A.I.VOICE Kotonoha Akane/Aoi English

[Rylitah]

(Making this its own thread instead of posting in the A.I.VOICE general thread since it's kind of huge news)

Sample demos are here (English page).
Designs are teased as silhouettes which are also on the page.

Pricing:
Download - 11,000 yen (releases December 10)
Special physical edition (comes with acrylic stand) - 13,750 yen (Releases November 25)

They'll also be for sale on TokyoOtakuMode (details to come) later.

edit: The press release linked in the first tweet mentions that the English engine is powered by Techno Speech (whatever this means since they aren't on CeVIO AI), and that Chinese talk is also planned for a Summer 2022 release. Singing software is scheduled for Spring 2022.​

 

[mahalisyarifuddin]

Sakakibara tweeted that it's new recordings. Very likely what they meant of "special technique" is some sort of "fluent-izer" algorithm (similar technique with use case scenario of making Chinese-accented Japanese speech more fluent), which is should also be cool.

What bugs me the most is, why the crossover no one ever asked for?

 

[Prism]

I wonder if they use this tech

Audio samples from "Learning to speak fluently in a foreign language: Multilingual speech synthesis and cross-language voice cloning"

google.github.io

I wonder who they got for the English pronunciation data set to train them if that's the case. They sound nice but a little muffled and hard to understand at first.

 

[Rylitah]

Designs have been revealed!


More details will be in the next stream.


This tweet also clarifies that Kotonoha English still uses the A.I.VOICE editor (saw some qrts wondering if this would still be the case because of the Techno Speech engine bit, so I guess AI JP decided to make a public announcement about it):

 

[___]

They look cute! But also...

 

[uncreepy]

During the live stream on the 12th, Yui mentioned that the difference between Aoi and Akane's pronunciation is that Akane had English classes in Kansai that were not very good, so she's just supposed to sound like she's "trying her best" even if she's not fluent.

I compared the audio samples a while ago, Akane speaks faster and Aoi has the ends of her words stretched out longer.

(Sorry for the poor video quality, I accidentally deleted the file for this and uploaded it in a stupid/didn't notice the text covering the 3rd part)

 

[uncreepy]

Kotonoha English product page has been updated to include downloadable artwork:

Kotonoha Akane ＆ Aoi EnglishA.I.VOICE 製品紹介ページ | A.I.VOICE

“ A.I.VOICE Kotonoha Akane ＆ Aoi English ” is a personal use TTS software with the voices of the Kotonoha sisters in English. Fluent English voices of the Kotonoha sisters made possible by applying the technology from Techno-Speech.

aivoice.jp

I wrote to AI Inc a bilingual English/Japanese email (I sent it to the email written at the bottom of the Kotonoha twins' English-version webpage).
They replied to my 4 questions in Japanese.

SUMMARY:
1) The English version of AIVOICE is not compatible with happy/sad/angry voice styles & they can not use fusion with other characters.
英語版のA.I.VOICEは喜・悲・怒のボイススタイルの感情に対応していません。 （他のキャラクターとのボイスフュージョンもできません）

2) "A.I.VOICE Kotonoha Akane ＆ Aoi English" can have the interface be changed to English.
『A.I.VOICE Kotonoha Akane ＆ Aoi English』はUIを英語に変更できます。


3) They're also preparing to let users change the interface into English for characters who only speak Japanese (ex: Iori Yuzuru), so please be patient.
伊織弓鶴など日本語だけを喋るA.I.VOICEもUIが英語に変更できるようになる予定です。私たちの準備ができるまで、今しばらくお待ちいただければ幸いです。

This was my question for context:

If an English interface is going to be offered, will even people who have not yet purchased "A.I.VOICE Kotonoha Akane ＆ Aoi English" be able to download and set an English interface through download?

(For example, overseas fans of vocal synthesizers who are studying Japanese purchase Iori Yuzuru or VOICEROID, even though the Japanese interface is difficult to use.)

(They couldn't say if VOICEROID will get an English interface because they're not the sellers of it)
VOICEROIDについて、弊社は販売元ではないのでお答えできません


4) There is no difference between the version of the software sold to English speakers (TokyoOtakuMode) vs Japanese users (DLsite/Vector), so buy it from wherever you'd like to without worry.
どの販売サイトでお買い求めいただいても製品は同一です。

MY THOUGHTS:
Sounds like having an English interface is going to be exclusive to the Kotonohas for a while. I wonder if they are somehow separated from the Japanese-speaking characters within the software?
I mentioned that the English page doesn't have a preview of the interface, but BASE does. I don't know if/when they will add one.