The Journal of the Acoustical Society of KoreaISSN:1225-4428(Print) 2287-3775(Online)한국음향학회

The pitch searching is a vital process in a vocoder. Generally, the method of pitch searching is employed after highlighting the periodicity, where a correlation is identified with the signal by changing the interval of two pulses. When the correlation value reaches the peak, the pitch can be found by the pulse interval because it is the repetition interval with most striking period. However if the identified period happens to be one of half period, double period or triple period, this cannot be considered as the pitch period. Many methods were suggested to solve this problem. An inaccurate pitch could be obtained as well, when there is an interval where signal amplitude is not constant but varies abruptly in the frame. To solve this matter, searching the pitch by dividing a frame into various subframes is adopted, but too much calculation has to be followed while it leads the correct value. This paper suggests an algorithm to resolve these two problems. First, to search the pitch after advance correction of the signal energy level with an estimated overall energy change ratio in the frame before pitch search to reduce half period, double period and triple period is suggested. Second, to vary the number of subframes by predicting the amplitude change rate in the frame by the energy ratio obtained by the above-mentioned method is advised. If these two methods are applied, the pitch searching time can be reduced and the general pitch searching performance can be improved without affecting the sound quality in the synthesized signal.