Fire your singers folks, Vocaloid 5 is here!

[brewt]

I didn’t specify that very well, did I.
What I mean by “microtuning support” is full scala import, by whatever file spec: .tun, .scl, .syx, whatever, to arbitrarily specify the exact pitch for each note en masse. Allows for things like just intonation, meantone, pythagorean, etc, as well as extended equal temperaments.
Tuning the base system, to, say A=448, and then still using 12-tone-equal-temperament has value, when trying to psuefo-approximate certain historic ideals, is not the same.
My particular interest is in 15-tet, which means there are fifteen equally spaced intervals per octave. Triads are good, but because it’s based in 5 (instead of 7, as one option), it allows for harmonic progressions that are simply not possible in everyday 12-tet.
Also, arbitrary intervals for the octave, to be able to work with scales like Wendy Carlos’ alpha, beta, and gamma.
Yes, this can all be accomplished with pitch bending monophonic lines, but as my real purpose is harmonic exploration, that tactic is clumsy and way more time consuming than it needs to be at best. Much better to be able to actually play a chord in the target tuning/temperament system than to have to construct it note by discreet and separated note, and hope you don’t screw up on theory.

So. With that. Does vocaloid 5 support scala import, of whatever variant?

[wagtunes]

I didn’t specify that very well, did I.
What I mean by “microtuning support” is full scala import, by whatever file spec: .tun, .scl, .syx, whatever, to arbitrarily specify the exact pitch for each note en masse. Allows for things like just intonation, meantone, pythagorean, etc, as well as extended equal temperaments.
Tuning the base system, to, say A=448, and then still using 12-tone-equal-temperament has value, when trying to psuefo-approximate certain historic ideals, is not the same.
My particular interest is in 15-tet, which means there are fifteen equally spaced intervals per octave. Triads are good, but because it’s based in 5 (instead of 7, as one option), it allows for harmonic progressions that are simply not possible in everyday 12-tet.
Also, arbitrary intervals for the octave, to be able to work with scales like Wendy Carlos’ alpha, beta, and gamma.
Yes, this can all be accomplished with pitch bending monophonic lines, but as my real purpose is harmonic exploration, that tactic is clumsy and way more time consuming than it needs to be at best. Much better to be able to actually play a chord in the target tuning/temperament system than to have to construct it note by discreet and separated note, and hope you don’t screw up on theory.

So. With that. Does vocaloid 5 support scala import, of whatever variant?

Not that I went out of my way looking for it, as I had no use for it, but I've seen nothing in the V4 menu system that allows for import of tuning files. Is it possible that V5 will allow this? I guess. But I wouldn't hold your breath.

[WinterdrivE]

That it does not. Its strictly 12-tet as the interface is piano-roll based. Other tunings could be achieved by pitch bending, but as you said its not ideal for that kind of thing.

I think its safe to say that VOCALOID is aimed predominantly at Western-style popular music with a few excursions in other music genres (there are 2 opera style vocals and an enka style vocal, for example) and thus it only supports 12-tet since that's what virtually all popular music is written with.

[wagtunes]

I didn’t specify that very well, did I.
What I mean by “microtuning support” is full scala import, by whatever file spec: .tun, .scl, .syx, whatever, to arbitrarily specify the exact pitch for each note en masse. Allows for things like just intonation, meantone, pythagorean, etc, as well as extended equal temperaments.
Tuning the base system, to, say A=448, and then still using 12-tone-equal-temperament has value, when trying to psuefo-approximate certain historic ideals, is not the same.
My particular interest is in 15-tet, which means there are fifteen equally spaced intervals per octave. Triads are good, but because it’s based in 5 (instead of 7, as one option), it allows for harmonic progressions that are simply not possible in everyday 12-tet.
Also, arbitrary intervals for the octave, to be able to work with scales like Wendy Carlos’ alpha, beta, and gamma.
Yes, this can all be accomplished with pitch bending monophonic lines, but as my real purpose is harmonic exploration, that tactic is clumsy and way more time consuming than it needs to be at best. Much better to be able to actually play a chord in the target tuning/temperament system than to have to construct it note by discreet and separated note, and hope you don’t screw up on theory.

So. With that. Does vocaloid 5 support scala import, of whatever variant?

Just for the hell of it, I pulled up V4 and went through very menu option. No, there is no tuning support and like the poster above me said, it's doubtful that it will be included in V5 as Vocaloid in general is aimed at exactly the market mentioned above.

[BMoore]

This sex doll is real to me, damn it!

[jancivil]

That it does not. Its strictly 12-tet as the interface is piano-roll based. Other tunings could be achieved by pitch bending, but as you said its not ideal for that kind of thing.

There is Scala as MIDI file, which *is* pitch-bending. Pitch-bend on your own takes some arithmetic but it's not really difficult.
Some instruments respond better, by their design, to pitch bend than others. Pitch bend per se is just something that works.

Implementing scala (and .tun) in an instrument has no conflict thru itself with a piano roll in a DAW.
The instrument receives a regular note-on and here is an instruction to make that a new note.
Kontakt for instance. Vienna Instrument Pro implements scala as long as it's a 12-note octave. Of course you can write the file so there are say five or seven real pitches (by redundancy to account for the remainders).

If it's a scale that exceeds 12 to the octave, yes, you have to do some accounting in the piano roll, or do things differently.

[brewt]

There’s no serious advantage to 12 note scale variants, as 12-yet offers so very many more options. It’s hard to spot the differences between mean tone and Pythagorean and just without being told about them.
Back to the hard way.

[SirkusPi]

I've long been interested in Vocaloid in the abstract, but as a Mac / Logic user, there hasn't previously been a very practical use path. However, with the release of Vocaloid 5 and its Mac / AU support, that's all changed, and my interest has been piqued.

So over the last 2 days I've listened to many, many Vocaloid tracks -- both the scant current Vocaloid 5 offerings and the tons of Vocaloid 4 tracks on YouTube, Soundcloud & Bandcamp -- in order to try to decide if this is right for me.

I've come to an entirely predictable conclusion: Vocaloid is a real "instrument," meaning that, if someone has put in the time and is good at it, it can sound both very good and intelligible (if one accepts and is OK with the basic artificiality of the sound, which I do and am).

But without significant effort and work, it sounds truly, truly awful (as is apparent even from the handful of Vocaloid 5 demos currently posted), even to someone like me who very much wants to like it.

So the real question is whether I'll put in the time to learn this essentially on my own. There are a very small handful of online tutorials (that I've found), but not as many as I might have thought. I do see potential, but it certainly is not, even in its current incarnation, a simple "plug in your lyrics and go!" solution.

(I've also seen reports online of various bugs in the current release version, including crashes. I'd hope / expect that Yamaha will address these pretty soon, but has anyone here who has bought Vocaloid 5 experiencing these, especially on a Mac system? And for people who have previous versions, is Yamaha's support and bug fixing decent?)

[Hink]

This sex doll is real to me, damn it!

late to the party here but this is at least the second time you've jumped in with nonsense to flame and troll, kindly stay out of this thread. (I'll delete any further nonsense and you know the rest)

[wagtunes]

This sex doll is real to me, damn it!

late to the party here but this is at least the second time you've jumped in with nonsense to flame and troll, kindly stay out of this thread. (I'll delete any further nonsense and you know the rest)

He just called me an idiot in another thread. I am done with this asshole and will not take anymore shit from him.

[wagtunes]

Back on topic, I received a TD Bank Gift Card today (totally unexpected) so I purchased V5 and am downloading it now. The upgrade from V4 was $156. But that's with 4 sound banks (V4 came with zero) so that's really a good deal.

I'll report back with demos, opinions and maybe some tips for use. If I can figure out how to get my Voicemeter to work with Cubase again so I can do voiceover AND music, I'll do a video tutorial. But for some reason, I can't get the two to work together anymore with voiceover.

[Aloysius]

#so excited

[herodotus]

It won't be able to replace singers until it can pout, look cute, provide celebrity 'news' writers with easy copy and attract the money of members of the opposite sex.

Can it do that? Can It? Huh?

I didn't think so.

[Unaspected]

The voices sound like an offensive impression of how profoundly-deaf people speak.

Hehe. Indeed. The user examples seem to sound that way yet the demo video on the Vocaloid front page actually sounds passible - though the guy using it seemed to be making his own Minority Report.

I don't see it replacing a lead vocalist but it could be used to create some backing or vocal effects - depending on flexibility and the time it takes to achieve the level of realism promised in the video demo.

It's not something I need but it looks interesting and I'd check it out if there were a demo.

[wagtunes]

Okay, here are my first impressions.

Editor is more difficult to work with than V4. Voices out of the box without any "modification" using the tools provided sound horrible. I'm referring to Amy and Chris. My existing Vocaloids sound fine but can easily be screwed up with the mega number of options they give you for voice control.

So, in spite of my years with V4, there is a learning curve here and, quite honestly, I'm not even sure it's worth it for me. Depends on the difference in results between V4 (which requires zero effort) and V5 with the major tweaking I will have to do, which will probably give more realistic results but with greater time and effort required.

For me, it's going to be a matter of priorities. If I'm on a deadline, I'm not messing with V5 and I'll just go back to V4. If I have the time to mess around, I'll give V5 a shot.

Major difference is in the way the editor works in general.

In V4, you created a MIDI track on your time line, went into it, pulled up V4 editor in options and could then edit directly on the time line.

In V5, you open the editor directly. There is no MIDI track to create. In fact, after you exit the editor, all the data is contained in the editor itself. There is nothing on the timeline of your DAW. It's completely empty. I have no idea how this will work as far as freezing and/or rendering tracks. I'm going to assume that when rendering it pulls the audio from the editor. But so far I don't know for sure.

In short, I'm not in love with V5. I don't think anybody is who's been using V4 for a long time. It's like night and day.

Biggest complaint is that when trying to go back to the beginning of the timeline within the editor itself. while it seems to do that visually, when you hit play, it plays back from the point where you last left off on playback. Sometimes it works but many times I have to exit the editor and go back to the DAW and set the playback to the beginning there.

This is EXTREMELY annoying.

Like I said, not in love with V5 and depending on how difficult this thing is to work with, I may not use it, even if the potential end results are better than with V4. Given that it still won't sound like a real human being, I'm not sure the extra effort is worth it.

On the plus side, your existing Vocaloid installed banks automatically get imported.

A note about install and authorization. You don't get to choose an install path. It just installs it where it wants. Fortunately, my DAW (Cubase) knew where it was put. So not too big a deal. However, online authorization doesn't seem to work. Keeps coming back with a server error. So I had to do offline authorization which you still need an Internet connection for. Just so you know.

Bottom Line: If you're a V4 owner, you may not be entirely happy with this upgrade. If you've never owned Vocaloid, get ready for a not so easy to use interface and a HUGE learning curve. I'm going to have to actually read the manual for this thing.