KVR Audio

DSmolken · Post by **DSmolken** » Thu Dec 01, 2016 8:00 am

A voice bank for Plogue Alter/Ego created from recordings of a female death metal vocalist. She can also make all sorts of other strange sounds, though - the "space" voice is something we'd probably have left unreleased and just had fun testing if it wasn't for the KVR DC, but we decided to include it in the release to appeal to a broader range of tastes. It's also just plain fun to push the sound in directions of sounds no one would expect to be made from death metal vocals - alien insect voices, supersaws, and Krautrockish rhythmic textures, just to name a few.

Here's an as-yet-unlisted video with some snippets that our graphic designer and tester has been working on:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejoKb2SNe_8

pottering · Post by **pottering** » Thu Dec 01, 2016 11:50 am

That looks awesome!

DSmolken · Post by **DSmolken** » Fri Dec 02, 2016 3:22 pm

Thanks.

Edit: somebody already used her in an original song - not anyone from our team or beta testers, either! That was fast. And it's a lot less metal than the "Fear Me" title implies.

https://soundcloud.com/musicnote98/mari ... o-original

I know the DC isn't really supposed to be about looks, but FWIW we already got our first fanart.

Yudaidhun · Post by **Yudaidhun** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 8:50 am

I'm not sure if I will have chance to use this library,
but I wanna say I like the concept very much

Cute Ork btw!

Yudaidhun

DSmolken · Post by **DSmolken** » Sun Dec 04, 2016 11:01 am

Thank you. I've tried to make her usable for as many different things as possible, from horror movie monster voices to big synth chords, but of course for some genres of music she will never really be useful.

However, she is the only candidate in the KVR DC who, upon winning, can deliver a victory speech. And it would be a ton of fun to present her live at NAMM.

DSmolken · Post by **DSmolken** » Wed Dec 07, 2016 11:46 am

Just found this - this time it's a metal track, so totally different voice and context than the first one. It seems like people are having fun with her.

https://soundcloud.com/nicolas-gallardo ... man-misery

So far it seems like the main group interested in her are vocal synth fans, but we'll see how that shakes out in the long term. I'm hoping indie game devs and low-budget horror movie producers find some uses for her outside of music.

idfpower · Post by **idfpower** » Wed Dec 07, 2016 12:31 pm

It's interesting... but maybe a bit to extreme to be used without raising some eyebrows, heh - then again, maybe that was the whole point

On a different note, an industrial voice bank - a la Psyclon Nine (you know, those harsh EBM/aggrotech whispered vocals) - would be very cool (and arguably more usable). it is supposed to be pitchshifted anyway, and due to the genre's requirements, a robotic oddly phrasing and/or strange sound articulations would actually help

My 2 (random) cents, anyway

DSmolken · Post by **DSmolken** » Wed Dec 07, 2016 1:40 pm

Yeah, I could have finished a brushed drum kit I also had some recordings for the DC was announced, or I could have made an acoustic guitar library from scratch in time, but this was just more interesting and more fun. It's also something I've been wanting to do since 2014.

Odds are pretty good we'll do more voices in the future, and they won't necessarily be metal ones (maybe the funniest thing about all this is: I don't actually listen to metal or play it), so I'm all for collecting suggestions as to what to do next. Aggressive whispering for industrial is a good option, in that sounding robotic would be a plus, and I haven't thought about that before, so thanks.

idfpower · Post by **idfpower** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 7:31 am

DSmolken wrote:Aggressive whispering for industrial is a good option, in that sounding robotic would be a plus, and I haven't thought about that before, so thanks.

Well the idea came to me after listening to all the demos for Marie Ork - in a way she sounds like she's half way there

A robot voice bank would be equally cool, while we're at it

Here come the cylons!

DSmolken · Post by **DSmolken** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 8:07 am

I think that is a really good direction to pursue. Alter/Ego also does a pretty good job of emulating whispery vocals with the "breath" control, and there's also the impulse response which I'm not using in any of the presets but which definitely would be useful for more industrial sounds. I can see if I can make a preset which comes even closer to something like 90s German EBM. I think a moderately hoarse rock-style voice could be turned into all sorts of industrial vocal sounds which (unlike this vocal) would be reasonably intelligible.

Alter/Ego is developed from Chipspeech, which emulates vintage voice synths - that makes it good at imitating rough and strange voice textures.

idfpower · Post by **idfpower** » Thu Dec 08, 2016 5:42 pm

DSmolken wrote:I think that is a really good direction to pursue. Alter/Ego also does a pretty good job of emulating whispery vocals with the "breath" control, and there's also the impulse response which I'm not using in any of the presets but which definitely would be useful for more industrial sounds. I can see if I can make a preset which comes even closer to something like 90s German EBM. I think a moderately hoarse rock-style voice could be turned into all sorts of industrial vocal sounds which (unlike this vocal) would be reasonably intelligible.

Alter/Ego is developed from Chipspeech, which emulates vintage voice synths - that makes it good at imitating rough and strange voice textures.

That would be gold

Looking forward to it

And thanks again for the effort! Alter/Ego has a huge potential.

DSmolken · Post by **DSmolken** » Fri Dec 09, 2016 2:33 am

Yeah... it's great for rougher vocals, and the synthesis parameters are flexible enough to do all sorts of weird textures even with a "normal" voice like Bones. It makes a great alternative to synth choir pads made using format filter synths, or dubstep basses made from resynthesized vocal samples or voice-based wavetables.

I've been keeping a history of the voice tests, btw, I'm gonna post the sample I saved of the very first incomplete prototype.

And here's something our graphic designer did, miss Ork training for victory in the DC:

Cheesy, but fun. And less cheesy than my "giving an election campaign speech in a cave" Photoshops, anyway.

idfpower · Post by **idfpower** » Fri Dec 09, 2016 3:44 am

Heh, nice

DSmolken · Post by **DSmolken** » Sun Dec 11, 2016 1:21 pm

I found the very first test of a very incomplete prototype. One of the girls drew a baby picture to go with it, and we put it up on Soundcloud.

https://soundcloud.com/karoryfersamples ... ittle-baby

She sure has come a long way.

DSmolken · Post by **DSmolken** » Wed Dec 14, 2016 4:55 am

An interview with me about our entry in a webzine for vocal synth fans - I don't get into how things actually work (NDA and all that), but do talk about why I wanted to make a death metal voice for a synth, inspiration from low-budget movies, and goat sausage. If nothing else, this makes people in a new demographic aware of the KVR DC and all the other free stuff they can get.

http://aminoapps.com/page/vocaloid/1635 ... ne-issue-x

And some absolutely awesome fanart:

Edit: I also started a poll on what voice we should do next on Vocaloid Otaku, and "aggressive industrial whisper" is getting some love there as well. http://www.vocaloidotaku.net/index.php? ... make-next/

Marie Ork support/discussion thread