System and method for generating an identification signal for electronic devices
AssigneeNellymoser, Inc. a Delaware corporation
InventorsJohn Puterbaugh, Eric Puterbaugh, Peter Velikonja, Robert Baxter
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and method for creating a ring tone for an electronic device takes as input a phrase sung in a human voice and transforms it into a control signal controlling, for example, a ringer on a cellular telephone. Time-varying features of the input signal are analyzed to segment the signal into a set of discrete notes and assigning to each note a chromatic pitch value. The set of note start and stop times and pitches are then translated into a format suitable for controlling the device.
Claims20
1-4. (canceled)
The method of claim 34 wherein accepting as input further comprises receiving said voice signal over a telephone connection.
The method of claim 34 wherein said step of accepting as input further comprises receiving said voice signal over a microphone attached to a computer.
The method of claim 34 wherein said translating step further comprises translating said voice signal to a range of tones within the capability of a mobile telephone audio output synthesizer.
The method of claim 34 further comprising the step of transmitting said control signal to a tone-producing output device responsive to said control signal.
10-26. (canceled)
The method of claim 34 further comprising the step of determining which regions of said plurality have a valid note start frame.
The method of claim 34, wherein determining a candidate note start frame further comprises the step of determining if the cepstral domain energy of a particular frame is greater than a cepstral domain energy threshold and a frame immediately before said particular frame was below said cepstral domain energy threshold.
The method of claim 34, wherein determining a candidate note start frame further comprises the step of determining whether a fundamental frequency range of a particular frame is above a fundamental frequency range threshold and whether an energy range for said particular frame is above an energy range threshold.
The method of claim 34, further comprising the step of determining a stop frame corresponding to each start frame.
31-32. (canceled)
A method for generating an identification signal, comprising:
- accepting as input a voice signal of limited duration;
- translating said voice signal to a representation of a series of discrete tones, including generating a digital representation of said voice signal, dividing said digitized signal into a plurality of frames, extracting analysis data from each said frame, formatting said analysis data into a frame representation, and grouping said frames into a plurality of regions;
- producing a control signal from said representation of discrete tones, said control signal suitable for causing a transponder to generate a signal, where said generated signal is human-recognizable as a translation of said voice signal;
- determining the existence of a candidate note start frame in each said region;
- determining a stop frame corresponding to each start frame;
- forming an initial set of fundamental frequencies from said start and corresponding stop frames;
- removing from said initial set those fundamental frequencies having corresponding time-domain energies less than an energy threshold to form a modified set of fundamental frequencies;
- removing from said modified set those fundamental frequencies having corresponding voicing probabilities less than a voicing probability threshold to form a twice modified set of fundamental frequencies;
- determining a median for each member of said twice modified set;
- determining a mode for each member of said twice modified set;
- determining a distributional type for each member of said twice modified set with an associated class confidence estimate;
- and
- assigning a MIDI note number to each member of said twice modified set in response to said mode, said median, said distributional type and said class confidence estimate, whereby a note sequence is created.
40-70. (canceled)
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.