Speech Parameter Generation Algorithms for HMM-Based Speech Synthesis

This paper derives a speech parameter generation algorithm for HMM-based speech synthesis, in which speech parameter sequence is generated from HMMs whose observation vector consists of spectral parameter vector and its dynamic feature vectors. In the algorithm, we assume that the state sequence (state and mixture sequence for the multi-mixture case) or a part of the state sequence is unobservable (i.e., hidden or latent). As a result, the algorithm iterates the forward-backward algorithm and the parameter generation algorithm for the case where state sequence is given. Experimental results show that by using the algorithm, we can reproduce clear formant structure from multi-mixture HMMs as compared with that produced from single-mixture HMMs.