News

Code Geass Speech Synthesizer Service Offered in Japan

Not-So-Daily Link of the Day: The Internet service provider NEC BIGLOBE has announced on Monday that it is hosting a speech synthesizer service in which users can create their own spoken dialogue with the voices of characters from the Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R2 anime series. Specifically, users can type in phrases for the software to "speak" in the voices of Lelouch (in his Zero persona) and C.C. Users can adjust the pitch, tempo, accent, and the echo effect of the lines as they wish.

The service's website has samples of Zero ("Shaberareru mono nara, yatte miru ga ii") and C.C. ("Watashi ga sō kantan ni shaberu to omou no ka?"), as well a few hundred lines submitted by users. (ANN is awaiting approval to publicly post a custom dialogue line that was created from scratch this morning.) The free version of the service allows users to enter up to 30 lines with a maxmum of 15 syllables each, while the paid version allows an unlimited number of lines up to 50 characters long. Users of the paid version can then download the dialogue lines they create in WAV or MP3 format, build short stories through playlists, or insert the voices in their blogs through "blog parts" applets (pictured above). Registration is required (in Japanese) for either version.

The Japanese software developers Animo and Celsys teamed up last year to produce a different speech synthesizer that can work with the animation tools created by Celsys. The virtual idol singer (and Internet phenomenon) Miku Hatsune is the creation of the Vocaloid vocal music synthesizer, while the recording artist Gackt lent his voice to the latest spinoff from Vocaloid, Gackpoid.

Source: Yomiuri Shimbun

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