Fire your singers folks, Vocaloid 5 is here!

[_al_]

Well i'm not hearing the improvements i was expecting.
Watched that 15 min vid, and the opening example "i'm not afraid" sounds like it's saying "i'm not a ray" or similar, and still has that nasally synthetic sound.
No doubt, as with the earlier versions, if you put A LOT of work into the dynamics and pitch deviations (and most people won't have the knowledge or experience to get this right), you can get something that doesn't sound so obvious, but it's still not at the "type and play" stage yet.

Nice little tool for club vocal fx though

[SirkusPi]

... I do hope Vocaloid 5, along with upcoming products like Voiceful and Emvoice Soho, will help Vocal Synthesizers become more popular with the Computer Music crowd...

I’d never heard of these, but Emvoice Soho in particular sounds promising (and, given the demo videos, plainly will have a Logic plugin to boot). I’ve already singned up for the public Beta alert mailing list; I’m looking forward to this one.

[wagtunes]

Well i'm not hearing the improvements i was expecting.
Watched that 15 min vid, and the opening example "i'm not afraid" sounds like it's saying "i'm not a ray" or similar, and still has that nasally synthetic sound.
No doubt, as with the earlier versions, if you put A LOT of work into the dynamics and pitch deviations (and most people won't have the knowledge or experience to get this right), you can get something that doesn't sound so obvious, but it's still not at the "type and play" stage yet.

Nice little tool for club vocal fx though

If you want Vocaloid to sound exactly like a human being with every nuance of a human being, you've got a long wait. In fact, you've got an eternal wait because it's never going to happen.

Having said that, I do hear the improvement and I know I can get the results that I want out of it.

[_al_]

If you want Vocaloid to sound exactly like a human being with every nuance of a human being, you've got a long wait. In fact, you've got an eternal wait because it's never going to happen.

Having said that, I do hear the improvement and I know I can get the results that I want out of it.

I agree, and i'm sure it's useful for some things, but naming the thread "fire your singers folks" is asking for trouble

[wagtunes]

If you want Vocaloid to sound exactly like a human being with every nuance of a human being, you've got a long wait. In fact, you've got an eternal wait because it's never going to happen.

Having said that, I do hear the improvement and I know I can get the results that I want out of it.

I agree, and i'm sure it's useful for some things, but naming the thread "fire your singers folks" is asking for trouble

Oh come on, everybody knows he was making a joke.

Vocaloid is an easy target to ridicule and mock because it threatens our humanity. It's one thing to have sampled strings and brass and whatever. We accept that because it's just an instrument. But vocals? That's our very being and if we can actually create a vocal synth that can 100% duplicate the sound of a human singing with all its nuances, well, that threatens what we are as human beings. It makes us obsolete. And we can't accept that.

That's why I have people literally tell me that they will not listen to anything I do if I use Vocaloid vocals. Forget that all these orchestral and otherwise compositions are all created with "fake" instruments that 99% of us couldn't play in real life if we tried. Just don't touch my human voice. It's hypocritical and it's laughable.

I choose to embrace the technology for what it is and use it for what it can do for me. And that's create a reasonable facsimile of a human singer so that I can lay down a pop or rock track without having to hire singers that (a) cost money and (b) can be difficult if not impossible to work with due to personalities and a whole lot of other things. I've done 300 Vocaloid tracks so far. Imagine how much money and time that would have cost me in hiring singers.

So people can laugh and ridicule the technology all they want. I choose to embrace it and make music with it.

Prediction: Professional music producers WILL use Vocaloid 5 in their productions. Why? Because Yamaha isn't stupid. They don't make products just so that they can throw money down the toilet. So just like the music director of "The Young And The Restless" uses Omnisphere 2 instead of a live orchestra for their soundtracks, pros will use Vocaloid 5 to do vocals. In exactly what context, I don't know. But they WILL use it.

I am prepared to bet money on that.

[Vortifex]

..

[wagtunes]

My issue with Vocaloid is that any track in which it's used becomes a 'Vocaloid track' due to its highly distinctive sound. If I were to use it I think I'd have to create the music to fit around the Vocaloid sound rather than simply adding it as extra flavour to a track.

Not true. I've done tracks with live vocals, albeit my own, where I put Vocaloid in as backing tracks and you can't even tell. I also did a duet with one of the Vocaloids (Yes, me and her) that fit just fine. It was kind of a country ballad. Yes, it was done tongue in cheek and not to be taken too seriously, but it worked.

Vocaloid is more versatile than people give it credit for. And that's simply because they don't know. Even some people who own it don't realize what they can do with it.

The key, first of all, is picking one of the Vocaloid voices that best fits the style of song.

There was one prog rock track I did where it was obvious to me that only one Vocaloid could pull it off. The track was then covered by a friend of mine over at Gearslutz and, believe it or not, there wasn't a ton of difference between the two versions as far as style. In fact, he tried to "mimic" the Vocaloid's sound as best that he could because he himself felt it really fit the track. Heck, he liked it enough that he wanted to do his own version. His name is Kane Williams. Here is the original. I don't know where his cover is. I have to find it.

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... on-masters

And then, another friend of mine at Gearslutz, Kenny Bro, liked another one of my songs called "Hang Me At Noon" which I chose another Vocaloid for that I felt would fit the song best. He loved my version so much that he did his own. This one IS up at Soundcloud along with mine.

My Version:

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... ex-on-lead

Kenny Bro Version:

https://soundcloud.com/steven-wagenheim ... er-version

So as you can see, Vocaloid is more versatile than people give it credit for. Two completely different styles of songs and both work just fine.

But people will believe what they want to believe.

[esselfortium]

Prediction: Professional music producers WILL use Vocaloid 5 in their productions. Why? Because Yamaha isn't stupid. They don't make products just so that they can throw money down the toilet. So just like the music director of "The Young And The Restless" uses Omnisphere 2 instead of a live orchestra for their soundtracks, pros will use Vocaloid 5 to do vocals. In exactly what context, I don't know. But they WILL use it.

I am prepared to bet money on that.

This is a strange "prediction" to make when Vocaloid has already been used professionally for years and Hatsune Miku concert tours exist.

[wagtunes]

Prediction: Professional music producers WILL use Vocaloid 5 in their productions. Why? Because Yamaha isn't stupid. They don't make products just so that they can throw money down the toilet. So just like the music director of "The Young And The Restless" uses Omnisphere 2 instead of a live orchestra for their soundtracks, pros will use Vocaloid 5 to do vocals. In exactly what context, I don't know. But they WILL use it.

I am prepared to bet money on that.

This is a strange "prediction" to make when Vocaloid has already been used professionally for years and Hatsune Miku concert tours exist.

I'm talking about professionally as in non exclusive Vocaloid productions. I'm well aware of the Vocaloid scene. I'm talking about guys like Max Martin using Vocaloid. You know, pop producers of your standard commercial productions. I'm not aware of anybody doing that yet. That's what I predict we're going to see and a lot of it.

[do_androids_dream]

Does it have a Mark E Smith preset?

[Aloysius]

i'm not a ray

[_al_]

Oh come on, everybody knows he was making a joke.

Vocaloid is an easy target to ridicule and mock because it threatens our humanity. It's one thing to have sampled strings and brass and whatever. We accept that because it's just an instrument. But vocals? That's our very being and if we can actually create a vocal synth that can 100% duplicate the sound of a human singing with all its nuances, well, that threatens what we are as human beings. It makes us obsolete. And we can't accept that.

That's why I have people literally tell me that they will not listen to anything I do if I use Vocaloid vocals. Forget that all these orchestral and otherwise compositions are all created with "fake" instruments that 99% of us couldn't play in real life if we tried. Just don't touch my human voice. It's hypocritical and it's laughable.

I choose to embrace the technology for what it is and use it for what it can do for me. And that's create a reasonable facsimile of a human singer so that I can lay down a pop or rock track without having to hire singers that (a) cost money and (b) can be difficult if not impossible to work with due to personalities and a whole lot of other things. I've done 300 Vocaloid tracks so far. Imagine how much money and time that would have cost me in hiring singers.

So people can laugh and ridicule the technology all they want. I choose to embrace it and make music with it.

Prediction: Professional music producers WILL use Vocaloid 5 in their productions. Why? Because Yamaha isn't stupid. They don't make products just so that they can throw money down the toilet. So just like the music director of "The Young And The Restless" uses Omnisphere 2 instead of a live orchestra for their soundtracks, pros will use Vocaloid 5 to do vocals. In exactly what context, I don't know. But they WILL use it.

I am prepared to bet money on that.

Sheesh, calm down
No wonder everyone seems to end up arguing with you

[wagtunes]

Oh come on, everybody knows he was making a joke.

Vocaloid is an easy target to ridicule and mock because it threatens our humanity. It's one thing to have sampled strings and brass and whatever. We accept that because it's just an instrument. But vocals? That's our very being and if we can actually create a vocal synth that can 100% duplicate the sound of a human singing with all its nuances, well, that threatens what we are as human beings. It makes us obsolete. And we can't accept that.

That's why I have people literally tell me that they will not listen to anything I do if I use Vocaloid vocals. Forget that all these orchestral and otherwise compositions are all created with "fake" instruments that 99% of us couldn't play in real life if we tried. Just don't touch my human voice. It's hypocritical and it's laughable.

I choose to embrace the technology for what it is and use it for what it can do for me. And that's create a reasonable facsimile of a human singer so that I can lay down a pop or rock track without having to hire singers that (a) cost money and (b) can be difficult if not impossible to work with due to personalities and a whole lot of other things. I've done 300 Vocaloid tracks so far. Imagine how much money and time that would have cost me in hiring singers.

So people can laugh and ridicule the technology all they want. I choose to embrace it and make music with it.

Prediction: Professional music producers WILL use Vocaloid 5 in their productions. Why? Because Yamaha isn't stupid. They don't make products just so that they can throw money down the toilet. So just like the music director of "The Young And The Restless" uses Omnisphere 2 instead of a live orchestra for their soundtracks, pros will use Vocaloid 5 to do vocals. In exactly what context, I don't know. But they WILL use it.

I am prepared to bet money on that.

Sheesh, calm down
No wonder everyone seems to end up arguing with you

Not that I care. But thanks.

[_al_]

Vocaloid is an easy target to ridicule and mock because it threatens our humanity.

huh? you drunk or something?

[wagtunes]

Vocaloid is an easy target to ridicule and mock because it threatens our humanity.

huh? you drunk or something?

I don't drink at all. Haven't in years.