Karaoke may never be the same, thanks to research being presented in Nashvil

Karaoke may never be the same, thanks to research being presented in Nashville detailing the latest findings in efforts to create a computerized system that makes average singers sound like professionals.
    "Our ultimate goal is to have a computer system that will transform a poor singing voice into a great singing voice," said Mark J.T. Smith, a professor of Purdue University, who is working with a graduate student Matthew Lee to create computer models for voice analysis and synthesis. These models break the human singing voice into components that can be modified to produce a more professional-sounding rendition (演唱) of the original voice.
    Far more work is needed before the system is finished, Smith said. He said the specialized programs are, however, able to alter certain important characteristics of a person’s voice, such as pitch, duration.
    Lee will present the latest research findings during the 145th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Nashville, Tenn, the nation’s country music capital. He will demonstrate the system by playing before-and-after country music audio clips to researchers there.
    The system uses a special technique to break down the original voice. The voice is then reconstructed using a mathematical method which enables the system to resynthesize the voice quickly.
    Smith, who specializes in signal processing, began working on the underlying "sinusoidal mode" (正弦曲线投影模式) in the mid-1980s. The model enables the human singing voice to be broken into components. More recently, Smith and Lee developed a method for modifying to improve the quality of singing.
    "While we have had Success in improving the quality of the singing voice samples in our database , we also face the challenge of handling all types of voices reliably," Smith said. "There are many challenges in developing a system of this type