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SynthV English SynthV AI ANRI

Tortoiseshel

Aspiring Fan
Aug 23, 2021
54
New girl's got me a bit conflicted.

A new English Synth V AI vocalist! With an aggressively boring character design... And an amazing voice!

Like it's nothing super objectionable and I'm totally looking forward to her release, but it makes me think of the conversations we've been having around here lately about the glut of vocal synth characters that are moe idol-esque highschool girls and I'm just... even if you like that kind of design, wouldn't you get bored of it eventually? Surely even wotaku must eventually get tired of seeing the same archetype over and over again, no? Brrpvbpbhrhbv, I mean I guess if it sells, it sells?

Also since people are apparently talking about it:
Hi, I'm a 25-year-old woman who still occasionally gets mistaken for a teenager because of my soft, round face and youthful style of dress. I'm also tall and kinda fat, so I don't look super young or anything; but my point is that people/characters, especially 20-somethings, looking younger than they are isn't a problem.

And yes, I know it's just how the art style is. I'm sure the artist just likes this kind of art and started drawing that way themself; and I think Anri, on her own, looks perfectly fine and inoffensive for the most part. Honestly, this diatribe was mostly because I'm just so damn tired of people defending certain character designs by saying things like, "You know some adults just look younger than they really are! You criticizing these designs is disrespecting those people!" when I am actually one of those adults that kinda looks like a teen, but I'm a real person, not a character drawn by an artist for a specific purpose!

Anyway, on a completely different note: Does anyone know, is her first name Airi or Lin? I can't tell just from the English website. Either way, I'm glad there's something else to call her because I'm physically incapable of correctly pronouncing [N\ 4].
 
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Dakuwux

IDK how to music
Aug 4, 2021
20
Spain
Well that was a surprise, didn't expect a random announcement for an English Synth V from an american company, and idk but the voice is from an american provider?, at least she haves a nice pronunciation, is a soft/solid voice but from an english vb I think we desperately need a powerful voice, anyway we have at least something because before the announcement of Solaria we were in a desert for english voices apart from japanese companies with all the kawaii stuff in mind, I'm looking for an english voice that sing pop songs and sound like a more pop star than kawaii idol, still I'm waiting more for Solaria since she had a deeper voice in the first demo.

Also the design... although I usually don't mind about it it's... basic and doesn't fit at all with the concept of being only an english voicebank, I think I maybe prefer something more western. It doesn't make sense to me to listen to an soft/solid voice like that while i'm looking at a cute high-schooler anime girl but if the voice is good... who cares, not me.
 

synthhope

Kaito
Dec 25, 2019
4
27
An email from Team Volor,
Hello, everyone, we are very glad to introduce Eleanor's new friend, Anri!
Anri is an English singer for Synthesizer V AI. Her voice has a feathery tone with a sweet high pitch that floats distinctly above the beat.
She is a kind girl with a warm, dynamic personality. When she sets a goal, she pursues it with single-minded determination.
She loves bubble tea, strawberry mille-feuille, and her pet guinea pig, Chacharmaru.
Come and meet her at ANiCUTE, and for those who have already pre-ordered Eleanor AI, you also can take Anri home at a special price!
Does anyone know how those who preordered Eleanor get this discount? Or is it just referring to the fact that Anri herself is a preorder?
 

Tortoiseshel

Aspiring Fan
Aug 23, 2021
54
After getting all the art thoughts out of my head, I've been thinking more about her voice: On the one hand, she just sounds fantastic! Smooth, intelligible, good pronunciation- not perfect, she has many of the usual English synth quirks; but English is a hard language to synthesize, so Anri's pretty top-tier all things considered. On the other hand, her voice is quite soft, and she doesn't have much power or emotion in the demos shown so far. Also, as I've seen pointed out, her voice type is very similar to Eleanor's and (what we've heard of) Solaria's, as well as some non-SynthV English female synths like Lucy and Avanna. And it's all got me wondering what the reason for this is? Why do all these recent-ish English female vocal synths sound so similar to each other?

I don't think it's just a matter of where voice synthesis technology is at right now, because it's already at a pretty stunning level of realism, and is constantly improving still. And there are in fact female vocal synths with different voice types, even powerful ones, so it's definitely possible... Then again, most of those are Japanese or Mandarin, which are much easier languages to synthesize than English, especially Japanese. So maybe it's another quirk to do with the English language? But Lola, Miriam, Sweet Ann, and Prima don't really sound like that either, though they are quite old by now to be fair. Maybe the methods used to make English voicebanks have changed since Vocaloid was king? Maybe the techniques to improve the intelligibility and smoothness of synthesized English came at the cost of things like emotion? I admittedly don't know much, if anything, about the process of making voicebanks outside of what I learned dabbling with free software like UTAU and NNSVS, so if anyone who does know what they're talking about wants to correct me or anything, I'm all ears.

If the reason for all these similar-sounding voicebanks isn't actually due to technological limitations, or to English just generally being a nightmare to work with, then I can only think of two other options: Either these types of vocals keep getting made because they're what companies think will sell the best, or it's complete happenstance that the voice providers these companies manage to snatch just all have similar voice types. And if either/both of these are the case, then that's kinda good news as it means it's theoretically possible, with current technology, to make more unique vocalists. Someone just needs to put in the time, effort, and probably money to do so. Or at least hire a singer with some power behind their voice.

Airi is a Japanese girl name. Lin is a last name, but it's probably Chinese, Korean, or another language. (There are no L's in Japanese and Rin is a first name.)
Thank you! Yeah I eventually figured it out after thinking about it more, haha. I should've known better honestly, but I guess because she's an English voicebank, and maybe because they mixed languages like that, it just didn't occur to me to read it that way. It's kinda cool though, how "multicultural" a character she is; she has a (probably) Chinese surname, Japanese given name, sings in English, and is blonde which is often anime-shorthand for "white person". Pretty neat, I like it!
 
Sep 21, 2019
1,401
I don't really have any in-depth thoughts about her yet, but I've been intrigued now that people say she's similar to a discontinued synth, haha. I'm just going to break it down into a few basic things.

Voice:
I'm not in love with it and although she sounds cool, I could take it or leave it, but the English is good and I like the amount of English SynthVs we're getting so far. I'm not in love with SynthV for Japanese, but after Maki's English, I've become very impressed and interested in the English AI! (Voice type wise, she kind of reminds me of a Katy Perry or another American pop artist (I had a better example, but the name eludes me right now lol).)

Design:
She's not my favorite by any means, and I could once again very easily take it or leave it, but I do think the style is quite nice--it may not be my taste, but I think the coloring looks quite nice and the face, although "baby" it may be, is very expressive. I can understand where some concerns may be coming from, but for now I'm going to assume everything is a stylistic choice and wasn't done with any ill-intent, unless I end up being given a reason to think otherwise! (volor, please don't give me a reason to think otherwise, I beg you!)
Though I'm kind of bored of sailor fuku looks (barring ones that take the basic idea and change things up quite a bit), this one almost gives me actual sailor vibes. Like, I could see her being the captain of a ship or something who lives near the ocean! Maybe she sails the world with Ellie in search of old, historical items? Just a fun idea I thought of.

There's some speculation she could possibly be Vivi, the art being very similar and the voices supposedly sounding similar (I've never heard Vivi, so I can't vouch). The other things that makes me think it checks out would probably be the JPN+CHN name since Vivi was supposed to be a trillingual synth who could do Mandarin, Japanese, and English. If that somehow ends up being true, well, that's kinda neato. I'd love to see her be able to sing in three languages!
 

CatHermit

Aspiring Fan
Aug 12, 2021
25
Is it possible the Anri will get voicebanks in other languages if the English bank sells well? The theory came to mind when I heard what sounded like Japanese near the end of "Programmed 2 Love".
 

___

Oct 8, 2019
1,546
Is it possible the Anri will get voicebanks in other languages if the English bank sells well? The theory came to mind when I heard what sounded like Japanese near the end of "Programmed 2 Love".
Yeah! Audiologie has the interest to expand on both Anri and possible other SVS vbs

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Which brings me to something I've been meaning to say! I know many people had been eager to see more english voicebanks for SynthV and Audiologie seems to have both the interest and means to make that a reality, and that can't be said for many currently developing companies.

This isn't to invalidate anyone who feels like Anri isn't the voice for them or any criticism directed at her ( and I agree with Morry's statement on her having somewhat metallic twang and I do find that she doesn't flow as smoothly as some other engloids we've had ) and ultimately no company is entitled to anyone's support and no, you shouldn't be pretending to like something you don't through gritted teeth, but for those interested in the health of future SynthV engloids, I think it's worth considering showing little more kindness and to open their arms a little more.

I know people are happy with all the things Eclipse and Solaria brought to the table and it's wonderful to see all the support but ultimately, Eclipse is less independent than Audiologie, it's awesome how much faith people have shown in them and this project but in all this excitement, it's easy to forget that Solaria being one time thing is not unrealistic. That's why, we should extend our hand to all who show interest in developing products like this, and that includes both Eclipse and Audiologie.
 
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uncreepy

👵Escaped from the retirement home
Apr 9, 2018
1,618
The noise at the end of PROGRAMMED 2 LOVE is too loud, but I can hear some Japanese words.
..atashi wa *tashi no...kedo, sore ?atte ima kou yatte shabette-iru ??? tsyuoi ? atashi omachi o ?? yatte-iru, sore wa shittemo

Something like that. I tried to listen to it over and over and over but can't make out an actually understandable sentence. The only one that was kind of audible was about her "speaking like this (ima kou yatte shabette-iru)". I think I heard at least one "but", "strong", "waiting" and "even if".
 

lIlI

Staff member
Moderator
Apr 6, 2018
843
The Lightning Strike
I'm enjoying the amount of demos they're making for Anri, and the way they're spaced out to feel frequent but not overwhelming.

It's becoming obvious they have a specific genre in mind for her, as all the samples have a similar style and vibe - or maybe her creators are just really into downtempo RnB (just noticed the rapper chain, Anri pls. same energy). The downside is that we're not getting to hear how she fairs with faster songs or heavier instrumentals, but if that's not what they created her for, I can't fault them for it.
 
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peaches2217

Give me Gackpoid AI or give me DEATH
Sep 11, 2019
1,930
26
Arklahoma
The downside is that we're not getting to hear how she fairs with faster songs or heavier instrumentals, but if that's not what they created her for, I can't fault them for it.
I’m with you. I applaud them for having a set direction with her and not trying to flex her in several other genres and styles and tempos she may not be able to handle, just for the sake of saying “Look how much she can do!”, like Volor with Eleanor AI or 1st Place with IA AI. It also helps people more solidly decide if she’s right for them or not. All around I think it’s a smart move!
 
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