any bugs to Currently there is the following issue With Windows Vista and 7 you should use the Aero design for the desktop this is the default Otherwise the model of the vocal tract which is drawn using OpenGL might not be displayed properly To run VTL on other platforms than Windows e g Linux or Mac we recommend to use a virtual machine for
16. d and save sampled signals e Load WAV EGG stereo loads a stereo WAV file The left channel is stored in the main track and the right channel is assumed to represent the corresponding EGG signal and is stored in the EGG track e Save WAV EGG stereo saves the signal in the main track and the EGG track in the selected time range see below to a stereo WAV file e Load WAV loads a mono WAV file to a track of your choice e Save WAV saves the signal in the selected time range from a track of your choice to a mono WAV file e Save WAV as TXT saves the signal in the selected time range from a track of your choice as numbers in a text file This allows the samples of a signal to be easily imported into programs like Matlab or MS Excel If the sampling rate of a WAV file to be loaded does not correspond to 22050 Hz the sampling rate is converted automatically There are four displays in the main part of the signal page cf Fig 1 the detailed oscillogram the overview oscillogram the spectrogram and the short time Fourier transform With the checkboxes next to the oscillogram display you can select the track s to display For each track the time signal is displayed in a different color The detailed oscillogram shows a detailed view of the highlighted part in the middle of the overview oscillogram For one of the tracks which can be selected next to the spectrogram display the spectrogram is shown Both the
17. d as articulatory targets when Options for the primary spectrum x Spectrum type Transfer function U U Transfer function P U Input impedance of the vocal tract Input impedance of the subglottal system Glottal volume velocity radiation impedance Radiated pressure Glottal volume velocity Options Show transfer function harmonics Figure 5 Options for the model spectrum to display Options for frequency domain synthesis Radiation impedance Energy losses 0 lossless V Boundary layer resistance Piston in spere Wakita Fant Heat conduction losses i I m Piston in wall 7 Soft walls Parallel circuit or R and L p Hagen Poiseuille resistance Additional options Constants V Paranasal sinuses Piriform fossa J Static pressure drops V Lumped elements in T sections Figure 6 Options for the acoustic simulation in the frequency domain gestural scores are transformed into time functions of vocal tract parameters The shapes are saved in the speaker file and loaded automatically when the program is started The shapes are managed in the vocal tract shapes dialog shown in Fig 8 which is called with the button Vocal tract shapes in the control panel or from the menu Synthesis models Vocal tract shapes At the left side of the dialog the names of the vocal tract shapes are listed When a shape is selected in the list the corresponding vocal tract parameters and dominance
18. e gestures grey and white boxes form a sequence of target directed movements towards consecutive targets Some tiers have the exclusive control over a set of vocal tract or vocal fold model parameters while other parameters are affected by gestures on different tiers Glottal shape gestures FO gestures and lung pressure gestures control the parameters of the selected vocal fold model The lung pressure gestures and the FO gestures exclusively control the corresponding parameters of the vocal fold model Here each gesture specifies a target value for the controlled param eter These target values are sequentially approached For FO gestures the target does not need to be constant in the time interval of a gesture but may vary as a linear function of time i e it may have a slope This corresponds to the target approximation model for FO control by Prom on Xu and Thipakorn 2009 Glottal shape gestures control all remaining control parameters of the vocal fold model Here the target associated with a gesture is a shape that was defined for the selected vocal fold model Sec 5 In for example the score starts with the glottal shape modal for modal phonation and approaches an open state with the gesture open towards the end Supraglottal articulation is defined by the upper five tiers of gestures Here the vowel gestures define basic diphthongal movements of the vocal tract On these movements are superimposed the constriction form
19. e implemented the geometric model by Titze 1989 the classical two mass model by Ishizaka and Flanagan 1972 the modified two mass model by Birkholz Kr ger and Neuschaefer Rube 2011c and a four mass model The four mass model is not intended to be used yet Each model is managed on a separate dialog page that can be shown by clicking on the corresponding tab The model that is currently used for simulations is marked with a star and can be changed when the button Use selected model for synthesis is pressed Each model has a specific set of static parameters and control parameters The static parameters define speaker specific shape independent properties of the model e g the rest length and the rest mass of the vocal folds On the other hand the control parameters define the instantaneous shape and properties of the vocal folds e g the vocal fold tension in terms of the fundamental frequency and the degree of abduction In the dialog the control parameters are changed with scrollbars Individual settings of these parameters can be saved as shapes For example you can define a shape for modal phonation a shape for breathy phonation more abducted vocal folds in the pre phonatory state and a shape for voiceless vocal tract excitation strong abduction These shapes are referred to in gestural scores where they are associated with glottal gestures Sec 6 The current list of shapes for a model can be found in the drop down lis
20. equence and load or save it with the menu items File gt Load Save segment sequence You can insert and delete segments calling the context menu in the segment row and move the borders between segments by dragging them with the LMB A double click on a segment opens the segment annotation dialog shown in Fig 14 where the properties of a segment can be changed For a description of the properties please refer to Sec A 3 Which parts of the display are shown in the top right part of the page can be controlled in the button group Audio signals in the control panel The checkbox Show model FO curve allows showing the 17 Segment annotations x Feature Value 2 duration_s 0 0136 3 start_of_syllable 1 a 4 word_accent 5 phrase_accent 6 start_of_word 1 7 word_orthographic Banane 8 word_canonic banan 9 part_of_speech 10 start_of_phrase 11 start_of_sentence 12 sentence_type 13 14 lt Figure 14 Segment annotation dialog model FO curve as a red dashed line in the spectrogram of the main track to compare it with the measured FO contour of the master signal in the extra track 7 Some typical uses 7 1 Analysis of the glottal flow for different supraglottal loads 1 2 7 2 Select the time domain simulation page with the corresponding tab below the toolbar Select one of the two tube sections of the glottis between the tracheal sections and the vocal tract sections with a left click in t
21. etch the gestural score at the time of the mark for example to increase the length of the phone at that time e Ctr Der simultaneously decreases the length of the gestures at the time mark in all tiers by a small amount In this way you can shorten the gestural score at the time of the mark for example to shorten the length of the phone at that time e Ciri lt scrolls the score to the left e Cii scrolls the score to the right To synthesize the speech signal for a gestural score click the button Synthesize in the control panel for a fast simulation uncheck the checkbox Show animation The synthesized audio signal will be stored in the main track and played automatically when the synthesis finished 6 3 Copy synthesis Without a lot of practice it is quite difficult to create gestural scores for natural sounding utterances It is somewhat easier but still not trivial to copy a natural master utterances with a gestural score because you can use the acoustic landmarks in the master signal for orientation with respect to the coordination and timing of gestures Therefore you can display the synthetic speech signal on the main track and the master signal which must be on the extra track as oscillograms and spectrograms below each other in the top right panel of this page In addition you can show the segment sequence of the master signal above the signals You can manually create edit a segment s
22. g vowel 0 0 2 0 4 0 6 0 8 0 10 0 120 140 16 0 cm Discrete V Area Circ V Show branches F Text dB V Model spectrum Euser spectrum E TDS spectrum I P Z Spectrum V Formants model s 1711 Hz 1258 Hz 12518 Hz 3484 Hz 25 V Magnitude Phase E 5 0 kHz Spectrum display a Sonia fed 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 Hz k Figure 3 Vocal tract page Note that the formant determination is not reliable when there are zeros anti formants in the transfer function for example when the velo pharyngeal port is open A left click in the spectrum display opens the dialog in Here you can select the kind of model spectrum to display e Transfer function U U is the volume velocity transfer function between the glottis and the lips e Transfer function P U is the complex ratio of the radiated sound pressure and the volume velocity at the glottis e Input impedance of the vocal tract is the input impedance seen from the glottis e Input impedance of the subglottal system is the input impedance of the subglottal system seen from the glottis e Glottal volume velocity radiation impedance is the product of the line spectrum of the glottal flow of the Liljencrants Fant model LF model see below and the radiation impedance at the mouth e Radiated pressure is the spectrum of the sound pressure that would be measured in front of the mouth when the vocal tract
23. h this and the previous two options can be shown in the spectrum display of the vocal tract page when the checkbox TDS spectrum is checked e Vowel LF flow pulse is used for the synthesis of a voiced sound excited by the LF flow pulse model The button Set area function sets the area function for the tube model used for the synthesis to the current area function of the vocal tract model e Phone full simulation is used for the synthesis of a phone with a static vocal tract shape excited by a model of the vocal folds For this kind of synthesis you must set the area function with the button Set area function and set a rest shape of the vocal fold model used for the synthesis see below Depending on the shape of the glottis and the vocal tract this option can be used to synthesize for example static vowels and voiced and voiceless fricatives e Gestural model is used for the synthesis of the utterance defined by the gestural score Sec 6 With this option the area function and the state of the glottis are derived from the gestural score and may change over time When this option is selected the scrollbar at the bottom of this page is enabled and allows scrolling through the utterance in time The corresponding changes in the area function over time are shown in the area function display To start the synthesis of the selected type press the button Start synthesis Continue synthesis in the control panel When the c
24. he area function display The vertical dashed line that marks the selected section should be placed as in the area function display in The time signal of the selected section and the selected acoustic variable will be shown in the upper display during simulations Select the radio button Flow in the top right corner of the page Open the vocal tract shapes dialog with the menu Synthesis models Vocal tract shapes Double click on the shape a in the list to make it the current vocal tract configuration Click the button Set area function in the control panel to set the area function of the vocal tract for the acoustic simulation Select the radio button Phone full simulation in the control panel and press Start synthesis You should now see the time function of the glottal flow in the upper display of the page Wait for the simulation to finish to hear the vowel After the simulation you can replay the vowel which is stored in the main track with P ge Select the vowel u from the list of vocal tract shapes press Set area function and start the 6699 synthesis again Observe how the glottal pulse shape differs from that for the vowel a just because of the different supraglottal configuration Comparison of an utterance created by copy synthesis with its master signal Select the gestural score page with the corresponding tab below the toolbar Load
25. he green arrow between the two vertical lines or the key combination ctrl plays the main track signal in the selected time range This signal part is played in a loop In the control panel of the page are the following buttons Analysis settings mtm Spectrum Spectrogram Formants GCIs FO _ Window length 4 6 0 ms 132 pt FFT length lt 23 2ms 512pt Dynamic range 4 120dB View range 4 5000 Hz A gaussian window is used Figure 2 Dialog for analysis settings e Analysis settings opens the dialog shown in This dialog allows setting the parameters used for the calculation of the spectrum in the bottom display for the spectrogram and the fundamental frequency FO contour e Calculate FO calculates the FO contour in the track of your choice which can be displayed in the spectrogram set the corresponding check mark in the analysis settings dialog on the FO tab e Analysis results opens a non modal dialog where the FO at the time of the mark in the oscillo gram spectrogram is displayed in semitones relative to the musical note Co with 16 352 Hz and Hz 4 Vocal tract model analysis Vocal tract page shows the vocal tract page which was designed for the articulatory acoustic analysis of the vocal tract The actual 3D vocal tract model is shown in a separate dialog Fig 4 This dialog is opened automatically when the program is started If it has been closed it can be
26. heckbox Show animation is checked the temporal change of the selected variable can be observed in the displays The speed of the animation can be changed between 1 and 100 13 Glottis models z4 F Save glottis signals during synthesis File name Use selected model for synthesis Titze Two mass model Triangular glottis Four mass model Derived values Lower rel displacement 0 01mm Upper rel displacement 0 01mm Lower abs displacement 0 14mm Upper abs displacement 0 14mm Cord length 11 44mm Lower thickness 2 73 mm Upper thickness 0 68 mm Lower area 1 73 mm 2 Upper area 1 79 mm 2 Tension Q 0 77 Contact area 0 00 mm 2 Control parameters fo 4 gt 99 74Hz Subglottal pressure lt 1000 00Pa Lower rest displacement lt gt 0 13mm Upper rest displacement lt gt 0 13mm Arytenoid area 4 gt 0 00 mm 2 Damping factor 4 gt 100 Shape modal x Save as selected l Save as existing Save as new Remove Static parameters Cord length 5 0 20 0 mm 13 000 mm L rest thickness 1 0 5 0 mm 2 400 mm a Figure 12 Glottis dialog VTL has implemented different models of the vocal folds that can be used for acoustic synthesis in the time domain These models are managed in the glottis dialog shown in which can be called with the button Glottis dialog in the control panel or from the menu Synthesis models Vocal fold models Currently four vocal fold models ar
27. ic Banane word_canonic banan name a duration_s 0 072357 name n duration_s 0 114149 start_of_syllable 1 name a duration_s 0 212388 name n duration_s 0 068383 start_of_syllable 1 name duration_s 0 195274 The first text line defines the length of the utterance in seconds Each following line defines one segment in terms of its name e g SAMPA symbol and duration When a segment is the first segment of a syllable a word a phrase or a sentence this can be indicated by additional attributes in the same text line where the segment is defined For example start_of_word 1 means that the current segment is the first segment of a new word The following list shows all possible attributes for a segment e name defines the name of the segment e duration_s defines the duration of the segment in seconds e start_of_syllable set to 1 marks the start of a new syllable e word_accent set to 1 places the stress in the word on the current syllable Other numbers can be used to indicate different levels of stress 21 e phrase_accent set to 1 places the stress on the current word within the phrase e start_of_word set to 1 marks the start of a new word e word_orthographic defines the orthographic form of a word e word_canonic defines the canonical transcription of a word e part_of_speech defines the part of speech of a word Any values can be used here e g verb noun or adjective e start_of_
28. ing gestures of the lips the tongue tip and the tongue body in the corresponding tiers In the example for the word banan in Fig 13 there is one long vowel gesture for a superimposed with a lip gesture for the bilabial closure for b and a tongue tip gesture for the apico alveolar closure of n A second tongue tip gesture for the second n starts at about the same time as the basic diphthongal movement from a to Parallel to the tongue tip gestures are two velic gestures to open the velo pharyngeal port during the oral closures Each gesture in the upper four tiers is associated with a particular pre defined vocal tract shape that serves as the target for the movement These are the shapes in the vocal tract shapes dialog The degree of participation of the individual articulators in the realization of a certain consonantal constriction is defined by the dominance values for that shape cf Sec 4 All gestures defined in the gestural score are either active gestures or neutral gestures An active gesture is painted as a gray box and specifies a certain target for the vocal tract model or vocal fold model parameters A neutral gesture is painted as a white box and represents the movement towards a neutral or underlying target For example in the tier of lip gestures the initial active gesture for the bilabial closure is followed by a neutral gesture that simply represents the movement back to the underlying vocalic target f
29. l tract records the impulse response of the volume velocity and pressure right above the glottis and calculates the complex ratio of the Fourier Transform of both signals e Transfer function injects a short volume velocity impulse from the glottis into the vocal tract and records the impulse response of the volume velocity at the lips The Fourier Transform of this 12 i e VocalTractLab2 Registered for Max Mustermann fo x File Export Synthesis models Help bbx l Signals Vocal tract Time domain simulation Gestural score V Show animation cm 3is Signal Pressure Speedin 100 E 400 00 Baa Position 0 086 s 200 00 Lic 0 00 J Main path Reset V Side paths continue syntness 5 f 200 00 Time signal display Synthesis type 400 00 Sea 0 05 0 04 0 03 0 0 0 01 s Supraglottal impedance o 3s i cm H nares 6004 Vowel w pulse aa Phone full simulation J Gestural model 7 e Choice of Setarea function synthesis type i Glottis dialog 200 Space time graph ae F LF glottal flow pulse 400 i Acoustics time domain LJ 14 142 1N 3 6 4 2 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 cm agi rae cele FO params of 4MM FO params of 404 l cm 2 4 Selected section 15 Trachea Figure 11 Time domain simulation page impulse response is the vocal tract transfer function calculated in the time domain The spectra resulting from the synthesis wit
30. lip tongue tip or tongue body gesture the label specifies a pre defined vocal tract shape as the target for the gesture FO gestures can have a non zero slope in addition to the target value The duration of a gesture can also be changed by dragging the vertical border line between two gestures with the LMB When Shift t is pressed at the same time only the border is moved Otherwise all gestures right from the border are moved along with the border For velic gestures FO gestures and pressure gestures the numeric value of the gesture can also be changed by dragging the horizontal dotted line in the gesture box vertically with the LMB With a right click in the gestural score the red time mark is set to the position of the mouse cursor the gesture under the mouse cursor is selected and a context menu is opened From the context menu you can choose to insert a gesture or to delete the selected gesture Press LMB to set the time mark to the position of the mouse When the vocal tract dialog or the glottis dialog is shown the state of the vocal tract or the glottis at the time of the mark is displayed there You can also drag the mouse from left to right with the LMB while is pressed In this case you can observe how the vocal tract shape and the glottis shape change over time Additional important keys are simultaneously increases the length of the gestures at the time mark in all tiers by a small amount In this way you can str
31. log with the buttons Vocal tract shapes and Show vocal tract in the control panel cc a with a double click on the item Drag around some of the yellow control points in the vocal tract dialog This changes the cor responding vocal tract parameters Observe the changes in the area function and the vocal tract transfer function Press the button Play long vowel in the control panel to hear the sound corre sponding to the current articulation Press the button Add in the vocal tract shapes dialog to save the current vocal tract configuration to the list of shapes Type test as the name for the new shape and click OK Press F2 21 to save the speaker file JD2 speaker to permanently save the new shape When you now close VTL and start it again the speaker file containing the extended list of shapes is automatically loaded Fitting the vocal tract shape to contours in an image Select the vocal tract page with the corresponding tab below the toolbar Click the button Show vocal tract in the control panel to show the vocal tract dialog Click the button Load background image in the dialog and load the file vowel a outline gif This image shows the outline of the vocal tract for the vowel u obtained from MRI data The image can be seen behind the 3D vocal tract model Click the radio button 2D in the vocal tract dialog to show the mid sagittal o
32. model would be excited by the LF model e Glottal volume velocity is the line spectrum of the glottal flow of the Liljencrants Fant model Beside the spectrum selected here the model spectrum you can display additional spectra by check ing the corresponding checkboxes right next to the display The user spectrum is the short time Fourier transform from the signal page The TDS spectrum is the Fourier transform of the impulse response of oe L la Tongue side elev mm Minimal area an 2 lt 8 72 lal 0 00 4 1 68 0 00 lt gt 6 44 Bp 0 00 lt 0 28 Ox 2D 30 OWire frame V Both sides V Show control points Show cut vectors Show center line V smooth Load background image No image loaded W Show background image T Background image editing Figure 4 Vocal tract dialog the vocal tract calculated using the time domain simulation This allows comparing the similarity of the acoustic simulations in the frequency domain and the time domain The P Z spectrum is the transfer function defined by a pole zero plan that can be created by the user see below The vocal tract transfer function characterizes the acoustic properties of the vocal tract tube between the glottis and the lips However there are different options for the calculation of the transfer function from a given area functio
33. n Clear Page LJ genes Vocal tract Time domain simulation Gestural score tabs W Main track View range 31 ms Mark pos 0 1915 s EJ EGG track Detailed oscillogram Analysis results Px rad Calculate FO J 100 4 A TA TA Control panel a w aa E Overview oscillogram RRR ye 4 Spectrogramof 5000 Hz 0 109 s View range 0 508 s 0 617 s y4 vN cit eigen in En Main track EGG track Extra track none TI V7 Show text ii l FEF dB 50 25 Short time Fourier transform V 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 Hz Figure 1 Signal page Help The items of these menus will be referred to in the subsequent sections The toolbar has four tools to record a sound from a microphone to play the main audio track to play a selected part of the main audio track and to clear certain user data which can be selected from a pull down menu The main window region shows one of four pages that can be selected with the page tabs below the toolbar Each page is dedicated to a certain aspect of the program The signal page which is shown in is meant for the acoustic analysis of speech signals e The vocal tract page is meant for the analysis of the vocal tract model and the synthesis of vowels in the frequency domain e The time domain simulation page is meant for the analysis of vocal tract acoustics in the time domain e The gestural score page
34. n The options mainly regard the loss mechanisms that are considered They can be changed in the dialog shown in which is called with the button Acoustics frequency domain in the control panel The options are described in detail in Birkholz 2005 If you are not sure what an option means just leave it at the default value With the buttons Play short vowel and Play long vowel in the control panel the vocal tract model is excited with a a sequence of glottal flow pulses to synthesize a short or long vowel in the main track the previous signal in the main track will be overwritten The model for the glottal flow pulses is the LF model Fant Liljencrants and Lin 1985 You can change the parameters of the model in the LF glottal flow pulse dialog shown in Fig 7 which is called with the button LF glottal flow pulse in the control panel or from the menu Synthesis models LF glottal flow model With a left click in the pulse shape display you can toggle between the time function of the volume velocity and its derivative with respect to time The vowels are synthesized by the convolution of the first derivative of the glottal flow pulse sequence with the inverse Fourier Transform i e the impulse response of the vocal tract transfer function The vocal tract model comes with a number of predefined shapes for German vowels and typical conso nantal constrictions at different places of articulation These shapes are use
35. n shows the structure of the speaker file The root element speaker has two child elements vocal_tract_model and glottis_models The vocal_tract_model element defines the supraglottal part of the vocal tract It has the child elements anatomy and shapes The anatomy element defines the shape of the rigid parts of the vocal tract e g jaw and palate properties of the deformable structures e g velum and lips and the list of parameters that control the articulation The shapes element contains a list of shape elements Each shape defines a vocal tract target configuration for a phone in terms of vocal tract parameter values These are the shapes that are used when gestural scores are transformed into actual trajectories of vocal tract parameters The element glottis_models defines the properties of one or more vocal fold models which can be used interchangeably to generate the glottal excitation of the vocal tract model in time domain simula tions of the acoustics Each of the vocal fold models is defined by an element glottis_model which 20 in turn contains a list of glottal shapes shapes control parameters control_params and static pa rameters static_params The static parameters define the speaker specific properties of the model i e the parameters that don t change over time e g the rest length and the rest mass of the vocal folds They are analogous to the anatomic part of the supraglottal vocal tract The control parameter
36. o and Meard Make sure that these shapes are in the vocal tract shape Tongue height 4 t 50 Tongue frontness 4 t 50 Lip rounding 4 3 Velum position gt 0 Bilabial constriction degree gt 0 Apico alveolar const degree 4 t 0 Dorso velar const degree 4 t 0 Figure 9 Phonetic parameters dialog Pole zero plot of a vocal tract transfer function Sa Hz Frequency Bandwidth in Hz Poles 5500 x 1500 7 1500 70 5000 2500 90 3500 110 45004 Poles Se per formants 4 gt 3500 x S z eros z a Zero 4000 200 E 2500 x anti formant 2000 1500 x 1000 e x V Higher pole correction Play 0 100 150 200 250 Hz Figure 10 Pole zero plot of this page the time signal display the change of the selected variable in the selected tube section is plotted as a function of time for the last 50 ms The signal shown in Fig I Tis therefore the glottal volume velocity in the last 50 ms of the simulation The radio buttons in the control panel on the left allow you to choose the synthesis type for the simu lation e Subglottal impedance injects a short volume velocity impulse from the glottis into the trachea records the impulse response of the volume velocity and pressure right below the glottis and calculates the complex ratio of the Fourier Transform of both signals e Supraglottal impedance injects a short volume velocity impulse from the glottis into the voca
37. or a In each tier the time function of a representative vocal tract vocal fold parameter is drawn These curves are just meant to illustrate the effect of the gestures on the movements The curve in the tier of tongue tip gestures shows for example the vertical position of the tongue tip Please consider that the details of gestural control in VTL are under active development and may undergo major changes in the future 6 2 Editing a gestural score Click the LMB on a gesture to select it The selected gesture is painted in yellow The properties of the selected gesture can be controlled in the upper part of the control panel Each gesture has a duration 16 a time constant and a value The duration defines the length of the gesture in the gestural score and the time constant specifies how quickly the participating articulators reach the target associated with the gesture A high time constant results in a slow approach and a low time constant in a fast approach To find the right time constant for a gesture is somewhat tricky but a value of 15 ms for supraglottal gestures has proven to give satisfactory results in most cases The value of a gesture is either a numeric value the subglottal pressure in Pa for pressure gestures the FO in semitones for FO gestures or the velum position for velic gestures or a label For a glottal shape gesture the label specifies a pre defined glottal shape as the target for the gesture For a vowel
38. overview oscillogram and the spectrogram have the same time scale You can change the scale with the buttons and below the checkboxes next to the detailed oscillogram The buttons Main lt gt EGG and Main lt gt Extra exchange the signals in the corresponding tracks Use the scrollbar between the oscillogram and the spectrogram to scroll through the tracks Alternatively use Ctrl lt lt or ctrl To select a time range of the signals right click in one of the oscillogram displays and select to set the beginning or the end of the range in the context menu The time range selection is used to define the signal parts to be saved as WAV files or to be played with the Play selection button in the toolbar When you left click in the spectrogram or oscillogram displays you move a time mark cursor to the corresponding time in the signal The short time Fourier transform or a different transform depending on the settings in the Analysis settings dialog in Fig 2 at the time of the mark is displayed in the bottom part on the page To change the relative height of the four displays on the page you can drag the splitter controls right above and below the spectrogram window To record a microphone signal press the red button in the toolbar or press The signal will always be recorded to the main track To play back the signal in the main track press the green arrow in the tollbar or press ctrl FJ T
39. phrase set to 1 indicates the start of a new phrase e start_of_sentence set to 1 indicates the start of a new sentence e sentence_type can be used to indicate the type of sentence e g it can be set to question or statement Apart from name and duration_s the use of the attributes is optional Acknowledgments I thank Ingmar Steiner Phil Hoole Eva Lasarcyk V ronique Delvaux Yi Xu Santitham Prom On and Lucia Martin for testing the software proofreading this manuscript and general feedback Parts of the research leading to the development of VocalTractLab were funded by the German Research Foundation DFG grant JA 1476 1 1 References Birkholz Peter 2005 3D Artikulatorische Sprachsynthese Logos Verlag Berlin 2007 Control of an Articulatory Speech Synthesizer based on Dynamic Approximation of Spatial Articulatory Targets In Interspeech 2007 Eurospeech Antwerp Belgium pp 2865 2868 Birkholz Peter and Dietmar Jack l 2004 Influence of Temporal Discretization Schemes on Formant Frequencies and Bandwidths in Time Domain Simulations of the Vocal Tract System In Inter speech 2004 Jeju Island Korea pp 1125 1128 Birkholz Peter Dietmar Jackel and Bernd J Kr ger 2006 Construction and Control of a Three Dimensional Vocal Tract Model In International Conference on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing ICASSP 06 Toulouse France pp 873 876 Birkholz Peter and Bernd J Kr
40. ry small tube sections is about in the middle of the display To the left of the glottis the trachea is represented by 14 tube sections The tube sections of the actual vocal tract are shown at the right of the glottis At the velo pharyngeal port the nasal cavity is coupled to the vocal tract tube Its area function is flipped upside down The paranasal sinuses are modeled as Helmholtz resonators and displayed by four circles The colors of the tube sections indicate the magnitude of the selected acoustic variable at the current time of the simulation In the top right corner of the page you can select the variable to visualize the sound pressure or the volume velocity flow In Fig 11 the flow is visualized Above the area function display is the space time graph Here the selected variable is shown as a curve The black curve shows the pressure or flow in the trachea the glottis and the vocal tract and the red curve shows it in the nasal cavity and the sinus piriformis The ordinate of both displays can be scaled with the and buttons left of the displays In the area function display you can select one of the tube sections with the LMB The selected section is marked with a vertical dashed line In Fig 11 the upper glottis section is selected In the upper display 11 Phonetic parameters E The generation of vocal tract shapes from these parameters refers to the vocal tract shapes a i u ll do tt alveolar d
41. s define the properties that are controlled during articulation e g the vocal fold tension or the degree of abduction The shapes element contains a list of shape elements each of which defines a setting of the control pa rameters e g a setting for modal phonation and a setting for voiceless excitation abducted vocal folds These shapes are analogous to the vocal tract shapes for supraglottal articulation A 2 Gestural score file ges A gestural score file is an XML file that defines a gestural score The document type definition DTD tree in Fig 16 shows the structure of the file The root element is gestural_score There are eight tiers of gestures in a gestural score each of which is represented by one gesture_sequence element Each gesture sequence comprises a set of successive gestures of the same type e g vowel gestures or velic gestures The start time of a gesture is implicitly given by the sum of durations of the previous gestures of the sequence Figure 16 DTD tree of the gestural score file A 3 Segment sequence file seg A segment sequence file is a text file used to represent the structure and metadata of a spoken utterance in terms of segments phones syllables words phrases and sentences The following example illustrates the structure of the file for the word Banane banan duration_s 0 137719 name b duration_s 0 013566 start_of_syllable 1 start_of_word 1 word_orthograph
42. shown again by selecting the menu item Synthesis models Vocal tract model or the button Show vocal tract in the control panel The parameters of the model can be changed by dragging the yellow control points with the LMB When no control point is selected dragging the LMB in the vocal tract display turns the model around two axes When the mouse is dragged with the RMB the model can be zoomed in and out Seven vocal tract parameters which cannot be controlled with the control points are adjusted using the scrollbars below the vocal tract display Display options for the vocal tract model can be found at the bottom of the dialog Furthermore you can load an image from a GIF file with the button Load background image to be displayed in the background of the vocal tract model When you load an image with mid sagittal contours of a vocal tract you can try to adapt the articulation of the model to that shown in the image see Sec 7 4 When the box Background image editing is checked you can pan and zoom the background image by dragging with the LMB and RMB in the vocal tract display The area function corresponding to the current vocal tract shape is shown in the top left display of the vocal tract page In this image the area functions of the sinus piriformis and the nasal cavity are shown too the sinus piriformis are currently not considered in the acoustic simulation of the vocal system by default The display right next
43. t with the label Shape The buttons around the drop down list allow saving the current setting of control parameters as one of the existing shapes or as a new shape and to remove shapes from the list Please note that the control parameters FO and Subglottal pressure which exist for all vocal fold models are not included in the definition of a shape because these parameters are controlled by independent tiers of 14 gestures in gestural scores The parameters of the vocal fold models and the associated shapes are stored in the speaker file JD2 speaker which is loaded automatically when VTL is started Therefore to save any changes made to parameters or shapes you must save the speaker file by pressing or selecting File Save speaker from the menu When an acoustic simulation of the type Phone full simulation is started the selected vocal fold model with the current parameter setting will be used The time functions of the control parameters and a number of derived parameters of a vocal fold model during an acoustic simulation can be saved to a text file for subsequent analysis The data are saved to a file when the checkbox Save glottis signals during synthesis in the upper part of the dialog is checked The file name is selected with the button File name The format of the file is as follows The first line defines the order of the saved parameters and each following line contains the parameter
44. ts various models for example models for the vocal tract the vocal folds the acoustic simulation etc This section provides references to the most important models which you should consider reading if you wish to understand them in depth The core of the synthesizer is a 3D articulatory model of the vocal tract that defines the shape of the airway between the glottis and the lips It has currently 22 degrees of freedom vocal tract parame ters that control the shape and position of the model articulators The model was originally developed by Birkholz and later refined by Birkholz Jack l and Kr ger 2006 and Birkholz and Kr ger 2006 The currently implemented version of the vocal tract model was even further improved and will be described in a forthcoming publication For the simulation of acoustics the area function of the vocal tract is calculated i e the variation of the cross sectional area along the center line of the model The area function is then transformed into a transmission line model of the vocal tract and can be analyzed in the frequency domain or simulated in the time domain The basic method for the analysis synthesis is described by Birkholz and Jack l and Birkholz 2005 For the synthesis of vowels there are two approaches in VTL One convolves the glottal flow waveform of the Liljencrants Fant model for the glottal flow Fant Liljencrants and Lin 1985 with the impulse response of the vocal tract transfer function
45. urrent vocal tract shape To select a shape from the list and play the corresponding vowel press in the list of items To save any changes made to the shape list you must save the speaker file by pressing F2 or selecting File Save speaker from the menu The button Improve formants in the control panel allows the automatic adjustment of the vocal tract shape such that the first three formants in the transfer function approach specific values given by the user An algorithm tries to find vocal tract parameter values in the vicinity of the current vocal tract shape that change the formant frequencies towards the given values This may be interesting for example when LF glottal flow pulse Parameters FO 4 120 00 Hz Open quotient 4 g gt 0 50 Shape quotient gt 3 00 Spectral tilt lt 0 02 Pulse shape Figure 7 LF glottal flow pulse dialog you want to adapt the formants of a vowel to the realization of that vowel in a different language or dialect Please note that this is not a method for full Acoustic to Articulatory Inversion because the vocal tract parameter space is only searched in the vicinity of the current vocal tract configuration Besides the level of the elementary vocal tract parameters which are shown in the vocal tract shapes dialog VTL provides another higher level of phonetic parameters to control the vocal tract shape This level of parameters is mainly meant for education
46. utline of the vocal tract model Check the checkbox Background image editing at the bottom of the dialog Now drag the background image with the LMB and scale it by dragging the RMB such that the outline of the hard palate and the rear pharyngeal wall coincide in the background image and the model Then uncheck the checkbox Background image editing again 19 6 Now try to drag the control points of the model so that the shape of the tongue the lips and so on correspond to the background image Press the button Play long vowel in the control panel of the vocal tract page to hear the corresponding vowel When the contours coincide well you should hear an u 7 Click the button Vocal tract shapes to open the vocal tract shapes dialog and double click on the shape u orig the parameters of this shape were manually adjusted to coincide as well as possible with the background image A File formats A 1 Speaker file speaker The speaker file is an XML file that defines a model speaker The definition comprises the anatomy of the speaker the vocal tract shapes used to produce individual phones as well as model properties for the glottal excitation The default speaker file is JD2 speaker It must be located in the same folder as VocalTractLab2 exe and is loaded automatically when the program is started Figure 15 DTD tree of the speaker file The document type definition DTD tree i
47. x has a low dominance it is less important Hence the height of the larynx is more influenced by the vocal tract shape of the context vowel s than the tongue tip position A more detailed description of this mechanism is given by Birkholz and Kr ger 2006 Connected utterances in VTL are defined by gestural scores a concept taken from articulatory phonology Browman and Goldstein 1992p A gestural score consists of a number of independent tiers populated with discrete gestures Each gesture represents the movement of certain articulators i e vocal tract parameters toward a target configuration The change of vocal tract parameters in response to these dis crete gestures is governed by linear dynamical systems Details of the definition of gestural scores and the mapping to articulatory trajectories is the subject of ongoing research The basic principles underlying the current implementation are discussed in Birkholz and Birkholz Kroger and Neuschaefer Rube 2011b 2 2 Graphical user interface GUD shows the layout of the graphical user interface of VTL From top to bottom it consists of a title bar a menu bar a toolbar and the main window region The title bar shows for whom the copy of the program is registered The menu bar has the four menus File Export Synthesis models and r R VocalTractLab2 Regi Renee Meee oje File Export Synthesis models Help 7 Pix Record Play Play selectio

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