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AmazingStrange39
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  • When it comes to Talkloids, I've been too focused on trying to make conversations and dialogue work, when a monologue would still be a Talkloid. I've done monologues with Miku but I dunno if I've ever made a Talkloid with just Avanna. (All my Talkloids are private-ish just-for-fun things as of now though (I haven't made a video-worthy Talkloid quite yet), but some of them you could probably find in Discord servers I've been in.)
    Running gag that Miku can't pronounce the names of Avanna's Irish friends?

    "So anyway, Avanna and her friend Sow Ears-"

    "It's Saoirse..." ("ser-shuh" or "seer-shuh")
    Anyone else in the "Few Commercial Vocalsynths" club? Because there are people that show off their entire collections, people who have one, and (probably the majority) people who have none, but is there anyone here like me that just has a couple/few?

    Like I've said, my roster is Miku and Avanna, though I've used several free options as well (though I haven't posted the examples publicly).
    mary34
    mary34
    The only commercial synths I own atm are Koharu Rikka and soon Teto SynthV (I also have Mai but I am not sure she counts, given her vb comes free for pro users)
    I have a big vb hoarding problem when it comes to UTAU, but with commercial synths, since they don't exactly go cheap I am a bit more picky as to which ones I actually end up buying (even thought I do have a lengthy wishlist).
    Vector
    Vector
    Miku and Luka gang here.
    AmazingStrange39
    AmazingStrange39
    I guess Avanna could fill the role of Luka for the Engloids, being the soft elegant one? :/ So in that case our rosters could be considered similar-ish haha
    So I just found out Avanna has a mic bump sound within her phonemes, specifically if you put S and D together ([S d D] is a fix)

    Also, it gets higher or lower depending on where you place it, on the REALLY high notes it sounds like a beep

    So Sonika has her Skype noise (and many other noises), and Avanna has her mic bump noise. But I guess no Vocaloid is perfect haha
    So it seems like you can still download UTAU Teto, at least as of now.
    Having two Vocaloids can especially be fun when they're two very different Vocaloids. Like, having Luka and Kaito is one thing, having Otomachi Una and Tonio is another haha

    I'm saying this as a Miku and Avanna owner
    My headcanon personality for Avanna is turning into "18-year-old grandma" and I'm absolutely loving it.

    Miku and Avanna both kinda act older than their age, but Miku's more of a precocious "kid genius" while Avanna is kind of an old soul.
    i just realized something cursed: the v2-and-up zero-g loids could be easily compared to the cryptonloids

    meiko and kaito: prima and tonio (male and female counterparts with a warm and cool color scheme respectively, released 2 years apart, the male then the female)
    hatsune miku: sonika (female teenage singer meant for pop, with a slender build, pale skin, and green (or teal) hair tied up somehow; cute high-pitched voice; cheerful and energetic vibe)
    kagamine rin and len: dex and daina (male and female counterparts released simultaneously, with bright and energetic voices suitable for pop and electronic genres)
    megurine luka: avanna (warm, soft, ladylike female vocal; long, wavy hair with bangs that frame the face a bit; curvy body type; fairly similar character age (luka's 20, avanna's 18); luka's v4x ver. even wears a strapless dress like avanna)

    this doesn't work NEARLY as well for the powerfx loids. i think it's more of a coincidence than anything else, though sonika was probably inspired by miku's popularity (some of avanna's beta designs weren't quite as luka-esque as the final product, which may have partly been a result of all of yamaha's requests)
    Things I do when I talkloid Avanna:
    -First and foremost, step out of my comfort zone, haha (my comfort zone being just basing her speech off of my American accent despite her very Irish accent; this is an accent I did not grow up around so it's proving to be an interesting challenge).
    -"Em" and "eh" as thinking sounds, rather than the "um" and "uh" I'm used to as an American, as that is generally the thinking sound Irish people use
    -I often have her speed up, slightly drop in pitch, and somewhat alter pronunciation on unstressed syllables to add to the "lilting" feel of her speech- e.g. "Thank you for finding this" being phonetically more like "Thank you fer findin' this". I tend to focus more on shortening unstressed syllables than lengthening stressed ones, though I guess as a result she tends to wind up talking kinda fast
    -I generally base her intonation off of the dialect of her voice provider, which is sort of a gentle downward pattern common in many (Southern) Irish dialects, as well as anything similar I can find. However, I give Avanna's speech a bit more "shimmer" to give her a bit of a "voice acted" feel compared to her VP's somewhat flatter intonation. Maybe some slight "uptalk" on occasion (more of a brief upward intonation than the more drawn-out "valley girl" way), which is something I've noticed in her VP as well
    -I try to stick to things I've actually heard Irish people do in my research and be mindful of speech patterns I've heard, rather than basing it more off Hollywood stereotypes (and all the bad accents that come with that, haha), though I try to give her a slightly "voice acted" sound as I've said.

    Why do I think about this so much? Because in addition to my interest in tuning originals and covers, I've always had an interest in making Talkloids as well, though mine are intended to sound like natural conversations or movie scenes or something, somewhat similar to like, Iruna or eL.
    In using Avanna for a Talkloid, I decided to try adjusting her intonation based on what I've heard of her voice provider talking as well as analysis of dialects with similar intonation, and she's definitely sounding more Irish than when I started, haha... (Not much TH-stopping as her VP doesn't do that a ton, mostly [D] to a subtle [d] especially in places where the [D] can be overpowering; I don't generally touch [T].)

    I think if I still had Sonika I'd also be researching the accents around Liverpool to try and get her prosody right too, and with Miku I sometimes watch non-native speakers from Japan to pick up on any habits they have.
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    AmazingStrange39
    AmazingStrange39
    When it comes to writing accents, JKR-level phonetic accents are an eyesore, but I do like to drop hints; in Avanna's case, for example, she would of course structure some of her sentences in a noticeably more Irish way, but also occasionally drop Gs or somethin'. For Miku, I might have her...pause or....slow down to think of, like, a word, or make a minor malapropism or something (not full-on "broken English" but not entirely perfect either).

    I couldn't be self-demonstrating with the malapropism part because I couldn't think of a good one. She might also struggle to pronounce an unfamiliar word but...really, anyone would.
    AmazingStrange39
    AmazingStrange39
    Y'know what, I should probably drop the malapropism idea because I'd be no good at it haha
    I might not be Irish myself, but it supremely confuses me when people say Avanna's accent doesn't sound Irish. It's probably softened a bit for singing purposes, but it's definitely Irish.

    This was further confirmed when I finally found footage (from her twitter) of her supposed (apparently discreetly confirmed?) voice provider speaking and the Irish accent in her speech was very noticeable despite her living abroad.
    • Like
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    AmazingStrange39
    AmazingStrange39
    Also, she's from the Republic, not the North, so she's technically not a British vocal despite the Vocaloid wiki saying so.

    (And yes, I did say I'm partly of Irish descent, but I'm American born and raised haha)
    AmazingStrange39
    AmazingStrange39
    Not from Avanna's twitter BTW, from Rachel's, lol
    Recently found out I'm at LEAST a quarter Irish (thought I was a bit less than a quarter) and I just

    I was before anyway, but I'm so glad Avanna exists. I have a fondness for Irish accents and you don't have to go too far back on my family tree to find Irish people, so even though I'm very much American by nationality I just...

    I know there are American Vocaloids but I only feel close to them dialectically. None of them really stand out to me like Avanna does. (My main choice of American-English Vocaloid is actually Miku, if she counts)
    People have been posting their physical Vocaloid collections, so here's my digital Vocaloid collection thanks to the VoCatalogue app!

    Update on my previous post: Yeah, if I were to make a guess on where in Ireland Avanna's accent was from, entirely from research and without anyone telling me anything, I'd assume it was a Southside Dublin accent or something.

    But then again, I live in America and I don't know all the little nuances and tiny details.
    I've often been curious about the specific dialect Avanna's pronunciation indicates, and I've heard an Irish producer say she's very Midlands (particularly Meath/Westmeath)? But she sounds more like she has a "posh" Dublin accent to me...

    Mainly because listening to people from the two Meaths, a feature I often notice is that they pronounce the [@U] phoneme closer to [O:] and the [Q@] sounds closer to [{ r]. Avanna does neither, pronouncing them closer to [O: U]/[V U] and [Q r] respectively. That's something I've heard more in Dubliners.

    But hey, maybe there's a similar-sounding "posh" Midlands accent that this person was referring to (she did say the accent was old-fashioned).
    AVANNA's [h] phoneme is technically usable as an end breath, but you should confine it to a really small note at the end and it's definitely "sharper" than say, Miku English's handling of the phoneme (it can be used after consonants to give them sharper pronunciation, i.e. spelling "get" like [gh e t h], as a pronunciation hack though!). There are some other phonemes that work situationally though, like [w] after [@U] or [u:], [j] after [i:] or [eI], etc.
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