Help with tuning/mixing Luka V4x English

[elfcrisis]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this kind of advice, but none of other forums seemed appropriate, so here I am.

Anyway, I'm pretty new to actually using Piapro Studio and vocalsynth tuning in general, and I'm having trouble getting Luka to sound clear but smooth. I'll see if I can describe it right. Default Luka English with no adjustments sounds like she's singing from the back of her throat, all closed off. I can get her to sound more clear by adjusting Clearness, Breathiness, and Dynamics, but doing that introduces this buzzing quality to her voice. I understand that Luka is just going to have a bit of that because of the nature of her voice, but now her voice sounds scratchy, like she's recovering from a sore throat.

So, before I spend too much time beating my head against the settings, I was wondering if anyone had any advice on this. Is it the kind of thing that can be adjusted in Piapro, or do I have to use some kind of EQ setting to help?

Thanks!

 

[mobius017]

Yep, this seems like the right place to ask this to me.

Being relatively new to tuning myself, I wonder if you could make the results a bit better by increasing the GEN parameter a little? Increasing GEN will give you a deeper, more masculine sound, which sounds, at least as I'm reading, like it might help smooth out the qualities you're trying to adjust. It might be worth a try, at least, just to see what happens.

 

[Overcast Immortal]

If there's a rasp, it's probably form the clearness and breathiness parameter. Breathiness adds breath-sounding noise, which can sound like static if overdone, but reverb helps smooth it out. Clearness boosts the high frequencies in the voice, including the breathiness.

I'd suggest turning down clearness first, then breathiness until the scratchiness is gone. You can also try adding compression and reverb to make the voice fuller. I agree with mobius017 that increasing the gen factor slightly can make the voice deeper, smoother, and in my opinion easier to work with.

EQ can also help, but I prefer to use it for fine adjustments. Sharply reducing treble would remove the scratchiness, but it would take half of the vocal with it.

 

[elfcrisis]

Finally got around to trying out the advice you guys gave and it helped a lot. Turned down BRE and CLE, turned up GEN, then added CLE until it sounded right (about 40%, I think). Sounds a lot better now.

Thanks a bunch!