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In your opinion, what is the most important quality for a voicebank to have?

In your opinion, what is the most important quality for a voicebank to have?

  • Sounds good in a variety of genres

    Votes: 7 23.3%
  • Unique voice

    Votes: 13 43.3%
  • Character (avatar design, canon backstory and/or character traits)

    Votes: 2 6.7%
  • Emotional expression

    Votes: 6 20.0%
  • Easier to get a realistic human sound

    Votes: 2 6.7%
  • Other

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    30

Jupiter

Manager of the Yuzuki Yukari Fanclub
Nov 15, 2021
43
24
I know this depends a bit on what kind of music one enjoys producing and/or listening to, but that's why it's an opinion question and there isn't a wrong answer.
 
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lIlI

Staff member
Moderator
Apr 6, 2018
843
The Lightning Strike
I voted for unique voice! I'd rather have one voice that's really good for one genre than a jack of all trades, I think that's something cover artists and original song producers might differ on. Cover artists work with a wide variety of genres, whereas producers usually have something they specialise in.
 

Blue Of Mind

The world that I do not know...
Apr 8, 2018
699
I've voted for unique voice too. The vocal synth market is way more crowded than even ten years ago, and I now have a hard time remembering VBs because there's so many of them that sound similar to each other. It's kinda rare we do get a truly unique-sounding VB like Flower nowadays.
 

aru ii

Your Neighborhood Tianyi Enthusiast!
Feb 12, 2021
1,010
VOCALOID4 Editor
Even though I voted for a unique voice, I still think that an expressiveness of a voice is as important as it’s uniqueness. My favourite Vocaloid is Tianyi “wow what a surprise”. She is not the most unique voice “although distinguishable from any other Vocaloid”. But she has a really expressive cheerful tone, that makes her standout from the others. That cheerful tone makes me so drawn to her voice. Second place would be “fit for many genres”. It’s a pain when you want to use a voice for a specific song, but the genre is just not fitting the voice. Than it’s the realistic vocals one. This one really depends on a synth and a person. But for me, that doesn’t really matters most of the time “I’m literally an Iku fanqwazxs”. Although I really enjoy realistic tuning. And the character one doesn’t really matter to me. Although it’s sometimes weird when a character doesn’t look like the voice. But it isn’t really a problem if you like the voice :mikiv4_ani_lili:
 
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REDD

Aspiring Fan
May 19, 2020
96
I find it quite interesting that almost no one on here voted for realism.
I personally voted for unique voice, though emotional expression comes at a VERY close second.
This is my own personal taste, but i really don't care how much engine noise comes from a vocal as long as:
-it sounds good (duh)
-their voice is distinguishable from other voices
-you can get a lot of expression from their voice.
I don't particularly care for vocals that sound super realistic, but completely flat in terms of expression.
Not to say those vocals don't have their uses, but they're not my first pick.
 

SeleDreams

Passionate Fan
Jul 31, 2019
154
23
While I do like unique voices, I feel like the best is for the voice to be versatile in various genres. After all while a unique voice is nice, if you can only use it in a few type of songs it becomes kind of lame
 

Nokone Miku

Aspiring Lyricist/Producer
Jul 14, 2021
76
www.youtube.com
In this article: "How to make your band stand out from the crowd" they bring up an interesting topic:
A fully-realized visual identity is one of the strongest assets an independent band can posses. However, it’s often hugely underestimated. Visual identity refers to the cultural and personable aspects of your project, including:
  • Member personalities & interests
  • Branding/Artwork
  • Social media content
  • Geographical location
  • Fashion sense
A major reason that many bands fail to stand out from the crowd is because they’re relying solely on the music itself. Whilst the music will certainly be the cornerstone of the project, it’s important to understand that fans connect to visual identity just as much as sonic identity.

Fanbases are not simply a group of people who happen to like a certain band’s music, but a community of like-minded people with a distinct set of cultural values, interests, and personality types that the band effectively represents. Whilst the music itself acts as the cornerstone of the project, it’s still just one piece of a much larger puzzle.

Star Quality is an attribute that goes hand-in-hand with visual identity. Whilst many bands might find it a hard pill to swallow, I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t mention it.

The fact is that people are drawn to other people far more than they’re drawn to products. Whilst it certainly isn’t the be-all and end-all of your musical career, you’ll be putting yourself at a significant advantage if you have it. [...]
  • Ensure your look is appropriate: Looks do matter, but it can often be a case of being appropriate rather than simply being attractive. If you’re a pop band, then being stylish and generally good-looking will certainly give you an edge. However, if you’re in a DIY punk band, looking rebellious and snarky is much more important than simply being good-looking.

I think a big reason Hatsune Miku's popularity persists is that she has become a shared visual identity for all the producers that use her voice. Like the article says: she embodies a distinct set of cultural values, interests, and personality types. I think the atmosphere of the crowds at the live concerts and expositions paints a good picture of what those values, interests, and personalities are. And even if there is strife and drama in some parts of the online fandom, I know there are hundreds of thousands, even millions of fans who are just enjoying the music, merch, and art and being part of the collective culture in their own way.

I think many good-quality voicebanks struggle to gain popularity because they simply haven't been able to achieve the Visual Identity and Star Quality necessary to accumulate a larger fanbase.

(I've been meaning to write up a discussion topic about this whole subject.) Anyway, this is just to explain why character traits and design are an important aspect to me. All the others are important too, and there's no wrong answer for what matters to you.
 

Ronny777

VOCALOID5 Tuner
Dec 10, 2020
127
29
Canada
soundcloud.com
I should of voted for"other" but "realistic Human sound" fits to what I'm about to explain. From a technical standpoint something I think is really important for a voicebank is its ability be able to blend its phonetic sounds together seamlessly. To me MIKU English achieves that very well. Each of her sounds react deferentially to each other without any audible pause in between. [eg. If I want MIKU to make an American (it, hit, or this) sound I can pair, (I) and (}), or ,(I) and (e) or even (I), (n), ({)] While Miku's consonants are hard to work with ( like her L's and R's) her ability to blend her phonetics makes it possible to work around those harsh sounds.

As a side note:
I think all Voicebanks already have the potential to sound emotional and expressive. Its just a matter of how you use it. I may be completely wrong on this but I have a theory that most DEMO songs for new voicebanks are tuned in a "plug and play" sort of way to showcase the voice without creating an unrealistic expectation of how it sounds.
 
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morrysillusion

v flower enthusiast
Jul 14, 2018
768
25
Socal
morrysillusion.wixsite.com
i voted for "emotional sound" but i think i should have put human sound instead as thats more so what i mean. i think maybe "emotional sound" is a but varied on what people think that is- is it the just the tuning that can do this? or the tonal flucuatins of a bank to make it sounds more human, and thus sometimes more "emotional" because its more recognized as human? not sure if id vote that or human sound for that explanation lol. but i think i like seeing voices lately in the vein of AI ones, aiming to be more "realistic" even with very little tuning. and i think that realism in turn adds more emotion, or easier to express emotion.

but i still would say a second is unique voice. i think my one gripe of recent AI voices is a lot of them have sounded a bit same-y- not super much, but they have been similar or they dont stand out to me like some other voices have before. i want to buy voices that go for more human sounds but i enjoy listening to ones that are unique in general. hopefully those two points will meet as the technology and understanding of new tech advances..
 

Stigbn

Aspiring Fan
Jul 21, 2018
74
Denmark
I voted for realistic, but one of the most important things for me is that the voice bank is in tune. Some of the Vocaloids sounds like they are not well in tune, some words shake a lot a lot around the note or are just out of tune (I think it's especially Miki, but there are others). One of the reasons I often chose Miku is because she's very well in tune everywhere, even though i would have liked another voicetype. Synthesizer V seems IMO to be much better in tune than many Vocaloids.
 

Prism

Enthusiast
Jul 18, 2019
524
I don't know what to pick. For me it's all about the voice. I guess it's the tone it's hard to express in words but it's the naturalness of the vocal tone. Like I'm okay if it sounds like a singer drenched in auto tune if the voice still sounds like a human. Like take Elenore standard lite I always found her edited voice to be off putting especially when you compare her to some of her original demo. I guess it realism and expression too like I do prefer ai banks because they tend to sound more natural and closer to the voice provider and captures the little expression of the voice easier and more consistently.
 

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