System Providing Expressive and Emotive Text-to-Speech

A method for controlling a voice animation for a text-to-speech synthesizer in real-time, comprising the steps of:

• initializing a voice identifier with plurality of Voice Style Sheet (VSS) parameters;
• receiving a text string;
• generating a plurality of phonetic labels for a rendering of the text string;
• receiving an input indicating a modification to the plurality of VSS parameters;
• modifying the plurality of VSS parameters according to the modification;
• and
• generating audio samples according to the plurality of VSS parameters.

A speech to text system comprising:

• a text and labels module configured to receive a text input and provide a text analysis and a label comprising a phonetic description of the text;
• a label buffer configured to receive the label from the text and labels module;
• a parameter generation module configured to access the label from the label buffer and generate a speech generation parameter;
• a parameter buffer configured to receive the parameter from the parameter generation module;
• an audio generation module configured to receive the text input, the label, and/or the parameter and generate a plurality of audio samples;
• and
• a scheduler configured to monitor and schedule at least one of the group consisting of the text and label module, the parameter generation module, and the audio generation module;
• wherein the parameter generation module is further configured to perform the steps of:
• initializing a voice identifier with a Voice Style Sheet (VSS) parameter;
• receiving an input indicating a modification to the VSS parameter;
• and
• modifying the VSS parameter according to the modification.