July 17, 2006
Rap your earphones around this
A system that replicates voices in any language is being touted as hip-hop's next big thing, writes Jeremy Gerard for The Standard.
"A proprietary new speech-conversion system can produce their voices in any language spoken in the lucrative global markets where their music - as well as the clothing, ringtones and other lifestyle extensions of their brands - is sold.
The system, called Voxonic, can replicate a specific voice in any desired language. It's already used in limited applications, including film dubbing and corporate communications.
... Voxonic works by taking a star's speech patterns, recorded during 15 minutes in a studio, and breaking them down into the "phonemes" that compose an individual voice.
A second actor, fluent in the desired language, then records the entire lyric, mimicking the star's vocal patterns. The Voxonic technology aligns the two, resulting in vernacular speech that has a "99 percent level of accuracy" in replicating the original speaker's voice."
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