STRAIGHT-TEMPO: a universal tool to manipulate linguistic and para-linguistic speech information

An extremely high-quality speech manipulation method based on the concept of the classic channel vocoder proposed in 1939 is introduced. The proposed method is based on a new view on the role of signal periodicity. The method independently allows for over 600% manipulation of such speech parameters as pitch, vocal tract length, and speaking rate, without introducing further degradation due to parameter manipulation. This enormous flexibility enables controls of linguistic as well as para-linguistic speech information, adding plausible naturalness to simulated artificial speakers, and it also enables natural auditory morphing. These make the proposed method a universal tool for manipulating audio information in multimedia.