• We're currently having issues with our e-mail system. Anything requiring e-mail validation (2FA, forgotten passwords, etc.) requires to be changed manually at the moment. Please reach out via the Contact Us form if you require any assistance.
PearlStarLight5
Reaction score
1,479

Profile posts Latest activity Postings Albums Awarded medals About

  • BIG AL IS SOLD OUT ON SONICWIRE
    Well, definitely glad I got him when I did but
    shit
    In wake of the recent SeeU news, her installer is on Internet Archive, which will come in handy for those in the future who miss out on her last 400 copies (or in the present who won't be able to afford her when those copies are sold).
    And is also just really a relief as she won't be lost media then.
    If there's one thing I learned from Deci's Japanese voicebanks, it's that power isn't everything. When you find a song she works in, she does it well, but she's also a lot more limited than one would think. That's why I would say that for versatility, a soft voice is better than a powerful one (and multiexpression being best case scenario).
    This is also one of the main issues I'm addressing with her English voicebank, the other being not rushing it like I did Deci Mal 64 JPN. As for sound quality, the voicebank will still have noise, there's really nothing more I can do about that with being an amateur at sound design, recording, etc. Although, at least, like recent previous takes on the English voicebank, I'm no longer recording with the microphone feet away from me (which yes, was how I recorded Deci's previous voicebanks) so the recordings won't have excessive reverb.
    AO is announcing the song contest results in 2 days, but they already have the premiere set and the Persona 5 captions are absolutely sending me XD
    Man, even though I long on every day, I apparently haven't posted since July. Well, here's at least what I've been up to:
    -Crocheting. I'm first crocheting Christmas presents for my family (more than half of us are crafters but we all make homemade presents for each other every year) (I like to get all or most of them done over the summer because 1, crafting takes time, and 2, I'll be busy this fall because college), then I've got some personal WIPs, and I'm at some point soon gonna get started with making proper pdfs for my patterns so I can finally sell them (which has been my plan for a side hussle since I was a teenager).
    -Binge-watching Sonic Prime. I'm bad at binging because of my attention span, but it's only 16 episodes in total right now. I'm almost done with season 1 and it's very cute. That said, I still prefer the Sonic OVA and the Sonic movies (I love the Sonic movies, Sonic 3 hype train (literally, Shadow is gonna be in it, it's gonna be good 🤩)).
    -I finished playing Bioshock (along with my sister who was also playing it for the first time, and my brother who had played it once before. We basically played it as like a book club but video games) and well, I would put it on the shortlist of video games you must play before you die. Yes, it's that good. And if you plan to play it, seriously don't spoil it. Spoiling it is as bad as spoiling who did it in And Then There Were Done.
    -Other video games, I've been continuing to play Sonic Frontiers (fantastic game, by the way) and the other day I started playing The Haunted Mansion for the GameCube (which I'm gonna review on my Tumblr when I'm done).
    Vocal synth related things get their own reply because that's a list on its own.
    PearlStarLight5
    PearlStarLight5
    So now for vocal synths:
    -Well, as you can see on my YouTube I have new content going
    -I finished a song that I will release in October. Which also gives me more time to finish the PV too. I will give a heads up however that it will be age-restricted on YouTube due to its suggestive content (in both the music and lyrics). Another thing, I would best described its sound as like, a warped Backstreet Boys song.
    -I have a lot more songs in the works, some of which will be exclusive to Bandcamp when I finally open for business there.
    -More covers. I currently have 3 WIPs, a SynthV cover and 2 Utau covers.
    -Speaking of Utau covers, I discovered Takoe Zuii the other day and I'm blown away with how good her English voicebank is. I've never considered MEL/SEL before because I thought it wouldn't be user-friendly, but I'm having an easier time using SEL than VCCV. For those curious about trying these formats, I can't recommend Zuii enough, but I would also suggest to check out Kokone Kara and Psychotic Psycho. They are all functionally the same but don't have all the same phonemes, so editing is required so they function with USTs. Also, Zuii uses SEL, Psycho uses MEL, and Kara uses a modified version of MEL (while also having alternate otos for other phonetic languages, which makes her compatible with OpenUtau).
    Due to the character limit, updates on Deci Mal are in the third post.
    PearlStarLight5
    PearlStarLight5
    -I'm still working on recording Deci's English voicebank, but it takes time to figure out what methods work and how to record with the least background noise possible. I have managed to almost entirely eliminate background noise, except for a reverb that comes from an echo in my voice from the room I'm recording in (they say that Blue Yetis just have a reverb, but I know this problem is not caused by the Blue Yeti because I actually hear the echo in person). Looking back through my previous finished voicebanks, they also have a reverb in them that I never noticed before, and I'm doing something right for my latest takes not having that reverb as badly. I suppose I can't get rid of the reverb entirely (in fact, guides to doing so suggest not because having absolutely no reverb whatsoever is off-putting to people), but I will at least do what I can to mitigate it.
    -After I experiment with more techniques to get better sound quality, I'm gonna try recording a SEL voicebank and see how it goes.
    People say that CV English is really good for British English, and as I'm thinking about that, I'm curious if Sango CV-VC would also work for British English. Despite its name, it's actually not CVVC; It's CV samples that are configured like CV Japanese samples, and VC samples that are configured the opposite (the vowel being treated as a consonant and the consonant being treated as a vowel).
    My reclist edit is designed for American English, but I wonder if anything about it would need to be changed for it to pull off British English.
    PearlStarLight5
    PearlStarLight5
    I don't think I've talked this on this forum yet but yes, I decided for certain that Deci Mal English is in Sango CV-VC (and as such is named Deci Mal 64 ENG), but instead of using Sango's reclist, it's the same method but heavily extended so there's 18 vowels and a total of 2900+ samples per pitch. The highest number of pitches possible with it is 11, 10 if you add vocal fry vowels and optional VCs (which serve to give more options for VCs that end in "t". I put in the comments of the reclist that when you get to VCs that end in "t", you pronounce the "t", and then there's "tx" VCs at the end where you faintly pronounce the "t" at the end).
    PearlStarLight5
    PearlStarLight5
    And the best part is, recording is going well this time. I've ironed out some quality issues I was having with the recording itself and have a process that's working out (which is recording multiple takes in Audacity and selecting the best ones). Plus, I oto-ed some dummy VC samples so now I'm no longer unsure about the format.
    PearlStarLight5
    PearlStarLight5
    Appendix: make that 19 vowels. I decided today to add back in "aw", to account for that I don't have the caught-cot merger. However, in the .txt document, it is isolated from the rest of the reclist because it is optional (you won't need to record it if you have the caught-cot merger).
    A while back on Reddit I wrote a long post about my SynthV headcanons (which consisted of headcanons about Eleanor, Maki, Kevin, Anri and Jun) and just now thought of some more headcanons about Anri:
    -She's an obscure Sonic artist (never got famous in the Sonic fandom but got famous in music instead) and has an OC who she ships with Rouge the Bat
    -Jun is teaching her how to play guitar
    AddictiveCUL (Add)
    AddictiveCUL (Add)
    Tell me your HCs about Kevin, I'm thirsty for Kevin content T3T

    The only HC I have about my boy is that he is a prankster and likes to see people fallin in his pranks.

    (Btw, loved the sonic one! posakposakpoaskpoask)
    PearlStarLight5
    PearlStarLight5
    I headcanon Kevin as a gamer and a theater kid and portray him using my fan design
    -His dream is to get into Broadway.
    -Thanks to memes, my version is a Zelda fan too.
    -He's gaming buddies with Deci (my Utau), they whoop each others' asses at Smash Bros (he mains Link, she mains Mr. Game & Watch and Sonic).
    If there's any reason I'm glad Sonika V4 didn't happen, it's that Sonika V2 would probably have then been discontinued. If that happened, I don't know when I would have started using commercial vocal synths instead, since when I bought Sonika V2, I was really unsure if it was wise to invest in commercial vocal synths because I wasn't sure how much I'd use them (despite using Utau and SynthV Basic already). Sonika V2 was an approachable deal because she comes with the editor, and on sale she's cheaper than a video game.
    Now that I think about it, in the timeline where Sonika V4 happened, I either would have started with Luka, or maybe I would have been too unsure even then and so would have started with Kevin instead.
    Was reading the Zola Project thread and thinking, I really like when vocal synth designs aren't always anime. For instance, I think back to the original Bruno and Clara that used a more western style (really glad I wasn't part of the old Vocaloid fandom for incidents like that alone). Then I consider how today, Solaria and Asterian aren't anime. And then there's the toon Utaus, like Toonloid, Hareford, Deena, Maggie, and Deci Mal (although in Deci's case, I don't know how to draw anime, but even then I prefer cartoons to anime, so Deci being a toon is more befitting to me).
    Also this is a non-anime character vocal appreciation post so if anyone else knows of any others, feel free to add on. My 56 GB folder of Utaus could always use more toons!
    Fucking using my Twitter account that I only recreated for Tiermaker to look for anyone using Zola Project V6, what a world 😭
    Anyway, here's an example of Kyo in the editor, he sounds fantastic
  • Loading…
  • Loading…
  • Loading…
  • Loading…
  • Loading…