Introduction

Cantarino is a software speech synthesiser for Arduino. It is still a work in progress, but a tech demo that runs on Arduino is now available.

Demo

Demo video

Demo presented at Music Hack Day is downloadable here. Audio out is on Arduino pin 3. A schematic is at the end of the video.

Community

This is a work in progress. Sign up to the Google Group to watch or guide Cantarino's development.

Technical: Formant synthesiser

An interrupt on the PWM output timer calls a sample generator. This uses a synthesis similar to FOF or granule synthesis - using two sines and a square wave of adjustable pitch and amplitude, synced and enveloped by a pitch of selectable frequency. Phase modulation is added to the pitch, to allow unvoiced phonemes to be uttered.

Phoneme codebook

The following phonemes are currently supported, based on data from the SAM Apple ][ synthesiser.

| IY | f ee t | |:---|:-----------| | IH | p i n | | EH | b e g | | AE | S a m | | AA | p o t | | AH | t a lk | | AO | c o ne | | UH | b oo k | | UX | l oo t | | ER | b i rd | | AX | g a llon | | IX | d i git | | EY | m a de (dipthong start) | | AY | h igh (dipthong start) | | OY | b oy (dipthong start) | | AW | h ow (dipthong start)| | OW | sl ow (dipthong start)| | UW | cr ew (dipthong start) | | YX | h igh (dipthong end) | | WX | h ow (dipthong end) | | RX | R after vowel | | LX | L after vowel | | X| H before consonant | | DX | flap | | R | r ed | | L | a ll ow | | W | a w ay | | WH | wh ale | | Y | y ou | | M | m usic hack day | | N | ma n | | NX | so ng | | B | b ad | | D | d og | | G | g uardian offices | | J | j u dg e | | Z | z oo | | ZH | plea s ure | | V | se v en | | DH | th en | | S | S unday 12th July 2009 | | SH | fi sh | | F | f ish | | TH | th in | | P | p oke | | T | t inker.it | | K | ca k e | | CH | spee ch | | H| a h ead | | Q | glottal stop |

Credits

Formant synthesis system: inspired by SAM Logo: cropped from http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeanbaptisteparis/119421176/