C 64 Speech synth

[Suicide Sushi]

Hello Midiboxers. I build a MB6582 almost a year ago, and I absolutely love it. I use it alle the time when recording.

I was wondering; on the web I discovered that speech synth software was produced for the C64 during the early 80s (SAM etc.).

Is there a way to add speech synth capabilities to the Midibox SID? (Or maybe it could be a part of a future upgrade) That would be very very cool... :thumbsup:

Thank's again to TK and all you guys for making my MB6582 possible. I love it to bits... :D

Suicide Sushi

[Hawkeye]

Well, there is wavetable support for small (precalculated) bursts of samples - which could probably also be used for very very short formant output...

But a full blown speech synth certainly requires some dedication and processing time... Also, TK. said that the PICs in the SID V2 are already fully loaded...

So my guess is, that this would probably need to be a (user-add-on) project for the SID V3 on the LPC core... but just guessing here :-).

Also, Thorsten has made some speech synth chips experiments lately, so it might be totally viable to regard MIDIbox speech synthesis as a separate (non-sid) project.

Greets!

Peter

Edited October 7, 2011 by Hawkeye

[Smithy]

SAM used the good oul PCM trick by shifting the Volume Register on the SID rapidly,

so none of the actual oscillators are used.

Somebody needs to try Formant Synthesis with the MB-6582.

Have each SID Audio output connected to the Audio Input of the SID next to it, and use Band Pass filtering on each SID.

something like this:

Flemming was explaining the band pass approach to me one day in the chat,

and I thought it would be cool if someone tried it with a bunch of SIDs.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar01/articles/synthsec.asp

Edited October 7, 2011 by Smithy

[Smithy]

Using the filters in parallel would achieve better results actually.

So lets say we played the exact same preset on all 8 SIDs,

but with a different Cutoff frequency for each of the 8 Filters set to Band Pass.

Would this have the same effect as using filters in Parallel?

Obviously without having the audio output of each sid going to each input in the next, this time round.

Edited October 7, 2011 by Smithy

[Smithy]

Und ze Crazy Irischman makes a triple post:

If you built a single Midibox SID first, then an MB-6582 like me* you could possibly create the signal path below,

as you would have 9 Band Pass Filters:

So the signal path would look like this:

SID1 SAWTOOTH__->_____SID2____->____SID3

______With BP_______A.In + BP_____A.In + BP

SID4 SAWTOOTH__->_____SID5____->____SID6

______With BP_______A.In + BP_____A.In + BP

SID7 SAWTOOTH__->_____SID8____->____SID9

______With BP_______A.In + BP_____A.In + BP

A.In = Audio Input

BP = Band Pass Filter.

SID9 = Your single MB-Sid

* When i say built, i don't mean 100% finished. ;)

Edited October 7, 2011 by Smithy

[Suicide Sushi]

Hey thank's for the great responses... I was just wondering that's all. :thumbsup:

A speech / formant update is far in the future i guess. I think I'll go with the "Das Boot" sounding Speakjet:

Thank's

Suicide Sushi

[C_04]

Hi 

Maybe little late but...: http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/Audio/sayit/Freeware.htm

Regards 

C_04