6 ms·

The samples were released a while back: https://google-research.github.io/seanet/stream_vc/ https://google-research.github.io/seanet/stream_vc/

by huac 2y ago

modeless 2y ago
Not a very good demo page. It's difficult to judge real world quality with such unenthusiastic reading, unrealistic sentences, and unfamiliar voices. Typical of speech papers. It would be much better if celebrities were used as target voices, as we all know what they sound like and can therefore judge quality better. But I suppose that would be too controversial for Google. In general I think it is silly that voice cloning research has focused so much (exclusively?) on cloning voices from just a few seconds of audio. It puts a pretty low ceiling on quality. Many nuances of a person's communication style will not be contained in such a small amount of data. Sure you can match their pitch and timbre, but voice cloning should be more than that.
- refulgentis 2y ago
  > But I suppose that would be too controversial for Google. You don't have to suppose anything: it is actually settled law that its bad to just willy-nilly use people's voices if you feel like it, even if its just a sound-alike!
  - mik1998 2y ago
    So, what do we do with actual people who have a very similar voice to some "more famous" person? It's quite silly when voices are far away from being unique to a person.
  - kaliqt 2y ago
    Sound-alike is not actionable, and anyone who claims it infringes should be dragged through the courts. Not your voice, not your IP, not your right.
    - huac 2y ago
      except to the extent that your voice may be part of your image, which is actionable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
  - modeless 2y ago
    So it's illegal for standup comics to do impressions? Or maybe there is some nuance here?
    - refulgentis 2y ago
      Thanks modeless, I appreciate the comment -- yes, I agree, there is a substantive difference between "us[ing] people's voices" and "[doing an] impression [of someone's voice]". It's good you pointed this out, law can be hard for swes, it can tickle the "unambiguous rule" part of the brain we employ every day.
  - nine_k 2y ago
    Could two researchers with different voices and manners of speech agree to provide longer samples of their voices? Then they would convert each sample to imitate the other's voice. It would be easy to contrast and compare, without any controversy.
ascorbic 2y ago
For those confused as I was - it's not trying to match the accent of the target speech in those samples, just the timbre. To quote the paper: > Voice conversion refers to altering the style of a speech signal while preserving its linguistic content. While style encompasses many aspects of speech, such as emotion, prosody, accent, and whispering, in this work we focus on the conversion of speaker timbre only while keeping the linguistic and para-linguistic information unchanged.

The samples were released a while back: https://google-research.github.io/seanet/stream_vc/ https://google-research.github.io/seanet/stream_vc/

by huac 2y ago

The samples were released a while back: https://google-research.github.io/seanet/stream_vc/ https://google-research.github.io/seanet/stream_vc/

modeless 2y ago

Not a very good demo page. It's difficult to judge real world quality with such unenthusiastic reading, unrealistic sentences, and unfamiliar voices. Typical of speech papers. It would be much better if celebrities were used as target voices, as we all know what they sound like and can therefore judge quality better. But I suppose that would be too controversial for Google. In general I think it is silly that voice cloning research has focused so much (exclusively?) on cloning voices from just a few seconds of audio. It puts a pretty low ceiling on quality. Many nuances of a person's communication style will not be contained in such a small amount of data. Sure you can match their pitch and timbre, but voice cloning should be more than that.

refulgentis 2y ago
> But I suppose that would be too controversial for Google. You don't have to suppose anything: it is actually settled law that its bad to just willy-nilly use people's voices if you feel like it, even if its just a sound-alike!
- mik1998 2y ago
  So, what do we do with actual people who have a very similar voice to some "more famous" person? It's quite silly when voices are far away from being unique to a person.
- kaliqt 2y ago
  Sound-alike is not actionable, and anyone who claims it infringes should be dragged through the courts. Not your voice, not your IP, not your right.
  - huac 2y ago
    except to the extent that your voice may be part of your image, which is actionable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midler_v._Ford_Motor_Co.
- modeless 2y ago
  So it's illegal for standup comics to do impressions? Or maybe there is some nuance here?
  - refulgentis 2y ago
    Thanks modeless, I appreciate the comment -- yes, I agree, there is a substantive difference between "us[ing] people's voices" and "[doing an] impression [of someone's voice]". It's good you pointed this out, law can be hard for swes, it can tickle the "unambiguous rule" part of the brain we employ every day.
- nine_k 2y ago
  Could two researchers with different voices and manners of speech agree to provide longer samples of their voices? Then they would convert each sample to imitate the other's voice. It would be easy to contrast and compare, without any controversy.

ascorbic 2y ago

For those confused as I was - it's not trying to match the accent of the target speech in those samples, just the timbre. To quote the paper: > Voice conversion refers to altering the style of a speech signal while preserving its linguistic content. While style encompasses many aspects of speech, such as emotion, prosody, accent, and whispering, in this work we focus on the conversion of speaker timbre only while keeping the linguistic and para-linguistic information unchanged.