Voice Synthesizer: Vocaloid, UTAU, Etc

I do like SeeU's voice itself, but looking at how sparse her Vocaloid Wiki entry is it's a little early for me personally to consider hunting much of her stuff down. It usually takes a few months for people to get used to any one voicebank's quirks and to start making really awesome stuff with it, so I'm going to wait a little longer personally to give them that time. But I'll admit I'm looking forward to when there's tons of her songs for me to choose from!

I'm surprised SeeU's a Korean Vocaloid. O.o

 

SeeU has the potential to be a very big hit in Korea (S. Korea to be more exact). KPop has quite a large following in Korea, and I think SeeU will be able to propel herself to the main spotlight by riding on this wave.

 

With the emergence of East Sports (electronic sports), I wouldn't see how Vocaloids (electronic singers) would be unsuccessful in Korea.

Here are a few I've been listening to:

 

 

 

Trying to figure out what 1/2 of them are actually harder then I thought. I think my fav of them is I=Fantasy I think that's what it's called?

I'm became a big vocaloid fan after seeing the figmas. I had no idea what they were until i typed vocaloid into youtube and was surprised to what i found. I'd have to say that Gumi is by far one of my favorites. However every one of them is quite good in their own ways, and who utilizes them. I'll post some of my favorites below.

 

Forbidden Fruit - Kaai Yuki

 

Falling Rain - SeeU

 

Prima オリジナル曲 『Falsky』 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GfYDTETuHs&list=PL2B5A6D1C31CF8745&index=35&feature=plpp_video

 

Lily】 リミッター 【オリジナル曲】http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKvUcaLQipY&list=PL2B5A6D1C31CF8745&index=36&feature=plpp_video

 

I'll post more later, my computer is very slow at the moment.

【GUMI】ナンカイレンアイ【オリジナル曲PV付き】 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnQXetJT_wA

【GUMI】 ルービックキューブ 【オリジナル】 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYZeD29bAaE

【初音MIKU】化物宇宙【オリジナルPV】 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmTDp6-mVjc

【初音MIKU(40㍍)】 パラメタ 【オリジナル】 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXuCYUj1Wh0

【SeeU】First Demo Song -

 

Note: Unlike GUMI and MIKU (Japanese), SeeU is a Korean Vocaloid.

Luv hatsune miku and vocaloid!

Hehe, yeah, I'm a Miku fan. Mainly of her character design and the general concept of a vocaloid / android idol. But I am pretty partial to some of her more famous songs from Project Diva, such as World is Mine and Ievan Polkka.

 

The Miku and Miku Append software are two things I wish I hadn't passed up last time I was in Japan. I had both of them in my hand at Sofmap, but passed due to the expense of a 92y/dollar exchange rate and figuring it would get cheaper soon. I was wrong, so very wrong.

I mostly listen to heavy metal Miku Append Dark. My favorite songwriter for Vocaloid is OkameP.

Here's a few recent songs by Gumi, Miku, and SeeU, respectively.

 

【GUMI】恋愛勇者【オリジナル】 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBRp67_u3f4

 

【初音ミク(40㍍)】 ドレミファロンド 【オリジナルPV】 -

詩、曲：40mP

絵、動画：たま

マスタリング：xxmadamxx

~ 40㍍'s YouTube Channel

 

Last week was AMAZING & AWESOME for both Miku and Gumi!

 

Honorable mention:

【SeeU Chinese】月西江 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwJm_hcrm5g

Mandarin isn't that hard with SeeU, obviously because Korean and Chinese share a lot of sounds phonetically. She obviously still has a Korean accent though, which is pretty similar to a northern Mandarin accent (both pronounce sh zh ch as x j q) The only thing that really gets in the way is her lack of older/traditional pronunciation of the vowels 위 and 외, which are the same as ü and e in chinese.

-SadisticLilBrother's YouTube Channel

I love this place more and more, another of my favorite topics being discussed!

 

A huge Vocaloid fan! I actually currently own the vocibanks for Luka and Big Al, I've been slowly learning to compose with them. The wife owns Kyoteru and Sonica. I'm a huge fan of Luka's voice, as well as Yuki. Like most, Miku was my gateway, and I still like a lot of her songs, but she's not nearly my favorite, anymore. Doesn't mean I would LOVE to get her costume for DDs, though. I enjoy Rin's voice, and to a lesser extent, Ren's. Most Vocaloids, have done some stuff I've liked and some I haven't, except Sweet Anne, I've yet to hear anything using her voice that I've enjoyed, but that could just be because of the producers.

 

If Volks ever comes out with a Luka DD I would be in serious trouble. I wouldn't turn down a Miku, but Luka is just so much sexier, and besides, Miku has PLENTY of merchandise, already.

If Volks ever comes out with a Luka DD I would be in serious trouble. I wouldn't turn down a Miku, but Luka is just so much sexier, and besides, Miku has PLENTY of merchandise, already.

Heheh, if Volks ever released a Gumi DD, I would be all over her.

I stumbled on the vocaloids last year some time via the Project Diva games. You get World is Mine, Love is War and Melt within the first 5 songs in the first game, and I was so amazed at what they had done with a singing synthesizer, I haven't looked back since.

 

Hatsune Miku & Gumi - Matryoshka (マトリョシカ)

http://youtu.be/_JGaQ3g8WU4

 

Personal favorite atm, very slick song. I wish I knew more about composing, I'd love to mess around with the voicebanks one day.

 

EDIT

 

【GUMI】恋愛勇者【オリジナル】 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nBRp67_u3f4

this is a sick song, tyvm!

【GUMI】シルバーバレット【オリジナル曲】 - Silver Bullet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXVMqMJv52o

Although Mitani Nana isn't a vocaloid, I just have to mention her. Reason? Check the following videos:

 

「桜ひとひら」PV【実谷なな×黒うさP×たま】実谷ゴルベス3/21リリース -

 

Mitani Nana has worked on many many vocaloid songs. This is just a handful of the songs that she have already worked on:

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Alright, I'm gonna add my two cents... First off I may be one of the very few people on the planet who hate Miku, but I do it passionately! Raven used her to introduce me to the Vocaloids and I would hear nothing of it for about a year and a half because she is so poorly pitched and screechy that she is literally painful for me to listen to. Having strict and demanding choir teachers from fifth grade through my junior year of high school has made me really picky in some areas like that as well. The Vocaloid Giving Day Concert was the first one Raven had me listen to, so my opinion is not based on someone's badly done youtube videos. I actually started to take interest in Vocaloids when I noticed Miku not sounding horrid, until Raven pointed out that it was Luka, not Miku in a costume change. Then I noticed Len and discovered that there were Vocaloid guys as well, and that was enough to sell me on them.

 

After spending a ton of time listening to a ton of songs on YouTube I ran across someone's video about the "Vocaloid Dating Game" (or something like that). My brain came to a full stop when I saw a picture of a guy with glasses and had to rewind the video to figure out who it was. I am a hopeless megane otaku, to an embarrassing degree. That was my introduction to Kiyoteru. I cried when I got him, plus it was my first package from Japan! His box has been sitting on my desk since then rather than being stashed away on a shelf somewhere. Despite what he looks like I really do like his voice, and even I will admit that there are times when I have trouble telling him apart from Kaito.

 

I started working on an A Capella version of Scarborough Fair of only Kiyoteru and its really calming to listen to. I have to work on putting the lyrics in for the lead, all the rest will stay as it currently is (3 or 4 more Kiyoteru's doing the instruments with single vowel 'words'). And for anyone who doesn't know, getting a Japanese Vocaloid to sing in English is a pain in the &%#@!$&$@# to do. I have gotten most of the way through getting him to sing John Denver's Country Roads, but there are still a few parts in there that I can't figure out how to smooth out and it sounds BAD because of it. The biggest issue is I can't figure out how to connect a single word over two or three different notes without it sounding like he is bouncing up or down stairs. I made the mistake of having my brother listen to it (he is musically inclined but is clueless about Vocaloids) and his only comment was that he sounded like a bad Karaoke singer. All the work it took to get Kiyoteru to sing the song properly and without an English voicebank didn't matter to him at all. If I remember right it was 40+ hours by that point and that song has SO many 'R' sounds in it. Not the best choice for a first try, but for a Japanese Vocaloid I have managed to make him rather understandable.

 

As for Sonika, the #2 issue with her (after the obvious built-in issues she has) is that most people don't know how to tune her, tune her badly, or worst yet don't tune her at all. Every single one of the Vocaloids have to be tuned before they should be used. This is a huge personal pet peeve of mine, and then people blame the program/voicebank/specific Vocaloid for being bad when it is more on the user end of it. Singers have to go through scales and warmups before they can sing well, and Vocaloids should too (at least to get them tuned properly for normal vocal ranges). Just don't get me started with forcing the Vocaloids to sing songs that are not suited for their vocal range, punishing anyone who happens to accidentally click on the link. Sonika was not something I bought because she was easier to get than Kiyoteru or because she was cheap. I got her because she can have a wonderful voice, very sweet although she will always have the mild robotic/tin like sound, but that's another reason I love her voice. I have her singing a 3 part harmony of 'Drunken Sailor' with herself and its silly but still very cute. I'm sure there is a fair amount of people don't like her because the extra work she takes, but trust me it's nothing compared to English Kiyo!

 

Even though I've worked on my own VSQs and have tuned Raven's Al and Luka to my preference, it's hard to do anything with all four of them because they are split onto two computers. This does not work so well. It truly is daunting that there are so many people who can do amazing things with the Vocaloids. Even though I know that the songs I have worked on aren't crappy at all, I have yet to post them anywhere due to self-esteem issues getting in the way of finishing them. I want to post them for fun but I don't deal with criticism or trolling well, and there seems to be plenty of it on YouTube.

 

And just because I'm curious... does anyone here (other than Raven and I) own a Vocaloid?

 

To make my rambling post even longer, here are some links!

 

Pretty Woman- Kiyoteru, Big Al, Tonio, & Leon I love all of these guys and really wish they would convert Leon to Vocaloid 3.

 

This is the only song that I know of that I actually like that has UTAUs in it.

 

I so love this song...

 

~Sister Kyoya