Chipspeech

Last updated

Chipspeech
Developer(s) Plogue Art et Technologie, Inc.
Initial release14 January 2015;9 years ago (2015-01-14) [1]
Stable release
1.777 / 17 May 2023;18 months ago (2023-05-17) [2]
Operating system Windows 7 or later, macOS 10.11 or later [3]
Available inEnglish, Japanese
Type Voice synthesizer
License Proprietary
Website plogue.com/products/chipspeech.html

Chipspeech is a singing vocal synthesizer software application and plugin created by Plogue that recreates the vocals of several 1980s speech synthesis chips from early home computers and video games.

Contents

About

The software is used for creating vocals for use within music. Chipspeech is designed to produce vintage-style vocals from synthesizers that were used by the music industry in the 1980s, having a cut off date of 1989 technology. [4] The vocals, therefore, are not meant to sound realistic and are more suited for sound experimentation. It works as a text-to-speech method. Users type the lyrics in and receive instant playback results which was a capability beyond the original soundchips the software vocals are based on. The software is as simple as Vocaloid. Though English and Japanese come as standard, other languages can be created by direct entry of syllables. Though human-like vocals can be achieved, the results are always machine-like rather than man-like. [5] It is capable of different synthesis methods or re-samplers. [6] In addition for 1.032 version of the software a new "Speak and Spell" program was added creating the circuit bending feature. [7]

Chipspeech itself as created as a result of research for Chipsounds by Plogue in the 2000s. David Viens himself would often collect sound chips even if there was no need for them. This obsession eventually lead to further events which resulted in the creation of the Chipspeech software after he spent years hacking, protoboard making, probing, and reverse engineering the speech chips. He noted that the software's main goal was to be a singing emulator and not a text-to-speech software. The source data of each vocal is 8 kHz or 10 kHz. Despite all their effort, the project came to a halt. Hubert Lamontagne joined Plogue with knowledge of phonetics and digital signal processing, Hubert took interest in creating a vintage-sounding synthesizer, and designed the synthesizer to work beyond being a sound library. [5]

It originally came with 7 "characters" upon purchase, more vocals have been added since and continue to be added. These characters come with their own backstory and are based on a sound synthesizer. Recreation of these voices was done with permission from their respective license holders. Plogue itself gained rights to the speech data from three TI-99/4A games (Alpiner, Parsec and Moon Mine), and the internal vocabulary of the TI Speech Device. The process of gaining right for the vocals took over 10 years, as the company did not want to disrespect the copyright holders even when met with issues such as the license holder having gone bankrupt. And while the technology was easy to emulate, the data needed for the emulation was not. [5]

In January 2016, Plogue announced that Hubert Lamontagne had found a way to improve quality. [8] On 9 February, Version 1.066 was released. This fixed bugs with Deeklatt and Otto Mozer. Voice improvements to Dandy 704 and Bert Gotrax were scheduled for the next release and were updated in 1.072. [9] [10] Some vocals such as Dandy 704 are restricted by how far they can be improved. [11] In addition, Chipspeech will be receiving the ability to talk as well as sing in its next major update. [12] Chipspeech also was exported to Japan during June 2016. [13]

Version 1.5 was released on 16 September 2016 adding talk capabilities, a growl adjustment and two new vocals "Rotten.ST" and "CiderTalk'84" based on the 16 bite era vocals.

In 2017, the Voder and Software Automatic Mouth were announced to be added to the software later that year. [14]

Official Albums

An official album was created featuring the software. The album is titled "chipspeech AUTOMATE SONGS .01" and includes a cover of the song Stakker Humanoid using Otto Mozer, whose vocal is an emulation of the same synthesizer used for the samples taken from the arcade game Berzerk. [15]

Characters

The vocals are split between a number of characters, in addition, Daisy from Alter/Ego could be imported into the software;

Reception

Reception to the software was mostly positive. It won 3 Computer Music awards; Editor's Choice, Performance and Innovation. The software was described as a polished product at their MusicRadar review and noted as "tons of fun to use". [25]

AskAudio in their "Voice of the Machines" review focused on the fact that with the raise of Autotuning software, a human is always required. Chipspeech allowed a nostalgic approach to vocal synthesizing with its resulting vocals coming purely from a computer. It listed the positives of the software as " Incredibly unique, fairly easy to use, sounds excellent, affordable" but noted as its main weakness was how the software strained the CPU. [26]

CDM, who had been given exclusive early access to the software, also highlighted how "boring" modern synthesizers had become and focused on the "fun" that the software provided. One of its highlighted merits of the software was how rare some historical chips it aimed to recreate had become. [5]

In August 2016, Chipspeech topped the virtual instrument top 25 rankings at Sonicwire, owned by Crypton Future Media, beating their Vocaloids products such as Hatsune Miku which normally dominated their rankings. [27]

Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vocoder</span> Voice encryption, transformation, and synthesis device

A vocoder is a category of speech coding that analyzes and synthesizes the human voice signal for audio data compression, multiplexing, voice encryption or voice transformation.

Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal language text into speech; other systems render symbolic linguistic representations like phonetic transcriptions into speech. The reverse process is speech recognition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Music technology (electronic and digital)</span>

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">TI-99/4A</span> Home computer by Texas Instruments

The TI-99/4 and TI-99/4A are home computers released by Texas Instruments in 1979 and 1981, respectively. Based on Texas Instruments's own TMS9900 microprocessor originally used in minicomputers, the TI-99/4 was the first 16-bit home computer. The associated TMS9918 video display controller provides color graphics and sprite support which were only comparable with those of the Atari 400 and 800 released a month later. The TI-99 series also initially competed with the Apple II and TRS-80.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Software Automatic Mouth</span> 1982 speech synthesis program

Software Automatic Mouth, or S.A.M., is a speech synthesis program developed by Mark Barton and sold by Don't Ask Software. The program was released for the Atari 8-bit computers, Apple II, and Commodore 64. Released in 1982, it was one of the first commercial all-software voice-synthesis programs.

<i>Parsec</i> (video game) 1982 video game

Parsec is a horizontally scrolling shooter written by Jim Dramis and Paul Urbanus for the TI-99/4A and published by Texas Instruments in 1982. Dramis also programmed Car Wars and Munch Man for the TI-99/4A.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Votrax</span> Defunct speech synthesis company

Votrax International, Inc., or just Votrax, was a speech synthesis company located in the Detroit, Michigan area from 1971 to 1996. It began as a division of Federal Screw Works from 1971 to 1973. In 1974, it was given the Votrax name and moved to Troy, Michigan and, in 1980, split off of its parent company entirely and became Votrax International, Inc., which produced speech products up until 1984.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">DECtalk</span> Speech synthesizer and text-to-speech technology

DECtalk was a speech synthesizer and text-to-speech technology developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1983, based largely on the work of Dennis Klatt at MIT, whose source-filter algorithm was variously known as KlattTalk or MITalk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ESS Technology</span> Former synthetic speech synthesizer company that is now known for its Sabre DAC chips

ESS Technology Incorporated is a private manufacturer of computer multimedia products, Audio DACs and ADCs based in Fremont, California with R&D centers in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada and Beijing, China. It was founded by Forrest Mozer in 1983. Robert L. Blair is the CEO and President of the company.

eSpeak Compact, open-source, software speech synthesizer

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Homer W. Dudley was an American pioneering electronic and acoustic engineer who created the first electronic voice synthesizer for Bell Labs in the 1930s and led the development of a method of sending secure voice transmissions during World War Two. His awards include the Franklin Institute's Stuart Ballantine Medal (1965).

Forrest S. Mozer is an American experimental physicist, inventor, and entrepreneur known best for his pioneering work on electric field measurements in space plasma and for development of solid state electronic speech synthesizers and speech recognizers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Utau</span> Japanese shareware voice synthesizer

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voiceroid</span> Speech synthesizer application

Voiceroid is a speech synthesizer application developed by AH-Software and is designed for speech. It is only available in the Japanese language. Its name comes from the singing software Vocaloid, for which AH-Software also develops voicebanks. Both AH-Software's first Vocaloids and Voiceroids went on sale on December 4, 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">General Instrument SP0256</span>

GI SP0256 refers to a family of closely related NMOS LSI chips manufactured by General Instrument in the early 1980s, able to model the human vocal tract by a software programmable digital filter, creating a digital output converted into an analog signal through an external low-pass filter. The SP0256 includes 2 KB of mask ROM. The various versions of SP0256 differ primarily in the voice data programmed into their mask ROMs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CeVIO</span> Audio software product

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vocaloid 2</span> 2007 singing voice synthesizer

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Megpoid</span> Vocaloid 3 voicebank

Megpoid is a Vocaloid by Internet Co., Ltd. Her voice is sampled by Megumi Nakajima. The mascot of the software is called Gumi . She is also sometimes called Megpoid GUMI, or GUMI Megpoid.

Plogue Art et Technologie, Inc. is an incorporated company based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada that develops music software including Bidule, chipsounds, Alter/Ego and chipspeech.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alter/Ego</span> Real-time voice synthesizer software

Alter/Ego (アルター・エゴ) is a free real-time vocal synthesizer software which was created by Plogue.

References

  1. ↑ seb, January 14th, 2015 (14 January 2015). "chipspeech released". Plogue. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  2. ↑ "Plogue - Downloads". plogue.com. Retrieved 21 April 2024.
  3. ↑ "chipspeech". plogue.com. Retrieved 29 March 2021.
  4. ↑ "Hum chipspeech cut off date is '89 or so that wouldn't fit in the concept much". 31 July 2019.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Peter Kirn (14 January 2015). "How A Plug-in Recaptured the Robot Voices of Your Childhood – cdm createdigitalmusic". Createdigitalmusic.com. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  6. ↑ "chipspeech & A/E on Twitter: "Note we are constantly improving our voice technologies. Alter/Ego and chipspeech can both utilize various synthesis methods or (resamplers)"". Twitter.com. 11 December 2015. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  7. ↑ @wwwPLOGUEcom (5 August 2015). "Plogue on Twitter: "Speak & Spell circuit bending is now in chipspeech 1.032. Get your update now!"". Twitter. Retrieved 7 April 2017.
  8. ↑ "chipspeech & A/E on Twitter: "Quite happy with the quality bump in the vocal engine that @MrMadbrain just pulled off!!"". Twitter.com. 19 January 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  9. ↑ "chipspeech & A/E on Twitter: "@BertGotrax and @Dandy704 voice improvements NOT included. That will be in next update."". Twitter.com. 9 February 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  10. ↑ "chipspeech & A/E". Twitter. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  11. ↑ "chipspeech & A/E". Twitter. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  12. ↑ "chipspeech & A/E on Twitter" . Retrieved 11 June 2016.
  13. ↑ "chipspeech & A/E on Twitter" . Retrieved 5 July 2016.
  14. ↑ "Happy to announce that Voder and S.A.M. are coming to chipspeech in 2017! #NAMM2017pic.twitter.com/o6rV0t7BLe". 18 January 2017.
  15. ↑ "chipspeech AUTOMATE SONGS .01 | ToyCompany". Toycompany.bandcamp.com. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  16. ↑ "Bert Gotrax (@BertGotrax)". Twitter. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  17. ↑ "Sovereign Parsec (@LadyParsec)". Twitter. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  18. ↑ "Otto Mozer (@OttoMozer)". Twitter. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  19. ↑ "Dandy 704 (@Dandy704)". Twitter. 14 April 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  20. ↑ "Dee Klatt (@KlattDee)". Twitter. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  21. ↑ "Spencer AL2 (@spencer_al2)". Twitter. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  22. ↑ "Terminal 99 (@Terminal_99)". Twitter. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  23. ↑ "Vosim (@Awesomevosim)". Twitter. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  24. ↑ David, May 27th, 2015 (27 May 2015). "New chipspeech character: VOSIM!". Plogue. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 27 April 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  25. ↑ Music, Computer (29 June 2015). "Plogue Chipspeech review". MusicRadar. Retrieved 27 April 2016.
  26. ↑ Noah Pred on Feb 16, 2015 in Review 1 comments (16 February 2015). "Review: Plogue Chipspeech, Voice of the Machines". Ask.Audio. Retrieved 27 April 2016.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  27. ↑ "chipspeech & A/E on Twitter" . Retrieved 13 August 2016.
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