A.I.VOICE Tange Kotoe Crowdfunding Campaign
- Thread starter Rylitah
- Start date
Official standing pictures (the images you use to represent characters in talk synth videos) have been released for... a male version of Kotoe, interestingly enough. (The actual official design doesn't even have official standing pictures yet to my knowledge, so this was unexpected. I think the design is real cute though!)
Maybe they are anticipating people using voice fusion with Ken/Iori and Kotoe?
A sample of her AI VOICE bank(s) have finally been released! It has her normal tone as well as her emotional parameters.
She cautioned a little while ago that because she's just a "Junior" product that her quality isn't really all that great (if she gets the chance to redo this in the future and improve the quality she'd love to) - while honestly yeah I think you can tell that the quality isn't as high as products like Yukari, Akari, or Unoka, it still isn't bad at all. I wonder if she'll be sold at a lower price point than the "main" A.I VOICE product line because of this though - the only other product we have to go off of is Adachi Rei who's technically part of the Junior series but also is a complete outlier for various reasons. Kotoe's got multiple emotions though, so that'll factor into the price... guess we'll see soon.
She's scheduled to release sometime in Spring.
She cautioned a little while ago that because she's just a "Junior" product that her quality isn't really all that great (if she gets the chance to redo this in the future and improve the quality she'd love to) - while honestly yeah I think you can tell that the quality isn't as high as products like Yukari, Akari, or Unoka, it still isn't bad at all. I wonder if she'll be sold at a lower price point than the "main" A.I VOICE product line because of this though - the only other product we have to go off of is Adachi Rei who's technically part of the Junior series but also is a complete outlier for various reasons. Kotoe's got multiple emotions though, so that'll factor into the price... guess we'll see soon.
She's scheduled to release sometime in Spring.
Price is in the video description. Will be available for download only at 9,680 yen ($83).
First party AIVOICE banks (are about $112 for download). She's lacking one extra emotion so that might be a factor. Adachi Rei has 2 emotions (1 less than Kotoe) and costs $76.
It's weird how noticeably choppy her Normal voice (0:53) and Bokukko (1:10) voices are. It kind of sounds like it's clipping/getting cut off abruptly between syllables.
It really seems low quality when you compare it to FREE AI software like Talqu and Voicevox. S: I'm normally a mega fan of AI Inc's stuff. What happened? Her crowdfunding went over by an obscene amount, too.
If someone wants to buy this, I would really recommend waiting for a sale on DLsite (they have them all the time). No way I'd buy this at full price, honestly.
I checked out some of the Japanese comments and they thought her impression seems close to her real voice, but tuning her would probably improve the "low quality".
I feel like when more Junior voices come out, we will better be able to judge quality. (Since Rei was the 1st Junior and she has an inhuman voice, so it's not easy to judge based on that.)
Serves me right for not checking, ahah. Originally I just posted the tweet that had the video embedded in it and just replaced it with the YT link when I noticed that was directly linked in the tweet itself, I didn't even think to check the description.
Seems the extra emotions don't make the price that much higher then? The extra emotions made Voiceroids quite a bit more expensive than those without, but I guess A.I.VOICE is different. It'd be a bit weird if a third emotion would make the price jump up to the same price as 1st party products, but also it's possible Rei also is just different because of her circumstances...? Really no way to tell until others like Ria and Rowen/Taigen release too orz
I thought the Low tension (Uchikko?) voice was by far the best, too. It sounds really natural, which makes the quality of the other two stand out a lot more. The normal and high tension voices remind me of the quality of Gynoid Talk's voices - they're very similar. Definitely not unusable, but they stand out compared to higher quality voices (which is weird since Kotoe's highest quality voice from this sample isn't even her main one).
Honestly, with her price I don't actually think this is a bad deal. Like I mentioned, Flower and the Meikas' talk banks are of similar quality and they're all more expensive than Kotoe - and she's got three emotions compared to their one each. It's definitely disappointing when you think of other newer releases though... even from A.I JP themselves. But maybe this is just the standard of quality they're going with the Junior line - the whole point is to crowdfund for a product that you can make for a lower price, after all.
I agree that the uchikko voice sounded the most natural. I think that the quality is indeed similar to GynoidTalk, but that's disappointing to me since AIVOICE is supposed to be using the AITalk 5 engine that's smoother/more emotional, not the old older one. It's just sort of strange and I haven't accepted it yet. S: You are right that having emotions does forgive the quality a little if you put it on the same tier as GynoidTalk, but yeah...
