Method, apparatus and computer program product for providing text independent voice conversion

A computer program product comprising at least one computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program code portions stored therein, the computer-readable program code portions comprising:

• a first executable portion for training, at a user terminal, a first voice conversion model with respect to a training source speech of a first speaker and a second voice conversion model with respect to a training target speech of a second speaker;
• wherein training the first voice conversion model further comprises determining a first conversion function for transforming any source speech into corresponding synthetic speech, the first conversion function receiving the training source speech of the first speaker and a training source synthetic speech of the first speaker as inputs, and
• wherein training the second voice conversion model further comprises determining a second conversion function for transforming synthetic speech into corresponding target speech, the second conversion function receiving the training target speech of the second speaker and a training target synthetic speech of the second speaker as inputs, and wherein said training target synthetic speech is produced from said training target speech;
• a second executable portion for processing, at the user terminal, source speech using the first voice conversion model to convert the source speech to synthetic speech;
• and
• a third executable portion for processing, at the user terminal, an output of the first voice conversion model at the second voice conversion model to produce target speech corresponding to the source speech.

An apparatus comprising a processor and memory storing computer program code, the memory and computer program code configured to, with the processor cause the apparatus at least to:

• train, at a user terminal, a first voice conversion model with respect to a training source speech of a first speaker and a second voice conversion model with respect to a training target speech of a second speaker;
• wherein training the first voice conversion model further comprises determining a first conversion function for transforming any source speech into corresponding synthetic speech, the first conversion function receiving the training source speech of the first speaker and a training source synthetic speech of the first speaker as inputs, and
• wherein training the second voice conversion model further comprises determining a second conversion function for transforming synthetic speech into corresponding target speech, the second conversion function receiving the training target speech of the second speaker and a training target synthetic speech of the second speaker as inputs, and wherein said training target synthetic speech is produced from said training target speech;
• process, at the user terminal, source speech of the first speaker using the first voice conversion model to convert the source speech to synthetic speech;
• and
• process, at the user terminal, an output of the first voice conversion model at the second voice conversion model to produce target speech corresponding to the source speech.

An apparatus comprising:

• means for training, at a user terminal, a first voice conversion model with respect to a training source speech of a first speaker and a second voice conversion model with respect to a training target speech of a second speaker;
• wherein training the first voice conversion model further comprises determining a first conversion function for transforming any source speech into corresponding synthetic speech, the first conversion function receiving the training source speech of the first speaker and a training source synthetic speech of the first speaker as inputs, and
• wherein training the second voice conversion model further comprises determining a second conversion function for transforming synthetic speech into corresponding target speech, the second conversion function receiving the training target speech of the second speaker and a training target synthetic speech of the second speaker as inputs;
• and wherein said training targets synthetic speech is produced from said training target speech;
• means for processing, at the user terminal, source speech of the first speaker using the first voice conversion model to convert the source speech to synthetic speech;
• and
• means for processing, at a user terminal, an output of the first voice conversion model at the second voice conversion model to produce target speech corresponding to the source speech.

A method comprising;

• generating, at a user terminal, synthetic speech corresponding to training source speech based on parallel text corresponding to the training source speech;
• training a first voice conversion model with respect to converting source speech to first synthetic speech based on the training source speech and the synthetic speech corresponding to the training source speech, the first voice conversion model being trained at the user terminal;
• wherein training the first voice conversion model further comprises determining a first conversion function for transforming any source speech into corresponding synthetic speech, the first conversion function receiving the training source speech of the first speaker and a training source synthetic speech of the first speaker as inputs, and
• generating, at the user terminal, synthetic speech corresponding to the training target speech based on parallel text corresponding to the training target speech;
• and
• training a second voice conversion model with respect to converting second synthetic speech to target speech based on the training target speech and the synthetic speech corresponding to the training target speech, the second voice conversion model being trained at the user terminal,
• wherein training the second voice conversion model further comprises determining a second conversion function for transforming synthetic speech into corresponding target speech, the second conversion function receiving the training target speech of the second speaker and training target synthetic speech of the second speaker as inputs and wherein said training target synthetic speech is produced from said training target speech.