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archive:programming:robvoice.how

Article 983 of sci.electronics: From: kg19+@andrew.cmu.edu (Kurt A. Geisel) Subject: Re: creating a robotic-sounding voice Message-ID: IZUeQ7W00WB5I34JB9@andrew.cmu.edu Date: 10 Dec 89 18:57:11 GMT Organization: Class of '92, Carnegie Mellon, Pittsburgh, PA Lines: 37

Altering the voice can be done in several ways. The most effective and dramatic method, the one most associated with robots in movies and TV, is by means of a device called a Vocoder. A Vocoder modulates an electronic signal (usually a harmonically rich oscillator, like a sawtooth wave) with the speech pattern of the speaker. It does this by a form of spectrum analysis- a set of N filters giving N bands of resolution. When a filter is excited by its particular band from the human voice (or any other sound, for that matter) it opens the corresponding band filter on the noise source. The result is the "robot voice" as we know it from science fiction. Unfortunately, as you may have guessed, the circuit isn't cheap or simple. You need at least eight bands for intelligable voice. The cheapest vocoder I know of is a $99 kit from PAIA Electronics, an electronic music hobbyist supplier whose address is listed below.

Other methods are pitch shifting, also not cheap; flanging, which can be done cheaply be is always very dramatic. Another thing I might consider are those "voice disguiser" circuits sold in electronic countermeasures catalogs. There is a particular good set of plans (we should be able to be made fairly cheaply) sold by Consumertronics.

PAIA Electronics, Inc. 3200 Teakwood Lane Edmond, OK 73013 405-340-6300

Consumertronics Co. John J. Williams MSEE PO Box Drawer 537 Alamogordo, NM 88310

- Kurt Kurt Geisel SNAIL : Carnegie Mellon University 65 Lambeth Dr. ARPA : kg19+@andrew.cmu.edu Pittsburgh, PA 15241 UUCP : uunet!nfsun!kgeisel "I will not be pushed, filed, indexed, stamped, BIX : kgeisel briefed, debriefed, or numbered!" - The Prisoner

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