[AUDITORY] Research position (postdoc in speech synthesis) at IRCAM / CHANTER Project

[Axel Roebel <Axel.Roebel@xxxxxxxx>]

Dear colleagues,

a temporary research position in the CHANTER project is available at
IRCAM. Please find more details at http://www.ircam.fr/71.html?&L=1
or here below. Please distribute to interested parties.

Thanks
Axel

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Job offer: Non permanent researcher (W/M)
Expert in speech signal processing, and or speech synthesis (ANR
project: CHANTER)

Availability:  start date: Jan 2014

Duration: 12 months (an extension of up to 6 months may be considered)

Introduction to IRCAM

IRCAM is a non-profit organization that is associated to the Centre
Pompidou (Centre national d’art et de culture Georges Pompidou). Its
missions comprise research, production, and education related to
contemporary music and its relation to science and technology. Within
the R&D department specialized teams are conducting research and
development in the areas of acoustics, sound signal processing,
interaction, computer music and musicology. The present position is
available in the analysis/synthesis team that conducts research on
advanced algorithms for speech and music signal processing. IRCAM is
located in the centre of Paris near the Centre Pompidou, at 1, Place
Igor Stravinsky 75004 Paris.

Introduction to the CHANTER project

The CHANTER project aims to realize a singing synthesis system that
integrates recent advanced speech (singing) signal processing
technologies into a TTC (Text to Chant) prototype system. The final
singing synthesis system should not only allow offline synthesis but
should as well support interactive control of the synthesis results. A
sound database containing singing signals will be used as the basic
singing unit reservoir of the system and state of the art speech
processing technologies will be used for transforming the recorded
singing units and for concatenating them into the final result.
Strategies for the generation of all relevant singing voice parameter
contours will be developed. The development of musically interesting
strategies for the real time control of the synthesis system is one of
the important research objectives.

Role of IRCAM in the CHANTER Project

The analsyis/synthesis team of IRCAM is in charge of the research and
development the basic singing synthesis technology. This includes the
appropriate representation of the singing sound database, the
establishment of a concatenation and transformation procedure of the
singing units under low latency constraints, and the generation of
singing voice parameter contours.

Position description

The hired researcher will be in contribute to the project by means of
developing different parts of the basic singing synthesis system. He/she
will collaborate with other researchers working on different aspects of
the analysis and synthesis technics. She/he will be required to
participate in all activities related to the project (evaluation,
meetings, specifications).

Required Experiences and Skills

-	PhD with excellent knowledge of and experience in speech signal
analysis (f0, and other source parameters) and frequency domain speech
signal processing (analysis/synthesis, spectral domain filtering, shape
invariant signal processing).
-	Excellent knowledge of and experience in signal models and
time/frequency representations of sound signals.
-	Experience with speech synthesis systems (TTS).
-	Experience with machine learning techniques and statistical models.
-	Very proficient in Python (NumPY/SciPY), skills in C/C++ programming.
-	Good knowledge of Linux, and/or Mac OS X.
-	High productivity, capacity for methodical and autonomous work,
creativity, good communication skills, rigor, and excellent programming
style.

Salary

According to background and experience

Applications

Please send an application letter together with your resume and any
suitable information addressing the above issues preferably by email to:
roebel_at_ircam_dot_fr

Deadline

November, 18th, 2013  (after this date applications will be considered
until the position is filled)

-- 
Axel Roebel
Head of the Analysis/Synthesis Team, IRCAM
Phone: ++33-1-4478 4845 | Fax: ++33-1-4478 1540