The ISiS command line arguments

Flags and flag variants

Most of the ISiS command line flags have two variants: a short and a long form. The long form is given by means of two dashes “–” while the short form is introduced by a single dash ‘-‘. We take as example the flag that requests automatically opening the synthesized sound and the related pitch contour and phoneme sequence. In the introductory section we have learned that this can be achieved by adding -a to the command. This is the short form “-a”, and equivalently we could have given the long form –auto_open as argument. So the following two commands

$> isis.sh -sv EL -o defsong_EL.wav -a

$> isis.sh -sv EL -o defsong_EL.wav --auto_open

are strictly equivalent. In the following we will generally introduce only the long form of the parameter, as for example (–auto_open). The long form is supposed to be easier to remember as it declares its function by means of its name. However, in case we want to directly describe both forms we will use a vertical bar to separate both forms (-a| –auto_open).

Finally, ISiS supports short cutting the long flag to arbitrary shorter lengths, as long as the flag remains unambiguous. So another equivalent command line would be:

$> isis.sh -sv EL -o defsong_EL.wav --auto

Help

One of the most important flags for ISiS is the help flag (-h|–help), which can be sued to list all command line flags with a short help text.

To see the full list of command line argument of ISiS you can therefore simply run

$> isis.sh -h

which will display a short usage summary, then the program version, and finally a long help section listing all flags in short and long form, together with default values, that here are given for the case that ISiS version 1.2.5 installed under /Users/me/Applications/ISiS_V1.2.5:


usage: ISiS [-h] [-v] [-m MELODY] [-o OUTFILE] [-r CORPORA_ROOT]
            [-sv SINGING_VOICE] [-ss SINGING_STYLE] [-nls | -kol] [-nps]
            [-pls PHON_LEN_STYLE] [-gt GLOBAL_TRANSP] [-te TEMPO]
            [-a | -A | -O] [-pp] [-q] [-sr STYLES_ROOT]
            [--cfg_synth CFG_SYNTH] [--cfg_style CFG_STYLE]
            [--temproot TEMPROOT]

ISiS - IRCAM singing synthesis (Version 1.2.5)

optional arguments:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -v, --version         show program's version number and exit

ISiS IO:
  -m MELODY, --melody MELODY
                        config file providing score, note, lyrics and loudness
                        information (Def: read from configSynth.cfg file)
  -o OUTFILE, --outfile OUTFILE
                        filename of the synthesized output sound file (Def:
                        read from config_files/tempFiles.cfg in the chanter
                        modules root directory)

ISiS voice:
  -r CORPORA_ROOT, --corpora_root CORPORA_ROOT
                        root directory containing singing voice databases, set
                        default via environment variable ISIS_CORPORA (Def:
                        /Data/Corpora/BDD)
  -sv SINGING_VOICE, --singing_voice SINGING_VOICE
                        directory within ISIS_CORPRORA of the singing database
                        to be used for synthesis (Def: $ISIS_VOICE = RT/RT_YM)

ISiS style:
  -ss SINGING_STYLE, --singing_style SINGING_STYLE
                        select singing style, one of eP, jG, fL, sD, None
                        (Def: $ISIS_STYLE=None)
  -nls, --no_loudness_style_model
                        disable context aware loudness style models and use
                        only the default model (Def: False)
  -kol, --keep_orig_loudness
                        disable all loudness style models and keep the
                        original loudness contours of the singing db (Def:
                        False)
  -nps, --no_f0_style_model
                        disable pitch contour models (Def: False)
  -pls PHON_LEN_STYLE, --phon_len_style PHON_LEN_STYLE
                        select phon len style, one of eP, jG, fL, sD, meta,
                        None (Def: $ISIS_STYLE=None)
  -gt GLOBAL_TRANSP, --global_transp GLOBAL_TRANSP
                        global transposition in midi notes (Def: 0)
  -te TEMPO, --tempo TEMPO
                        tempo in bpm, will override the value written in the
                        score (Def: None)

ISiS opts:
  -a, --auto_open       force opening the result in AS (Def:
                        cfg_synth::auto_open parameters)
  -A, --no_auto_open    force not opening the result in AS even if config
                        files demands to open results (Def:
                        cfg_synth::auto_open parameter)
  -O, --Open            open the result in the default application for sound
                        files (Def: False)
  -pp, --pan_parts      output separate voiced and unvoiced singing signal
                        next to the output file (Def: False)
  -q, --quiet           suppress logging to console (Def: False)

ISiS advanced parameters:
  -sr STYLES_ROOT, --styles_root STYLES_ROOT
                        root directory for style model files (Def: /Users/me/
                        Applications/ISiS_V1.2.5/config_files/styles)
  --cfg_synth CFG_SYNTH
                        Synthesis configuration file (Def:
                        %(ISIS_CONFIG_DIR)s/default.configSynth.cfg)
  --cfg_style CFG_STYLE
                        Singing style configuration file (Def:
                        %(ISIS_CONFIG_DIR)s/default.configStyle.cfg)
  --temproot TEMPROOT   directory for storing temporary files (Def:
                        cfg_synth::TEMPFILESPATH)

The command line arguments are grouped into sections that affect different aspects of the synthesis. We will discuss these sections in the the following paragraphs

ISiS IO

The IO parameters specify input and output files,

  • flag –melody: provides the name of the ISiS scores that contains the textual description of melody and phonemes.
  • flag –outfile: the name of the output file. The file format of the output file is AIFF format, however the format will be adapted automatically to the output file extension.

The following sndfile formats will be used depending on the extension.

extension Fileformat
.au SUN AU format
.wav MS WAV
.caf Apple CAF
.aif/.aiff SGI AIFF

ISiS Voice

The voice parameters select the singing voice that is used. The singing voices that are currently available for ISiS are described in the installation instructions.

  • flag –corpora_root: overrides the $ISIS_CORPPORA environment variable you should have created when installing the singing voices as explained in the section on singing databases. This parameter is not very important if you followed the advice to put all singing voices into the same directory and you have correctly initialized the ISIS_CORPORA environment variable (see
    configure ISIS_CORPORA variable).

  • flag –singing_voice: this flag on the other hand allows you switching voices for each individual synthesis. this flag obtains its default from the ISIS_VOICE environment variable that you can position by means of running the install as default voice app in each voice directory.

ISiS Style

Singing style in ISiS can be controlled on various levels. The basic command line style parameters allow selecting basic style models, and as well as controlling certain aspects of the use of style models. A singing style in ISiS is a model that controls the singing parameter contours pitch and intensity, as well as the duration of the different phonemes, depending on the musical context (note frequencies, and note durations). There are 5 preconfigured singing style models available in ISiS: these are eP, jG, fL, sD, and finally None.

The style models have been defined with the help of a musicologist, the None style simply uses default settings of the pitch style parameters, and intensity contours from the singing voice databases.

  • flag –singing_style: selects a singing style model from the five available models that are named: eP, jG, fL, sD, None. The default style is derived from the environment variable ISIS_STYLE, and if that is not set, then default style None is used.
  • flag –no_loudness_style_model: exclude note attack and release intensity contours from the effect of the selected style model (Def: False).
  • flag –no_f0_style_model: exclude pitch contour parameters (note attack, release, note transitions, vibrato parameters) from the effect of the selected style model (Def: False)
  • flag –global_transp: note quite the same level as the other styme parameters, here a global transposition in midi notes can be applied to the score (Def: 0)

ISiS opts

A few options processing options are available.

  • flag –auto_open: triggers opening the resulting synthesis file in the AudioSculpt application. The sound file will be opened with phoneme annotations and the generated pitch contour. THe default behavior is to respect the corresponding setting in the default.configSynth parameter.
  • flag–no_auto_open: prevents opening the synthesis results result in AudioSculpt even even if the auto_open parameter in default.configSynth.cfg file is set.
  • flag –Open: open the synthesis result in the default application for sound files (Def: False)
  • flag –pan_parts: output separate voiced and unvoiced singing signal next to the output file (Def: False)
  • flag –quiet: suppress logging of progress messages to the terminal console (Def: False)

ISiS advanced parameters

The following advanced parameter can be used to control more aspects of the singing synthesiser.

TODO: add description*

  • flag –cfg_style: Singing style configuration file (Def: default.configStyle.cfg)
  • flag –cfg_synth: Synthesis configuration file
  • flag –styles_root: root directory for style model files (Def: default.configSytnh.cfg
  • flag –temproot: directory for storing temporary intermediate files files (Def: cfg_synth::TEMPFILESPATH)