KVR Audio

baggagelizard · Post by **baggagelizard** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 1:01 pm

Hello. I am a Vocaloid user, and I would like to know what the general Music Community thinks of Vocaloid. As I mainly do music in the Western Vocaloid circles, I'm ignorant to what the general music creating population thinks. Some like it, some dislike it, and it seems some people hate it as much as 'purists' hated synthesizers in the past.

I don't care if you hate it, but I would like to know why. I'm just looking to expand use of the software, especially in non-Japanese languages. I also want it to be talked about more, regardless of how positive or negative the conversation is.

So, what say you?

recursive one · Post by **recursive one** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 3:12 pm

It sounds much better than Rihanna

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 3:20 pm

Like any other tool it has its use. I know the main complaint is about how realistic the vocals arent, but I always think thats missing the point somewhat.

The culture thats grown up around these things is just weird though.

garryknight · Post by **garryknight** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 8:16 pm

I've been playing with it recently and the complaints are right. The Avanna vocaloid is supposed to emulate a Celtic voice but it sounds like it has a Japanese accent at times. And this is after a fair bit of work tweaking parameters in the Vocaloid editor and using Melodyne to try and make it sound better. I'm going to persevere with it as I think it can sound OK if it's in the right mix with sounds that work well with it.

As well as being cheaper than hiring a singer, I also think it could be better than shelling out money for all of those typical Club Vocals sample sets I keep seeing advertised. Plus it might be possible to make it work as backing singers behind a main voice.

Too right about the culture, though. Someone needs to put some kind of Vocaloid for Grown-ups resource together.

There's another reason I'm going to persevere, at least for a while. I've heard some good results. The first link below is to one of the tracks used in Yamaha's own publicity. The second was put together by a user.

Enya: Only Time
Addicted

Finally, I have to applaud this guy's attempt, though he really overdid it. Some things you have to walk away from for several months before you can even start to hear what it was you did.

Pink Floyd: The Great Gig in the Sky

4damind · Post by **4damind** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 8:36 pm

IMO Vocaloid is more a Japanese phenomenon. I don't know anybody here in my area using it.

ksandvik · Post by **ksandvik** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 8:52 pm

Maybe it's a good idea but you have under-used singers everywhere -- that you could clean up their performance with Autotune/Melodyne/Flex... Or use sampled voices, so I've never had a need for something like Vocaloid.

sergiofrias · Post by **sergiofrias** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 9:15 pm

Vocaloid can be very tedious when editing all those phonetics ,and the voices are not very realistical ...
i much prefer to ask a friend to sing instead.
here is my first try using vocaloid ,it's a cover of "Drive" soundtrack "A real Hero" i used OP-X ,VLINN:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-khdGW ... fgdnUfJtCw

Naenyn · Post by **Naenyn** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 9:55 pm

I first discovered Vocaloid a few years ago when I was first getting in to producing.. at the time, I thought it was the most awesome thing ever. I even bought Hatsune Miku the moment I saw it available on Big Fish.

Since then, I've barely touched it.

I feel like .. it is good in a pinch.. but that it is mostly just a toy. It takes a lot of work to get it to sound reasonable. I'd rather just find a vocalist to work with (which I'm still trying to do

)

Greenstorm33 · Post by **Greenstorm33** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 11:16 pm

IMO Vocaloid is to a real vocalist as drums programmed in a tracker are to a real drummer. With enough work, both can be made to sound like a passable imitation of the real thing, but they'll never have the level of nuance that even a moderately skilled drummer or vocalist can achieve. However, in both cases there are quite a few people who actually find the artificiality of the software's sound appealing. I know Vocaloid has lots of fans, and I'm personally a big fan of breakcore, which is all about pushing the limits of digitally-sculpted rhythms far beyond what's possible outside of a computer. Of the Vocaloid tracks I've heard, my favorite by far is The Disappearance of Hatsune Miku (below). It's really cool because instead of trying to fight the inherently synthetic nature of Vocaloid, it embraces it and makes it a central part of the song (the lyrics are Japanese, but there are English subtitles in the video).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN7mR_ECQjo

Naenyn · Post by **Naenyn** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 5:30 am

There's also Sad Machine by Porter Robinson. Good tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAIDqt2aUek

garryknight · Post by **garryknight** » Wed Jan 28, 2015 7:50 pm

Naenyn wrote:There's also Sad Machine by Porter Robinson. Good tune.

Yes, I got so wrapped up in playing with Vocaloid that I forgot that this track, and one by Mike Oldfield, were pretty much the deciding factor for me. And that last one got me interested in listening to Mike Oldfield again, but that's a different story.

xoxos · Post by **xoxos** » Thu Jan 29, 2015 1:24 am

forgive me for intervening mentioning my product. i'm betaing syng3 at the moment which has been on hold for 3 years, a few vocaloid users and afficionados have contacted me about it in the past if you are reading this. (being a 7 band source/filter model extending syng2's 4 band build..)

do_androids_dream · Post by **do_androids_dream** » Thu Jan 29, 2015 2:53 pm

Interesting stuff. I wasn't aware it was being pushed into trying to be realistic. I loved the Hatsune Miku stuff for its synthetic sound more-so than any appreciation for its ability to sound realistic. What is vocaloid exactly - a plugin? standalone software?

whyterabbyt · Post by **whyterabbyt** » Thu Jan 29, 2015 3:22 pm

do_androids_dream wrote:What is vocaloid exactly - a plugin? standalone software?

Primarily standalone, although V1 and V2 had plugin versions (with some restrictions AFAIR; playback rather than editing?). V3 dropped the plugin version, though it seems like V4 might have brought it back.

garryknight · Post by **garryknight** » Thu Jan 29, 2015 4:52 pm

It's a standalone piano-roll style editor where you enter notes of various lengths and then input the lyrics (in the language used by the particular Vocaloid) directly onto the notes. Syllables are split across notes so it can take a bit of practice getting the timing right. You then play around with parameters such as speed of the initial consonant (which the manual, confusingly, calls velocity), dynamics (which MIDI calls velocity), pitch, openness (formant shape), brightness (amount of high end), breathiness, portamento between notes, and so on.

Getting the timing right is one thing, but changing the parameters over and over again to get something sounding realistic can take a lot of time.

And if you buy a single Vocaloid, it comes with the mini editor. This allows you to work on one voice at a time, though you can import a single wave file (e.g. backing music) to help get the timing right. The full-blown editor costs almost twice the price of Vocaloid + mini editor but allows you to create all of your vocal parts together in the one place. Using the mini editor to do this is a pain. Each time you need to change something you have to export the vocal audio then reimport it into your DAW to hear the results. Oh, and the mini editor only allows you to work with up to 17 bars at a time. I wouldn't call it crippleware, but it does force you to limp along.

The full editor (version 3) gives you unlimited undo/redo (single in the mini version), 16 tracks (just one in mini), 999 bars (17 in mini), unlimited parts (just one in mini), audio effects through VST plugins (built-in reverb only in mini), job plugins (macros, not available in mini), and a few other minor additions.

I'm going to wait until version 4 is available outside Japan.

Oh, almost forgot. There is a plugin version available for Cubase 7. I guess Yamaha has a special relationship with Steinberg.

Update: I've just found Realivox Blue which might prove better in some cases than Vocaloid.

What is the general consensus on Vocaloid?