
Pink Trombone - errozero
https://dood.al/pinktrombone/
======
modeless
In a similar vein:
[http://www.adultswim.com/etcetera/choir/](http://www.adultswim.com/etcetera/choir/)

The most interesting thing about this one is the chord progressions it
generates.

~~~
peterlk
If you're interested in chord generation, I've used Cthulu[0] by Xfer records
to experiment with chord progressions quickly.

[0]
[https://xferrecords.com/products/cthulhu](https://xferrecords.com/products/cthulhu)

~~~
ryan-allen
Cubase Chord Pads are also pretty sweet!

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sgentle
A little while back I used this combined with a physics simulator to make a
toy where you throw polygons in the air and they scream:
[https://ohgodwhathaveidone.stackblitz.io/](https://ohgodwhathaveidone.stackblitz.io/)

Code's here if anyone wants to play:
[https://stackblitz.com/edit/ohgodwhathaveidone](https://stackblitz.com/edit/ohgodwhathaveidone)
– I did a fairly medium job of abstracting the synthesis engine away from the
UI, but it might be a decent starting point if you're looking to make other
Trombone-based web silliness.

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lqet
This reminds me of the Sprechmaschine [1] ("speaking machine") built at the
end of the 18th century by Wolfgang von Kempelen (the guy who build the
original mechanical turk [2]). Here is a YouTube video showing it in action
(for example, the machine says "Mama" around 1:14):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_YUB_S6Gpo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_YUB_S6Gpo)

[1]
[https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_von_Kempelen#Die_Spre...](https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfgang_von_Kempelen#Die_Sprechmaschine)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turk)

~~~
tech-no-logical
also, the 1939 voder comes to mind :

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voder](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voder)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rAyrmm7vv0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rAyrmm7vv0)

------
speps
Literate C version: [https://pbat.ch/proj/voc/](https://pbat.ch/proj/voc/)

Literate depot:
[https://github.com/PaulBatchelor/voc](https://github.com/PaulBatchelor/voc)

Actually compiled source is there:
[https://github.com/PaulBatchelor/Soundpipe/blob/master/modul...](https://github.com/PaulBatchelor/Soundpipe/blob/master/modules/voc.c)

------
goodmachine
Lest we forget that speech synthesis is not just for grotesque but amusing
semi-real vocal synths like this, here's a BBC Radio 4 history of speech
synthesis as an assistive technology - Klatt's Last Tapes, by Stephen
Hawking's daughter, Lucy:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=097K1uMIPyQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=097K1uMIPyQ)

------
jedberg
Man this brings back memories. We used this program for my linguistics
homework in college. In 1996. Although I think it was an app then not a web
page.

------
emmelaich
This would be useful to demonstrate the difference between p/f and l/r for
those brought up without those distinctions.

I'd also (as an English speaker) like to see/hear Dutch g and Xhosan clicks.

~~~
undershirt
yes, I think it's time for this to be connected to text input for seeing how
any word is pronounced.

specifically:
[https://twitter.com/shaunlebron/status/989192507828432896](https://twitter.com/shaunlebron/status/989192507828432896)

~~~
emmelaich
Perfect.

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smlacy
Would it be possible to use Reinforcement Learning + Speech Recognition to
turn this thing into a real voice synthesizer?

~~~
hannasanarion
No need. This thing is already a voice synthesizer. This is how modern
synthesizers work, more or less: by generating a sine wave and then modifying
it in the same way as the vocal tract does.

~~~
smlacy
I meant "text to speech engine" then I guess.

~~~
hannasanarion
Yeah, I know what you meant. You use a tool like the CMU pronunciation
dictionary[1] to turn words into phonemes, and then you use a model similar to
the pink trombone to turn the phoneme string into sound, including the
transitions between different phones (which, it turns out, actually matter
more than the phones themselves for making it understandable). This is how TTS
works.

1 [http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-
bin/cmudict](http://www.speech.cs.cmu.edu/cgi-bin/cmudict)

------
zackmorris
Reminds me of Xiph's Speex/CELP model of speech as a mix of noise and
frequency to achieve high compression, requiring as little as 2.15 kilobits
(275 bytes) per second. It sounds perceptibly similar to the original
recording, even though the difference between the input and output sampled
data may be high:

[https://www.speex.org/docs/manual/speex-
manual/node9.html](https://www.speex.org/docs/manual/speex-manual/node9.html)

Bitrate comparison:

[https://www.speex.org/comparison/](https://www.speex.org/comparison/)

Samples:

[https://www.speex.org/samples/](https://www.speex.org/samples/)

Maybe higher compression can be achieved with better prediction, aka machine
learning.

------
colanderman
I've actually been looking for the _opposite_ of this (i.e. sound in, mouth
representation out) for a while. Does anyone know of such a thing?

~~~
ssewell
Yes! Oculus makes an SDK for this. You can use it in Unity 3D, Unreal, or
directly in a native app.
[https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/audiosdk/latest/c...](https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/audiosdk/latest/concepts/book-
audio-ovrlipsync/)

~~~
colanderman
Thanks! That's like 80% of the way there. It looks to be missing a lot of
state internal to the mouth (understandable given that it's targeting avatar
lipsyncing), and appears to discretize the values somewhat, making it less
useful for linguistics practice. But I bet the underlying technology could be
adapted easily.

------
t0mbstone
Wow! I was able to successfully recreate all sorts of letters and sounds just
by imagining how my own mouth works, and then manipulating the different
components on the pink trombone in the same way. I'm impressed!

------
smlacy
Pondering what makes this sound "male".

~~~
mobilejdral
I have actually used this very tool back in the day to help learn how to speak
in a male or female voice. One of the five things I do is manipulation of my
tongue to change the cavity of my mouth to make the space bigger (more
masculine) or smaller (more feminine) which this tool demonstrates very well.

Edit: to be clear I used to sound male 24/7 and now I sound female 24/7 Rather
than thinking you are speaking male or female it helps if you think you are
playing a musical instrument with a number of controls that you control (with
your mind whahahaha). Then it is just about learning what each control does
and how to play them so you get the result you want.

Your voice is muscle memory so while at the start I had to actively "play" a
female voice that is no longer the case and now if I ever want to "play" a
male voice I have to actively think about how I am going to speak each word to
make it male.

~~~
evincarofautumn
This is also exactly how male countertenor singers produce a female-sounding
voice, by making the vocal cavity smaller to adjust the formants upward. If
you don’t do that, it just sounds like a male head voice or falsetto.

------
triclops200
Sudden sound warning.

~~~
3chelon
Sudden _disconcerting_ sound warning!

------
willchang
This is amazing. I can get it to make almost any speech sound, but one I can't
get is [s], because the model lacks teeth!

~~~
slx26
disable "always voice", and click a bit below hard palate, slightly to the
right towards the lip (below the _at_ in pal _at_ e), so there will only be a
small gap for the air to go through

~~~
willchang
You're right. It sounds to me like [s] with lip rounding, where the teeth
don't contribute as much acoustically, but it does indeed sound like an [s].

------
BFatts
I feel like I am simulating orgasmic responses!

------
jarmitage
This was also ported to C++ inside a modular synth:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDn7ygnJUfI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDn7ygnJUfI)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jcqKnIa8T4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jcqKnIa8T4)

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo5ZEgBEapk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo5ZEgBEapk)

[https://github.com/giuliomoro/pink-
trombone](https://github.com/giuliomoro/pink-trombone)

------
sonnyblarney
What someone needs to do is put sensors in people's mouths, record them saying
known phrases, then stick the sensor data+phrases into some AI and see if we
can't get that Trombone talkin'!

------
glitcher
Previous post in Apr 2017:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14135658](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14135658)

------
philsnow
The shape of the tongue control reminds me a lot of the rhombus in
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Phonetic_Alphabet#Vowels)

... which is because the latter was patterned after the shape of the mouth.

------
ben-hudson
I feel embarrassed playing with this

~~~
King-Aaron
You should have seen the looks from my coworkers when my computer started
shouting AAAAAHHHHHHH

------
mmjaa
Thats nice and everything but until I have a hardware version where I can just
switch a button on and do this and that, I'm not really going to be truly
satisfied. Please hardware'ify.

------
joshu
how do i use this to answer the phone?

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Digit-Al
Is the author aware of the other meaning of "pink trombone"?[1]

[1]
[https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pink%20tromb...](https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=pink%20trombone)

~~~
mmjaa
I'm fairly sure there is no other meaning than the one to which you refer, so
its perhaps more likely that you are missing the risqué point being made by
assuming the prude levels are higher than you might think. A lot of the folks
who make these kinds of hacks, are perfectly fine with the obscure, obscene,
perverse nature of their naming of things ... Those of the anthropological
inclination may decide that, in fact, an obscene name for something like this
is a requisite.

~~~
RandomGuyDTB
Like how in jargon.txt they used 69 as an example of a big number:

"69 adj. Large quantity. Usage: Exclusive to MIT-AI. "Go away, I have 69
things to do to DDT before worrying about fixing the bug in the phase of the
moon output routine..." (Note: Actually, any number less than 100 but large
enough to have no obvious magic properties will be recognized as a "large
number". There is no denying that "69" is the local favorite. I don't know
whether its origins are related to the obscene interpretation, but I do know
that 69 decimal = 105 octal, and 69 hexadecimal = 105 decimal, which is a nice
property. - GLS)"

