☢ Salem CVVC Tools ☢

☆ Presamp.ini Templates ☆

Version 1.0.0

See here for more information about how presamp works with Salem CVVC.

Save the text in a file called presamp.ini within the root folder of your voicebank.

☆ Vowel Quality Self-Assessment ☆

The purpose of this test is to give you an idea of how the symbols used by S-CVVC correspond to the phones you produce when singing. It's not perfect, but the general idea is that each line represents a different lexical set for an English vowel, and most consonants can be found throughout the list.

A lexical set is a group of words that correspond to a specific phonological feature. The purpose of a lexcial set is not to be a perfect representation of a language's phonemic inventory, but rather to say that a given speaker of a language tends to produce a specific sound consistantly accross a set of words. One of the most well-known is Wells' (1982) lexical sets for English vowels, which this list is based on.

While the phonetic symbols used correspond to General American transcription, as mentioned, even among American speakers there is going to be variation. The key is that the voicebank is internally consistant, meaning that each symbol used corresponds to a single consistant sound, even if it is not technically the phone represented by the symbol.

This resource attempts to be thorough in accounting for major dialectical differences, such as rhoticity and splits / mergers, but it cannot possibly cover every variation that exists in a language as diverse as English, and is mostly going to be beneficial for inner circle vareties.

All in all, this is not necessary for making a good English voicebank; it is simply to give you a better idea of your personal vowel inventory and how it corresponds to the S-CVVC reclists.

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Instructions

For best results, be sure to pronounce each word as it naturally comes to you; don't focus on saying them "correctly" or worry too much about enunciation. Also keep in mind that pronunciation when singing may differ from pronunciation when speaking.

1. Copy and paste the list below into its own text file, and save it wherever you like.
2. Open up list in OREMO or recording software of choice.
3. Record yourself singing each line. You can either record it on a consistant pitch like you would a normal reclist, or to a basic seven-note tune like DO-RE-MI-FA-MI-RE-DO, whichever you feel will result in more nautral utterances.
4. Compare the recorded lines to the transcriptions below. Remember that this is broad transcription and your specific utterance may vary. When in doubt, reference whichever production of the phoneme seems most consistant. Some words have multiple syllables, but if I've designed this well enough, the vowel you're meant to be looking at should be pretty obvious.

Once you feel like you've got a good idea of how you should read each symbol in your own voice, you can either keep these files on hand for reference or discard them; they aren't meant to be part of a voicebank.

If you want to be really precise, you can measure the formants of your vowels in a software like PRAAT, but that's beyond the scope of what I'm going to go over here. Just know that you're not immune from subjectively intepreting your own production.

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Transcriptions

Line	Vowel
01	[@] (reduced vowel; hard to elicit out of context)
02	[1] (reduced vowel; hard to elicit out of context)
03	[i]
04	[I]
05	[eI]
06	[E]
07	[{]
08	[A]
09	If same as LINE 07: [{] Or else same as LINE 08: [A]
10	If same as LINE 08: [A] Or else: [O]
11	If same as LINE 08: [A] Or else: [Q]
12	If same as LINE 08: [A] Or else: [O] or [Q]
13	If same as LINE 08: [A] Or else: [O] or [Q]
14	[V]
15	[oU]
16	[U]
17	[u]
18	If diff from LINE 17: [}] Or else: [u]
19	[aI]
20	If diff from LINE 19: [VI] Or else: [aI]
21	[aU]
22	If diff from LINE 21: [VU] Or else: [aU]
23	[OI]
24	If diff from LINE 04: [I~] Or else: [I]
25	If diff from LINE 06: [E~] Or else: [E]
26	If diff from LINE 07: [{~] Or else: [{]
27	[@r]
28	If diff from LINE 27: [3r] Or else: [@r]
29	If diff from LINE 27: [Ur] Or else: [@r]
30	[Ir]
31	[Er]
32	[Ar]
33	[Or]
34	If diff from LINE 33: [or] Or else: [Or]
35	If diff from LINE 33: [Ur] Or else: [Or]
36	[@l]
37	[il]
38	[Il]
39	[el]
40	[El]
41	[{l]
42	[Al]
43	[Ol]
44	If same as LINE 36: [@l] If same as LINE 43: [Ol] Or else: [Ul]
45	[ul]
46	[mm]
47	[nn]