Inverse filter approach to pitch modification: application to concatenative synthesis of female speech

A new method for modifying the pitch of units of recorded female speech is described. This method was developed to overcome limitations in an otherwise promising technique called residual-excited linear prediction (RELP). In the new method, the stored speech unit is processed with a suitably shaped time-varying filter. The filtered signal is modified according to the required change in the fundamental frequency. The modified filtered signal is applied to the inverse of the above-mentioned prefilter. Based on observations of spectra of multiple recordings of the same speech unit at different pitch frequencies, the magnitude response of the inverse filter was chosen to have a significantly less peaky structure than that which is typically obtained in LPC. Speech modifications using this method were found to be superior in quality to those obtained by RELP, while at the same time being less sensitive than RELP to changes in pitch marking