OFAI 2023 Lecture Series: Michael Pucher (OFAI) „Synthesizing Dialects, Faces, Singing Voices, Songbirds, and Famous Dead Actors“


During the last decades statistical parametric speech synthesis has significantly improved the quality and flexibility of speech synthesis systems. This development started with hidden Markov models (HMM) and then another big step of improvement in acoustic modeling and vocoding was made with deep neural networks (DNN). In this talk I will present a range of applications of statistical parametric speech synthesis that we have investigated. In the field of acoustic speech synthesis I will show how dialect interpolation can be realized, which allows for the generation of in-between language varieties. In audio-visual speech synthesis joint audio-visual modeling and visual control will be presented. In singing speech I will describe our work towards an opera style singing synthesis system that is trained on high quality opera singing data. A model for synthesis of singing birds will be presented that can control bird songs by symbolic input sequences. Finally, I will present a DNN-based synthesizer of a famous Austrian actor that we have built from audio book data, and that was used in a theater play. I will conclude my talk with an outlook on the future of speech synthesis technologies, remaining technical and possible societal challenges.

1 March 2023 at 18:30 CET (UTC+1)
Michael Pucher (OFAI)
Synthesizing Dialects, Faces, Singing Voices, Songbirds, and Famous Dead Actors

How to attend: Attend in person (OFAI, Freyung 6/6/7, 1010 Vienna), or via Zoom (meeting ID: 842 8244 2460; passcode: 678868), or dial in by phone

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OFAI is delighted to announce its 2023 Winter/Spring Lecture Series, featuring an eclectic lineup of internal and external speakers.

The talks are intended to familiarize attendees with the latest research developments in AI and related fields, and to forge new connections with those working in other areas.

Lectures will take place on Wednesdays at 18:30 Vienna time. All lectures will be held online via Zoom; in-person attendance at OFAI is also possible for certain lectures. Attendance is open to the public and free of charge. No registration is required.

Visit our Lecture Series web page for further details and connection instructions for the individual talks: https://www.ofai.at/lectures

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Our mailing address is:
Austrian Research Institute for Artificial Intelligence (OFAI)
Freyung 6/6/7
Vienna 1010
Austria