Which academic project originating at the University of Edinburgh was instrumental in developing toolkits like Flite and voice models such as 'C59' for concatenative synthesis research?
Answer
Festvox.
Academic institutions played a vital role in advancing speech synthesis beyond corporate laboratories, particularly in democratizing access to newer techniques like concatenative synthesis. The Festvox project, situated at the University of Edinburgh, was central to this movement. They were responsible for creating essential resources, including the Festival-Lite (Flite) engine, which served as an accessible toolkit for researchers. Furthermore, they developed specific voice models, such as the entity referred to as 'C59', which allowed researchers worldwide to experiment with high-quality concatenative synthesis techniques that relied on stitching together pre-recorded speech segments.
Related Questions
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