ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Formant synthesis

Hey kiddo! Today, I'm going to explain to you a cool technology called formant synthesis.

So imagine you know how to sing, and you can make different sounds with your mouth by changing the shape of your mouth or moving your tongue around. For example, if you say "aaah," your mouth is wide open, but if you say "oooo," your lips make a round shape.

Similarly, in formant synthesis, we use a computer to make different sounds by changing the shape of the filters placed in the system. These filters are called formants.

In simpler terms, formants are like the different shapes that you can make with your mouth. When you sing or speak, you produce sounds by vibrating your vocal cords. These vibrations are then passed through your mouth and are modified by the shape of your mouth. The shape of your mouth acts like a filter and changes the way the sound waves move in the air, which is why different sounds are made.

With formant synthesis, we use a computer to create different sounds by changing the shape of the filters in the system. By changing the shape of these filters, we can create different vowels or make different sounds.

So, just like how you can make different sounds by changing the shape of your mouth, we can make different sounds using formant synthesis by changing the shape of the filters in the system.

Hope that makes sense, kiddo!