VOICE CONVERSION THROUGH VECTOR QUANTIZATION.

A voice conversion technique using vector quantization and spectrum mapping is proposed. The basic idea is to create mapping codebooks which represent the correspondence between different speakers' codebooks. The mapping codebooks for spectrum parameters, power values, and pitch frequencies are separately generated using training utterances. This technique makes it possible to precisely control voice individuality. To evaluate the performance of this technique, hearing tests were carried out on two kinds of voice conversions. One is a conversion between male and female speakers, the other is a conversion between male speakers. In the male-to-female conversion experiment, all converted utterances were judged as female, and in the male-to-male conversion, 65% of them were identified as the target speaker.