Patent ID: 8775185

Claim:
A method for converting text into speech with a speech sample library, comprising: providing an input text; converting the input text to a sequence of triphones; retrieving phonemic contexts of the sequence of triphones; determining musical parameters characterizing each phoneme in the sequence of triphones; predicting a set of numerical targets for the determined musical parameters, wherein the set of numerical targets is provided for each of the musical parameters; detecting, in the speech sample library, pre-stored speech segments having at least the determined musical parameters of each phoneme in the sequence of triphones based on the phonemic contexts and the predicted set of numerical targets for the determined musical parameters which lie within a range of musical parameters of the pre-stored speech segments, wherein the detection of the pre-stored speech segments further includes searching the speech sample library for at least one of a central phoneme, phonemic context, and a musical index indicating at least one range of at least one of the musical parameters within which at least one of the numerical targets lies; and concatenating the detected speech segments.