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Best Vocal Synth software for beginner/Easiest Vocal Synth software to use now?

Lemony

The Poor
Jun 26, 2020
36
Hell
I've been wanting to get into Vocaloid/Vocal Synths for a while, but deciding on what software to get is hard and I'm poor. :len_lili: Right now I'm deciding between CeVIO, Piapro, SynthV, and UTAU. Let me know if there are any others you would recommend. :miku_lili:

I was curious as to which software you had the best/easiest time with and which one you would recommend to beginner? I'm also using a cheap laptop, so I'm not sure I can even run all of these. :piko_lili:
 

uncreepy

👵Escaped from the retirement home
Apr 9, 2018
1,618
I don't have a lot of time to write, so my post is short/messy:

I think that UTAU is the best if you have no budget, but it's honestly quite annoying to set up, so you probably have to ask for help/follow YouTube tutorials.

CeVIO has less parameters than Vocaloid/Synth V, so I think it is easy to figure out, the Wiki is quite short and straight-forward. The voice banks cost less than other engines, too.

Synth V has a demo you can download (have to scroll toward the bottom of the page), so I think that would probably be the best/easiest thing you could try out. It would cost you nothing and only takes a few minutes to download.

Piapro (as in the ones that come with the V4 versions of Crypton Vocaloids) is cheaper to get into than Vocaloid 5 right now, and it comes with Studio One (a DAW for making original background music). You can try this out, too, but you have to sign up for PreSonus' website to get their demo of Studio One in order to try out one of the trials of Luka, Meiko, or Miku, it's more annoying to set up at first because of these extra steps.
 

___

Oct 8, 2019
1,546
If finances are an issue why not start with SynthV ( dunno if gen2 will have any free vocals but gen1 I believe is still up and has free vocals avalibe ) and UTAU, just to see whether you like using voice synths at all or at least enough to invest into them later on. SynthV ( gen1 ) is light weight and I'd say very beginner friendly. UTAU is also light but has more steep learning curve and is more tricky to set up but a big plus is the sheer amount of voicebanks avalibe. Theres also DeepVocal which is sorta like modern alternative to UTAU which is much easier to get started in and also has the advantage of the huge amoutn of free voicebanks but is more lacking in features and sound quality than UTAU.

Try experimenting with the free options first, youve got nothing to lose!
 

peaches2217

Give me Gackpoid AI or give me DEATH
Sep 11, 2019
1,930
26
Arklahoma
I’d also like to point out that, to the best of my knowledge, you don’t NEED Studio One to run the trials of Luka/Miku/Meiko: Piapro comes with the trials, so just plug Piapro into your DAW of choice (and there’s lots of great free options! I like WAVEFORM, personally, though it might take a bit to figure out). All you really need to do is sign up for a Sonicwire account, then download your trial of choice, install Piapro as you would with any plugin, and you’re good to go!
 
Sep 21, 2019
1,401
My vote easily goes to UTAU. It’s the one I started with and always have had the most fun with. Just make sure to set your locale to Japanese before you install it!

UTAU, to me, has the best method of pitchbending and has lots of nice plugins to use with it! Also, there’s loads of nice vbs to use!
(I could recommend a few, if you’d like! Or you could visit the UTAU recommendations thread.)
 

Overcast Immortal

Budding producer
Dec 4, 2018
67
USA
www.youtube.com
I recommend Alter/Ego. It's free except for the French vocals. I find it about as easy as Piapro Studio, but it is much lighter on CPU usage. I find it much easier for testing out melodies because it uses MIDI and works like any other instrument. It even works with keyboard (musical or the typing kind), or any other MIDI controller. It has excellent support for vocal harmonies, and every voice bank is extremely customizable, as is typical of singing synthesis software.

The downside is that it's a bit more tedious to tune with than Piapro Studio. When looping a section of a song to listen to it over and over while tuning, I have to specify with Alter/Ego which vocals to loop, otherwise it thinks the song is continuing and uses the following lyrics. The other problem is it has timing issues, which I believe is due to using MIDI. With all other software, the note starts with the vowel, and any preceding consonant is pronounced right before the note begins, but in Alter/Ego, the note begins with the consonant, so notes beginning with consonants must be manually placed slightly early to get the timing right. Notes also last a little bit longer than the written notes suggest, so they have to be manually made slightly shorter as well.

I generally prefer Piapro Studio at the moment because I don't have to worry about manually adjusting the timing of every note according to what consonants it contains, but the problem is particularly bad for me because I make very slow music from about 5bpm to 50bpm. At higher tempos the problem is much more minor and you might not even notice it. Consonant speed can be adjusted in the program and can make the problem less severe at the cost of having more tense pronunciation. Alter/Ego is pretty much done at this point, and these issues will almost certainly not be fixed in an update, plus I don't think these problems could be fixed considering Alter/Ego is MIDI-compliant.

It's also worth noting that if you're good with any MIDI controller, you should be able to get used to Alter/Ego and time your notes well without having to mess around with manual note placement. If you're good at an instrument and like live performances, you can play any Alter/Ego VB live and do it well. Unfortunately I'm not great at keyboard, and guitar-to-MIDI software/hardware is both quite expensive and not very accurate.
 
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___

Oct 8, 2019
1,546
I'll jump in and say I disagree with recommending A/E nad Neutrino to a beginner, both are unstable and tricky programs which gave me headache even after having experience with various voice synths for a year now and their UI are very unusual and not a very good representation of what you would be tipically getting into ( like..voice synths as a whole ).

They're still free so if you'd like to try them out, by all means go ahead, I'm not discouraging you, just saying they might not be ideal starters.
 

peaches2217

Give me Gackpoid AI or give me DEATH
Sep 11, 2019
1,930
26
Arklahoma
I personally like Neutrino, but I do agree that it’s rather tricky, especially for beginners. Prism is an excellent teacher though, so it’s worth looking into with their help! A/E... I can’t in good conscience recommend it to a beginner. Every time I’ve tried making it work, even with five tabs of manuals and tutorials open, all I end up with is tears. :clara_ani_lili: If it’s something you’d like to try, then absolutely try it out! Just... it’s not at all beginner friendly I think, so do be aware of that.
 
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frankensalad

Passionate Fan
Feb 27, 2019
103
A/E is not beginner friendly and it's not even friendly for people who are already used to vocal synths. It's best for people who are used to using VSTs/Kontakt libraries to simulate realworld physical instruments because that's closer to the workflow of A/E.
 
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