Japanese Lab Creates 'Da Vinci' Voices

Mikki writes "Using methods employed in criminal investigations, the Japan Acoustic Lab has analyzed the skeletal structures of Leonardo Da Vinci and Mona Lisa's faces to replicate how their voices would have sounded." While Da Vinci is cool, I can think of a slew of other deceased notables worth talking with as well.

Comments

Ergh - yuk.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

1) Promotion of lame movie.

2) IE 6 Only.

Please don't post this sort of crap (that's so hard to watch) again.

Fine, but...

[jolyonr]

how will bone structure determine regional accent?

If you make assumptions about where someone was brought up and who by, this kind of thing could work - but let's see a blind test. Let someone do a recording of their voice, get these guys to analyse their facial structure (in silence) and see if their prediction matches reality. It's easy to say what dead people noone alive has heard sounds like.

Jolyon

Re:Fine, but...

[datafr0g]

I was thinking the same thing... to add to this - How would one be able to predict that vocal cords are even intact from looking at a skeletal structure??

Re:Fine, but...

[joe 155]

that's a good point, but even if you did know the region, and even what accent was deffinately in that region at that time (because it's changed so much over the last 400 years) I think an even bigger point is the shape of the tounge; even the slightest change in size would change how your vioce sounded far more than any factor like head size/shape.

Which is great because..

[Burb]

... we all know that we way we talk is completely determined by skeletal structure. Your native language, culture, education, temperament, mood, and state of health are completely irrelevant.

Mind you, it would be funny if he sounded like Tom Hanks.

Re:Paint and Sound

[Threni]

> I remember something from about 10 years ago about people running an LP pickup
> through the grooves made in paint by a painters brush. The idea is that sound
> makes the brush vibrate and records the sounds in the paint.
>
> Apparently they were able to get the sound of the word "blue" out of a patch
> of blue paint so this painter must have been talking to himself (or somebody
> else) while he worked.

It's hard to imagine with half a brain anyone believing for more than a second that this technique would ever be possible.

Has anyone tested this tech?

[Zaphod2016]

I think this is a neat idea (although an obvious plant by some marketing parasites) but I have to ask: has anyone tested this?

Specifically: has anyone recorded a voice, recorded an MRI, and generated a voice? Did they match? Were they close?

Re:the article and direct link

[Fred_A]

"Because the beard covers his jaws in his portrait, we could not tell his exact skeletal features. We assumed that he had a heavy-jowled face, giving him a nice, bass tone," Suzuki says.

The translation is a bit off there. This should read:

"Because the Hollywood studio paid us so much money and we didn't have anything to work with anyway, we made it all up."

Re:the article and direct link

[WinterSolstice]

No kidding - this article is complete crap. Typically when you "analyze" a skeleton, you actually do some real science. You don't just look at Mike Tyson, examine his face, and produce a voice that sounds anything like his.

By all rights, he should sound more like Samuel Jackson :)

Stupid story, stupid stunt, lame page. Thanks, slashdot, for supporting the MPAA.

-WS

Re:surely not

[whitehatlurker]

No, no, didn't you see the Digg story on this? They have recordings from even earlier.

(Okay, just between us - it's a hoax, but don't tell anyone else.)