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(Is it okay if I double post? This thread hasn't updated for a month).
I honestly don't mind having stuff like story modes and canon personalities in vocal synth games. For example, as much as I'm okay with how Project Diva presents the Cryptonloids as blank slates in terms of characterisation, I also appreciate how Diva X tried to do something different with the series by adding a story (even though it ended up fairly bare bones. But saying that, Diva X had way more problems than a half-baked story - namely, the small setlist). Project Sekai also tends to keep the Cryptonloids as blank as possible, with the focus being on the original characters, but Miku and co. remain one of the most important parts of Sekai's story, so they're not just standing there as promotion.
@Blue Of Mind: I'm pretty sure I saw somewhere that you can double post in a thread as long as the posts are at least 1 day apart...though I'm not finding where in the Terms and Rules I might've read that.... Obviously, probably if someone makes a career of spamming a thread with junk on a daily basis, that rule might get reevaluated, but particularly after a month, I'm sure you're fine.
-I think a significant amount of Miku's songs would sound way better with another voicebank, but I've never heard a song and thought "Yeah, they really should have used Miku for this."
-Sachiko and Kaori are fantastic voicebanks.
-Gachapoid really isn't that bad, he's just a little silly.
-I really like livetune's tuning.
-IA AI isn't super impressive to me (still love her though).
-I'm a fan of Yukari's AI voicebank.
-Genbu deserves better.
Don't worry, you are not alone! I hate it too but I feel like the girls have it even worse. Almost everyone is used so high that they are dying and just a few can actually pull it off. Poor IA and Flower always have to screech. It hurts them, it hurts me, god people pls stop it.
My unpopular opinions:
- I like Len's normal voice more than his append; I dislike it when he sounds too deep.
- I absolutely can't stand it when people make Len's hair too simple (Giving it blond hair and a ponytail doesn't make it a Len)
*If it goes with an outfit it's alright
- I actually don't really like it when people make Miku sound super high-pitched, I like her voice the way it is.
*If it goes with the music it's alright
-KAITO X ICE CREAM is the best ship, I don't care what you say.
- I absolutely love tuning Rin~
Len's okay. Don't get me wrong, I like him, but Rin's voice works so much better in so many more places.
That's it, I guess.
I really do like most things about VOCALOID~
There's only one VOCALOID I don't like (who I would rather not mention), but that's about it~
I dislike when Miku is used at too high a register and there's a certain producer who makes her sound GROTESQUELY chipmunky, but I kinda like Harumaki Gohan's tuning where he uses her at a regular octave and pitches her up a bit gender factor-wise, it sounds pleasant IMO.
Also, the high note in Sharing the World is really jarring...and she's just not clear in general. If it weren't for that it'd probably be a better song.
I think that a "cutsey" english vocaloid would end up being very nasaly or like JubyPhonic, neither of which I'd want to see.
I'd like to see vocaloids of other languages, like french or german, and more korean and spanish vocaloids. I mean, I've seen utau vbs in many different languages, so why can't yamaha figure it out?
ugggh yes. i hate the "cutesy anime dub voice" so much. i much prefer like, a mid-high tone that isn't so nasally and pretentious if you wanna go for a cute voice.
The best example is the SynthV voicebank ANRI. I think she's the most genuinely cute native English voicebank I've heard. I prefer a genuine sweet cuteness to an high and nasally overabundance of sugar tbh
Honestly, I’m 100% okay without a “cutesy” Engloid. As stated above by WyndReed, it would probably end up being a Juby-Like voice. (Maybe even voiced by her, which is worse)
So honestly... I’d just rather see some of the original Western VOCALOIDS get more attention somehow, instead of pandering to the cute lovers. That kinda erases the originality of Western VOCALOIDS and Japanese VOCALOIDS.
I personally think Miku English is genuinely cute but I guess she's still an Eastern Vocaloid singing in English? And having some cuteness to her is kinda Miku's thing, I guess.
-I don't like voicebanks with the "forced cutesy" tone. It's difficult to describe what i mean though:
Have it: Azuki, Xin Hua, UNI, Una, Komachi
Don't Have it: Miku, Rin, Ling, miki,
(Tianyi is a weird borderline case)
-Flower is actually really LQ and sounds grating most of the time. She literally ruins songs.
-Nayutalien's tuning is way too squeaky imo.
-I'm glad Akari songs are getting attention cuz I really like her, but "AKARI IS HERE" is awful.
-Moke and YANHE sound alike. There's a notable difference, but the similarities are there.
-Gumi English is hard to understand unless you're good at tuning. Luka and Miku can't be quite as good as she is, but they're much better starting choices.
Funny how Miku's clearly voice acted but there's still a...genuine-ness about her. She doesn't feel so forced, especially in later VBs. Even Miku Sweet can sound genuinely sweet, like in whoo's usage of her (I dislike how she's mainly used for Kawaii Future Bass™ these days though, I wish I saw more like, soft rock and indie type stuff with her, that's where she really shines IMO with her whispery and low-key tone).
And yeah, I'm...not a fan of Flower TBH. Or at least, the way people usually use her. I think she's better as like, a rock vocal or something- she is kinda shouting after all. With Miku Solid people at least usually use her in context.
Nayutalien being squeaky? I thought that was a FACT, lol. I guess it depends on personal taste tbh. IMO Harumaki Gohan does squeaky better lol (but his tuning style is also just really pleasant overall. Poka Poka Planet is just...cozy defined.)
I do think Moke is what Yanhe was originally gonna be or something? So it makes sense that they're similar.
I personally think Maki STD English has a really odd accent? I don't find her super pleasurable to work with, so I much prefer her AI version. And that's right! Sonika also has a nice tone, not super forced, I wish she wasn't such a poorly-done voicebank SOOO hard...(At least we have the wonderful AVANNA)
The interview says Lumi initially didn't have eyes, a nose, or fingers like a human, she was a jellyfish imitating a human figure.
I kind of wish the drawing was a bit bigger so we could get a better look. She reminds me of a faerie. It would be cool if some people who owned Lumi drew her like this sometimes.
I actually kinda like her. Her voice is cute and unique IMO. I can see where you get the "squeaky" from though, she is quite high-pitched... Her name is Akarui Hikari btw (and she's how I remember what "akarui" (bright) means xP)
It's technically a well made song, but I just really don't like "Miku" by Anamanaguchi. To me it's like the antithesis of everything I love about the creative side of the fandom. You have some of the coolest and unique soundings songs ever, and the one that gets attention is the most generic "2010's pop" song imaginable?
I agree I think cross lingual has a long way to go and isn't perfect. I hope they improve it like they did with ai auto tuning. A accent slider like what was seen in Google's multilingual tts would fix a lot of the problems. Audio samples from "Learning to speak fluently in a foreign language: Multilingual speech synthesis and cross-language voice cloning"
I do think cross lingual can be as good as some of the non native English voice banks like Crypton's and Macne nana. I do hope English banks still get made for characters who have voice providers with a decent level of English because it hasn't replaced them in quality yet. It's a massive step in the right direction and breaks down a ton of language barriers. I am excited for new languages to come to synth v.
Yeah but...cross-lingual voicebanks feel kinda fake compared to the real deal, y'know what I mean? Like, there's something OFF about them. Just knowing they weren't voiced for the language can make for a slippery slope to the uncanny valley. Like, Japanese-voiced English vocals tend to have really thick accents but it's their voicer's accent, y'know?
Now for some opinions of my own:
-I actually really like ANRI. She was sorta buried by Solaria and the Dreamtonics releases really quickly (I really like Solaria and Kevin though) but like, her voice is really sweet and charming IMO.
-I honestly prefer Chis-A's tone to KAFU's. They're sort of similar in that they have relaxed pronunciation and that sort of balance of softness and power? But Chis-A's tone is more pleasant and less like she's singing through her teeth or something, in my opinion- and she's free! I do like KAFU though, especially with low alpha (funnily enough I also like how Chis-A sounds with high alpha).
-A lot of people prefer Miku V3 or V4 English, but I honestly think they both do certain things really well. V4 is better in terms of power and sounds really energetic and cute, and V3 has a mellow sound and a better low range; they also have some better pronunciations over each other, partly due to V3 aiming for precision with an American accent, while V4 aimed for more natural overall pronunciation. V3 also has more of a closed-mouthed sound while V4 is more open. They're the best English XSY pair for sure as well!
-I also kinda like the way English Miku sounds singing in Japanese. It just kinda sounds cool, I dunno.
-Miku V4 Chinese is my favorite Chinese Vocaloid, post-update in particular. Her voice is really sweet and charming IMO and she's got a cute lil accent. I don't have her though. Maybe I'll get her one day but for now I'm happy with JP and EN Miku.
-I know SynthV Standard is kinda out of the ballpark but I also really like AiKO. Her Taiwanese accent is adorable and her voice is really sweet and bubbly. She also reminds me of the V3-V4 era Japanese vocaloids which is kinda nostalgic I guess? But yeah, I'm pretty fond of her.
-Solaria kinda reminds me of Hayley Williams from Paramore. I hope this doesn't offend anyone, I really like how Hayley sings lol
Controversial opinion on vocal synths and NFTs: As much as I agree with almost everyone else in the fandom that associating with NFTs is shitty, it doesn't actually put me off from listening to a VB. Am I miffed about IA and Lapis being associated with NFTs? Yes, very much so. Will I stop listening to songs featuring them? No, because they're fictional characters representing a software, and I've said before it's fairly easy to divorce a VB from their studio or VP. (SeeU and Yohioloid have been bogged down with much worse controversies, yet they still have fans and producers who use them. And don't get me started on the recent Miku x Dolls Kill collab.)
Of course, the situation might feel different if you buy VBs. If you don't feel comfortable buying NFT-related VBs, just don't buy them. Unless you want to grab them secondhand, I guess.
I agree with the sentiment and intent of your message but disagree with elements of what you've said. I know this is an unpopular opinion thread and the intent is for opinions to be aired out without fear of backlash-- I really hope this post comes off the way I intend it, which is with kindness, and made with the hopes that we can air out the ethics of this situation as a community with mutual respect. There's a lot of confusion on the internet regarding what NFTs actually are and why/how they hurt people so I think it's really important we discuss these things in detail. The people that profit off of NFTs benefit from the fact that the technology is confusing and intentionally obfuscate it.
OK, with all that said.
In my opinion, listening to music associated with the VBs is not too far divorced from buying the VB from the company selling NFTs if your goal is to take a stand against NFT markets and technology.
Yes, there is an element of "death of the author" in the voicebanks we use-- but ultimately, the reason voicebanks continue to be marketed with anime characters over and over again is that the anime character is part of the product. If this weren't the case, these companies would not bother making NFTs with their character iconography because it wouldn't be profitable. The "death of the author" in our adoption of these characters is that we separate the character from "canonical" representation and make it our own. But the effect is still the same. Hatsune Miku, as an example-- even though our songs featuring her are decidedly our own and not Crypton's, Crypton Future Media still benefits financially to an immense extent. Every song that includes Hatsune Miku's name and likeness promotes Crypton Future Media's product, Hatsune Miku, the piece of software you mention. Yes, the character and the software are separate, but in this space, the software is able to exist and be developed because of the success of the character. Crypton and 1st PLACE's corporate models are basically about selling a world of characters that are extremely marketable. That is what makes money.
The only thing saving this situation is that the individual being most directly financially supported by your listening is the artist, not the company distributing the VB. But as I've said, the company in charge of the VB and character license doesn't really mind because they profit from it in a different (and arguably much much greater) way.
So unfortunately, the only way to truly do something about the "NFT situation" in the vocal synthesis space on an ethical and practical basis is a complete boycott, because most people are not creating music with IA unaccredited.
If we were to do this, however, would it make a difference? Unfortunately, I think the answer is no.
Overseas listeners have quickly become a bigger and bigger player in the vocal synth community and are driving a lot of what is being recommended on YouTube, but on nicodou and TikTok, Japanese listeners are still very much in their own bubble with other Japanese speakers and overseas hardcore voice synth enthusiasts. We are not a great enough market share to make a dent in the sales of the VBs belonging to these companies, or even get their attention on a real level. It would have to be a truly widespread boycott, and it would have to include the Japanese community as participants.
That introduces the second problem-- information on why NFTs are damaging is all but lost on Japanese-speaking channels. Search in Japanese about NFTs and you will see a great swath of corporate participation but very little actual discussion on the topic. A good while back now, kikuo's Twitter account blew up because he announced that he planned to start an NFT project. The response from overseas fans was vehemently negative and the result was that he apologized and decided not to go forward with it. But kikuo wasn't apologizing for offering to do NFTs-- he was apologizing for offending overseas fans. Comments from Japanese speakers were mostly confused-- "why is everyone so upset about this? don't worry, we'll support you" and this exact situation has repeated over and over again online.
English speakers are loud but so far our activism in the voice synth space against NFTs has been no help in actually educating our Japanese-speaking peers about why NFTs are so objectionable. I've seen a single Japanese article written with an anti-NFT stance shared in a voice synth context, and it was not written by a native speaker nor was it widely noticed.
With all this in mind, the affect of not being able to support my favorite musical artists and scene is not worth the trade-off of making a moral statement against NFTs that, in my opinion, will mean very little, which is why, despite my sadness, I haven't stopped listening to Titiana and Jin's songs featuring IA and ONE.
The actual path to "fixing" this problem is communicating with the other side of the community basically and helping create an international understanding of blockchain technology. This is a massive undertaking but it can happen, slowly, if everyone can truly educate themselves and understand how to communicate in a space shared with pro-NFT evangelists. We need to be able to do it better than them.
I think this is a really good article about NFTs--what they are, the tech behind them (in simple terms), their economic value/lack thereof, their impact on the environment and capacity for facilitating scams, and their potential for positive usefulness in an ideal world. Granted, it's published on Android Authority, which is primarily devoted to users of Android phones. So it isn't directly related to economics or, to my knowledge, economics or NFT tech. But the info jibes with other articles I've read and is very approachable and thorough.
I'm still curious, though--the article gives me the idea that people buying NFTs today are basically buying proof of ownership of digital content that they expect to use in the future. For example, a piece of digital art that they can hang on a virtual wall in Facebook's Metaverse someday. Is that what people buying vocal synth NFTs are purchasing? I'm just trying to understand what they're buying and why it would appeal to them.
I haven’t read your article yet (will soon) but can comment on the latter part.
I think NFTs feed on, like, the human concept of ‘selfishness’ (maybe the wrong word) and the desire to own something. The people buying NFTs desire the idea of owning something ‘rare’ or ‘special’— even if that something isn’t actually rare or special. At this time, the craze feeds on the concept of an ‘in group’ or solely as an ‘art collection’, depending on where you are.
There isn’t actually any inherent portability to NFTs, given that the item being purchased, the token itself, still depends on interoperability with future end-user services to be ‘seen’.
Facebook/Meta proposed that their in-game items would be NFTs with portability between virtual worlds, but there’s no actual promise that these things “exist” in any form outside of Facebook’s VR ecosystem, and extending their NFT items into other games/cyberspaces would demand some kind of standard (a la the VRML of the 90’s, maybe?) to define a three dimensional cyberspace. This isn’t going to happen at the hands of NFT perps because it minimizes your own profit to make your virtual items possible to exist outside of your product. (That gives users incentives to migrate!)
That very question gets at the very core of what makes NFTs so frustrating, which is that there really is *no* logical end or extent to this. It doesn’t make sense— and it really does just prey on the desire of some to monopolize an idea or concept even if they don’t actually “own” anything. A lot of NFT buyers don’t understand this and think they’re “buying art” because NFTs are being marketed that way even though that’s not what is happening.
I don’t think most people that see these NFT ads are actually NFT buyers. This is just my guess and not substantiated, but I kind of think the modern NFT grift is meant to attract existing NFT enthusiasts with cash to burn to turn a profit.
Overseas listeners have quickly become a bigger and bigger player in the vocal synth community and are driving a lot of what is being recommended on YouTube, but on nicodou and TikTok, Japanese listeners are still very much in their own bubble with other Japanese speakers and overseas hardcore voice synth enthusiasts. We are not a great enough market share to make a dent in the sales of the VBs belonging to these companies, or even get their attention on a real level. It would have to be a truly widespread boycott, and it would have to include the Japanese community as participants.
That introduces the second problem-- information on why NFTs are damaging is all but lost on Japanese-speaking channels. Search in Japanese about NFTs and you will see a great swath of corporate participation but very little actual discussion on the topic. A good while back now, kikuo's Twitter account blew up because he announced that he planned to start an NFT project. The response from overseas fans was vehemently negative and the result was that he apologized and decided not to go forward with it. But kikuo wasn't apologizing for offering to do NFTs-- he was apologizing for offending overseas fans. Comments from Japanese speakers were mostly confused-- "why is everyone so upset about this? don't worry, we'll support you" and this exact situation has repeated over and over again online.
English speakers are loud but so far our activism in the voice synth space against NFTs has been no help in actually educating our Japanese-speaking peers about why NFTs are so objectionable. I've seen a single Japanese article written with an anti-NFT stance shared in a voice synth context, and it was not written by a native speaker nor was it widely noticed.
With all this in mind, the affect of not being able to support my favorite musical artists and scene is not worth the trade-off of making a moral statement against NFTs that, in my opinion, will mean very little, which is why, despite my sadness, I haven't stopped listening to Titiana and Jin's songs featuring IA and ONE.
The actual path to "fixing" this problem is communicating with the other side of the community basically and helping create an international understanding of blockchain technology. This is a massive undertaking but it can happen, slowly, if everyone can truly educate themselves and understand how to communicate in a space shared with pro-NFT evangelists. We need to be able to do it better than them.
I totally agree with this section of your post - unless we start educating Japanese fans and companies as to why NFTs are a bad idea, more NFT projects will just spring up in the vocal synth fandom. The Western and Japanese fandoms have long been "walled" and kinda closed off from each other, and while there has long been divisions between the fandoms on certain issues, the NFT thing is probably the first time I've seen Western and Japanese fans engage in something close to attacking each other. (Though admittedly, it's mostly one-sided with Western fans attacking Japanese companies right now.)
I don't think it helps that historically, Japan hasn't had the best track record when it comes to environmental policy, even though some of the most famous and best anime, manga and game series are about environmental issues. I recall seeing some memes about how some Japanese shops individually shrink-wrap food and veg when they absolutely don't need to (and speaking as a Brit, doing something like that would get you condemned as a business around here).
I super appreciate character-less vocal synths like Dreamtonics' recent batch because I know if they did have official character designs, they'd probably just be more generically pretty teens/young adults like the overwhelming majority of synth characters already out there. This way I can make Kevin and his friends a little ugly, just the way I like it.
I've been seeing some complaints lately about the Dreamtonics vocals being "uninteresting" or "forgettable", most attributing it to a lack of character to get attached to. And while I can see where people are coming from with it, I think the much worse sin is that they just kinda sound the same. Like, not in the sense that they're impossible to tell apart (although honestly I do kinda have trouble telling Qing Su and Feng Yi apart...), but more in the sense that they're all "basic" or "standard" vocals. And standard vocals certainly have their place, but I can't help but think maybe we have enough of those by now. At least for Japanese and Mandarin.
Now I'm thinking about how we used to get voicebanks intended for specific genres, like soul, opera, or enka. I really miss that. It seems like most new singing synths nowadays are just made with popular music in mind. Maybe we'll get one kinda suited for rock, but that's about it. Maybe instead of the 10,000th teen girl pop singer voicebank, we could get like... a country vocalist, or a heavy metal belter, or a throat singer that can sing more than just vowels (sorry Delay Lama). I think that, even without an avatar, you could attract a decent number of fans/users by catering to some underexplored niches like that. There'd certainly be less competition, at the very least.
I super appreciate character-less vocal synths like Dreamtonics' recent batch because I know if they did have official character designs, they'd probably just be more generically pretty teens/young adults like the overwhelming majority of synth characters already out there. This way I can make Kevin and his friends a little ugly, just the way I like it.
I've been seeing some complaints lately about the Dreamtonics vocals being "uninteresting" or "forgettable", most attributing it to a lack of character to get attached to. And while I can see where people are coming from with it, I think the much worse sin is that they just kinda sound the same. Like, not in the sense that they're impossible to tell apart (although honestly I do kinda have trouble telling Qing Su and Feng Yi apart...), but more in the sense that they're all "basic" or "standard" vocals. And standard vocals certainly have their place, but I can't help but think maybe we have enough of those by now. At least for Japanese and Mandarin.
Now I'm thinking about how we used to get voicebanks intended for specific genres, like soul, opera, or enka. I really miss that. It seems like most new singing synths nowadays are just made with popular music in mind. Maybe we'll get one kinda suited for rock, but that's about it. Maybe instead of the 10,000th teen girl pop singer voicebank, we could get like... a country vocalist, or a heavy metal belter, or a throat singer that can sing more than just vowels (sorry Delay Lama). I think that, even without an avatar, you could attract a decent number of fans/users by catering to some underexplored niches like that. There'd certainly be less competition, at the very least.
I still really want a Scottish-accented vocal synth. We got our Irish lass with Avanna but Scottish would be wonderful. (I'm neither Irish or Scottish but I do have AVANNA and I'm quite fond of her. Scottish accents can also be nice-sounding and it'd be nice to branch out accent-wise and try some new things, cause the most recent native Engloid releases have mostly been American.)
This isn't really an UNPOPULAR opinion but Synthesizer V handles American accents specifically significantly better than Vocaloid does. It could be that ARPABET is more specifically made for American English than the tweaked XSAMPA is, or the predictable triumph of AI over HMM (which i THINK is what vocaloid uses?), but most of the "American-accented" Vocaloids whose accents I actually like are the non-native ones with American-based pronunciation, like YOHIOloid and most Cryptonloids. When it comes to Vocaloids I prefer non-American accents, though American accents are so clear and understandable (at least to me and many of my fellow Americans). As I've said before, for example, I'm pretty fond of Miku's strong Japanese accent, and Avanna's Irish accent and Oliver's boyish English accent are also very pleasant-sounding.
On that note, when it comes to Japanese accents, I prefer the way VOCALOID handles it to how Synthesizer V does- not that it's BETTER, I just like the way it sounds more- e.g. I prefer Miku's accent to Maki's, and the others with cross-lang sound fairly fluent but...odd to me. (Stardust sounds good in English (Chinese accent, rather than Japanese, but still) but her VP speaks English so I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't all AI morphing.) I also much prefer Maki AI English to Maki Standard English, who has possibly the most awkward accent I've ever worked with- even worse than Nana (from what I've tried of her, thank you for existing free trials) in terms of difficulty to wrangle.
Not every vocal synth have to be realistic. Realism can be a flexible niche with different genre but it's not a full on requirement ALL upcoming synth must have. It sort of takes away the concept of synthesizer as an ELECTRONIC MUSIC INSTRUMENT that is MANMADE. You are making an instrument that can hit the range that an ordinary human cannot. It's like comparing an Impressionist painting to a work of Da Vinci. Claude Monet, pioneer of Impressionism was criticized and insulted since his work is not "Realistic" enough like Da Vinci, just a rough outline full of blotty colors and blurry details. It's very surreal art that does not quite fit the realistic world, but like an escape as you gaze to a painting of Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night. You can appreciate both Realism and Non-realism, both are not meant to replace each other unless that is what you think it will be, But that's just your opinion. Fans of both don't need to make a crusade or start a propaganda hate-movement simply to shove your self-justified opinions down other people's throats, especially those with very different cultural backgrounds, customs and social norms as you are, there is always context to why one trend is more popular than the other. Vocaloid manage to rise despite so, so many criticism and insults to the idea, especially the initial fear of being replaced but Crypton made it work somehow using the power of PR and alot of collabs.
Trends change once people will get tired of the same style over and over again. They will eventually would want something else. Art, fashion, Music architectural trends/movements is like a cycle. They Peak, then once it will be saturated, the masses will get bored and find another one, then Boom, a paradigm shift in the norm. Rinse and Repeat that in the last century.
I don't want to pile on synth v especially now but I've been feeling this for a while now. I don't know if this is just me but I've been wishing they would improve synth V's cross lingual support don't get me wrong but I appreciate and amazed it exists. But it's gotten to be such a mixed bag lately and feels like a complete after thought now. I bought multiple non English synth v banks because they kinda stopped releasing new English banks. I was wanting to use them in English cross lingual, but all of them are muffled or unclear compared to banks like Kevin, Solaria, and Anri. I got Mo Chen because I like his voice but his English keeps on getting worse each update. Also with Maki English getting vocal modes they completely change her accent and pronunciation. Adult gives her this weird lisp and breathy takes it away. With Weina's release they claim her to be bilingual in Chinese and English because they recorded samples in both. But I find Weina's English to more accented than say feng yi. I personally don't want to pay double the price for a bank that can "kinda" do English. I love synth v and I want it to improve to be the best.
I don't want to pile on synth v especially now but I've been feeling this for a while now. I don't know if this is just me but I've been wishing they would improve synth V's cross lingual support don't get me wrong but I appreciate and amazed it exists. But it's gotten to be such a mixed bag lately and feels like a complete after thought now. I bought multiple non English synth v banks because they kinda stopped releasing new English banks. I was wanting to use them in English cross lingual, but all of them are muffled or unclear compared to banks like Kevin, Solaria, and Anri. I got Mo Chen because I like his voice but his English keeps on getting worse each update. Also with Maki English getting vocal modes they completely change her accent and pronunciation. Adult gives her this weird lisp and breathy takes it away. With Weina's release they claim her to be bilingual in Chinese and English because they recorded samples in both. But I find Weina's English to more accented than say feng yi. I personally don't want to pay double the price for a bank that can "kinda" do English. I love synth v and I want it to improve to be the best.
i definitely feel this way too-- absolutely love the feature, and its the main thing thats got me buying synth v voices at all tbh as i wouldnt have had as many options without it. but when i got Ryo it seemed like there was something not right. and as the other vgoices that they made came one after the next (mo chen, an xiao) i saw that problem. they were a bit muffled, low quality, weird accents. idk exactly how the whole thing works but id assume it has to do with a lack of english data to work off of (potentially just... using what exists for other voices? idk). the vocal modes are even more of an issue with the cross language too, some i dont feel have much of a difference either (in my experience, as i use ryo).
i also find it to be a really big issue too that the lite voicebanks that allow you to test out the voices, dont have cross language... like, i get theyre supposed to lack some features, but if western/english users are to be encouraged to use their voice banks for cross language, we should really be able to test them out properly for that language. cross language feature basically creates a whole new range of voices to use and to not even know if the voice will sound decent singing said language, is a problem. and its exactly why im a bit miffed about ryo and other's having lack luster english that i wasnt really aware of before purchasing him. (noting i havent used a lite bank in ages but i assume they still lack the cross language features, correct me if im wrong)
Lite voicebanks still have no cross-lingual synthesis. I have most of the lite versions except if I have the full voicebank (e.g., I have Eleanor Forte AI lite's installer, but uninstalled that voicebank after I got Eleanor Forte AI), and even Maki lite doesn't have it.
I just wish they'd make more English voicebanks because like, just because XLS exists now, doesn't mean we don't need them anymore
I think cross-lingual synthesis is a feature being marketed specifically for the professional version of Synthesizer V, so I don't think that's going to change.
Maybe a bit of an unpopular opinion here (in which case I’m in the right thread anyway!), but I think it’s fair that they keep cross-lingual features exclusive to paid voices. With how much you can get without dropping a single cent, SynthV has to have something enticing users to dish out money for upgrades. I think it would be amazing if they did offer it for Lite VBs, I certainly wouldn’t complain! But from a business perspective, I completely understand why they wouldn’t.
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