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Making a vowel sound more nasal/harsher

mobius017

Aspiring ∞ Creator
Apr 8, 2018
1,982
Might be a really simple question, but does anyone have any tips for how to make a vowel sound more nasal/harsher? Specifically, I'm working with Miku English. She's singing the word "and" (Whose phonemes are { n d ). Checking Vocaloid Wiki, { seems like the harshest/most "a"-like "ah" sound, but she's pronouncing it with more of a rounded or "o" sound (like a rich, really cultured woman or something, ha ha). I've tried splitting "and" into two syllables to get "a" by itself, splitting it away from the preceding lyric a little, messing with dynamics/velocity...but she really likes her rich-person's "ah." Any suggestions? She sounds sort of like "on;" I'm looking more for the "a" sound in "apple."
 

uncreepy

👵Escaped from the retirement home
Apr 9, 2018
1,618
I don't own Miku, (so take this advice with a grain of salt) but I assume her English is just as "bad" as the Kagamines. Like, even though there are multiple, for example, "a" and "i" phonemes, they pronounce them all identically. They are really pronouncing them in the Japanese way (there are only 5 vowels in Japanese: a, e, i, o, u), so I feel like a voice provider who isn't confident with English would have a hard time pronouncing subtly different English vowels.

I think that maybe you could consider trying to make Miku pronounce all words in the song with a consistent accent (as in pretending Miku moved to America and speaks fluent English, except with a Japanese accent). (Or pick an accent that has more similar pronunciation to vowels like... British English or something.) Maybe you could check out a song like "Birthday Cake" by Cibo Matto for a good-sounding English song with a Japanese accent for inspiration?
 

mobius017

Aspiring ∞ Creator
Apr 8, 2018
1,982
Thank you very much to everyone!

I was about to post that I was using "e n d". If I listened hard, I could hear it as the word "end," but it did well for getting the sound I wanted.

But then I thought about it again. Miku does ok pronouncing "and" the way I'd like if I just click on the word to hear the preview, so it's something about how the lyric works with the rest of the song. Changing the pitch of "and" and the lyric before it (the "ver" in "silver") didn't change anything, so it seemed to be the lyrics' phonemes themselves.

Since I was basically looking to make Miku pronounce "and" in isolation, I remembered the "Sil" phoneme and added that. I think it causes a break between "ver"'s "v @r" and "and"'s "{".

So, I ended up using "Sil { n d", all in the same note.

Fun side note: if you put "e { n d" in the same note together, you get something like "and" with a country-music-reminiscent warble on the "a."
 

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