Thread: Artificial Human Voice

I want to invent a singing doll. Not computer generated but I want it to work like how the actual human vocal system works.

I found something from around 2003 made in Japan:



http://www.newscientist.com/data/ima...2240-1_898.jpg

I couldn't find much news of it now.

but here is a page about the mechanism:

http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/art...?artid=2279150

I am no science wiz but I would like to get some advice on how to create a singing doll. I specialize in sculpting so I can make the parts, I don't know much about how it works as of now.

There were some videos on the mechanism I linked above but It sounds really terrible to be honest. Sounds like air coming out of a balloon. Like that farting balloon sound if you know what I'm talking about.

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My idea so far..

I was thinking that the doll will somehow be stuck on something (with magnets maybe)

while controlling the musical instrument with strings attached to a glove.

Perhaps something like when you move the string in a certain manner it squeezes some air compressor to blow air through a tube to create a sound.

Pitch is controlled by another string maybe in the other hand perhaps. I am not exactly sure how humans voice pitch changes. I know it squeezes together therefore allowing less space for air to travel through thus creating a higher pitch. I'm not sure where this happens. I think it was in the vocal box? Well the string will control this squeezing action to control the pitch.

That's just something I thought up of but I have never tooken anatomy and I have a feeling it's a lot more complex to create a natural human voice like getting the entire body to work with the vocal chord, connected the nasal parts with the voice or the sort..
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If anybody can tell me how to get this working, I'll be grateful.

thanks

Not meaning to crush, but do you know what you're up against?!

The vocaloids. They are surprisingly good singers, 100% software. Human touch does not enter here, so any dope can paste in a melody + typed lyrics and away it goes.

Example (Hatsune Miku is software)

I think you'd do better fitting a small computer in a doll, use Vocaloid.



People have been trying to craft singing dolls for centuries. With hand operation the best you'll ever get is voicelike sounds, not words. I think then your best outcome would be a curio not played much but maybe fetching fair price by the folks who collect old player pianos and such.

I am aware of vocaloid. not such a big fan of it. I realllly dislike electrical sounds (electric violin , electric guitar). So that's why I want to avoid electric things. I want it to work like how the human vocal system works.

I realize it'll probably be insanely hard and I'm probably not going to get my answers here. But there just might be some anatomy(vocal chord)/physics wiz here.