FAC-FACodec: Controllable Zero-Shot Foreign Accent Conversion with Factorized Speech Codec
For speech synthesis and accent conversion researchers, this work provides explicit control over accent strength, addressing the trade-off between conversion and identity preservation.
The paper introduces a foreign accent conversion framework with a user-controllable parameter to adjust accent modification strength, achieving comparable performance to recent systems while better preserving speaker identity and enabling controllable conversion.
Previous accent conversion (AC) methods, including foreign accent conversion (FAC), lack explicit control over the degree of modification. Because accent modification can alter the perceived speaker identity, balancing conversion strength and identity preservation is crucial. We present an AC framework that provides an explicit, user-controllable parameter to adjust the strength of pronunciation-level accent modification. Results show performance comparable to recent AC systems, stronger preservation of speaker identity, and unique support for controllable accent conversion.