Anything "special" you do for on your VBs to improve them?

HiddenVenia

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
My voicebanks have always been not very good and I'm looking for tips and tricks to improve my voicebanks, so I'm curious what everyone does when recording/working on their voicebanks.

Other than the obvious is there anything you consider "special" or "extra" you do when working/recording your banks to help make them sound better
 

PanTran

Ritsu's Rocket
Defender of Defoko
I sit in my closet!! It sounds kinda silly, and you will probably feel VERY silly just sitting in a closet, making gibberish Japanese noises into a microphone. But it's the perfect recording environment! It's small and compact so your voice won't reflect off stuff like furniture and random objects.
The way it works, in simple terms, is that you record your audio into the mic, and the room that you are in has certain "acoustics" which can change the tone of the recording. For example, the bathroom has very reverb-y acoustics, which is why u sound good singing in the shower ahaha. But the bathroom wouldn't be good for recording an utau because your voice would reverberate and echo back into the microphone, causing distortion and reflections in your samples! The closet, or at least the one I have in my room, has just plain walls, is completely boxed in, is quiet and away from the rest of the house, and I think the clothing hanging up actually absorbs the sound? don't quote me, on that ahaha. It works great if you don't have a professional studio, or that black spiky stuff that YouTubers cover their walls with (that stuff is foam, meant to absorb the sound of their voice so it doesn't echo back into the microphone)
 
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Arissa

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
I sit in my closet!! It sounds kinda silly, and you will probably feel VERY silly just sitting in a closet, making gibberish Japanese noises into a microphone. But it's the perfect recording environment! It's small and compact so your voice won't reflect off stuff like furniture and random objects.
The way it works, in simple terms, is that you record your audio into the mic, and the room that you are in has certain "acoustics" which can change the tone of the recording. For example, the bathroom has very reverb-y acoustics, which is why u sound good singing in the shower ahaha. But the bathroom wouldn't be good for recording an utau because your voice would reverberate and echo back into the microphone, causing distortion and reflections in your samples! The closet, or at least the one I have in my room, has just plain walls, is completely boxed in, is quiet and away from the rest of the house, and I think the clothing hanging up actually absorbs the sound? don't quote me, on that ahaha. It works great if you don't have a professional studio, or that black spiky stuff that YouTubers cover their walls with (that stuff is foam, meant to absorb the sound of their voice so it doesn't echo back into the microphone)
Ooh, never thought of that!! I'd decided on recording in my basement, haha, but this I've got to try!
 

PanTran

Ritsu's Rocket
Defender of Defoko
I also run them through audacity noise cancellation!!! It's super important to me! Basically, before I start recording the actual bank, I record like 10 seconds of silence (to capture the bg noise) then afterwards I import all the samples into an Audacity project, run noise cancellation on all of them, and use the file>export multiple to save the edited files. Depending on the bank I might add EQ, delete unecesarry long silences in samples, normalization, etc. But usually noise cancellation is good!

Oh, and my recording style is HEAVILY influenced by Ruko Yokunes male kire bank. Just take a listen to his samples, they are GODLY. Like a lot of people seem to think "oh i have to stay on pitch? Well that means my voice has to be flat and monotone" LIKE NOOO, as long as you stay on the same note and don't add too much vibrato, YOU CAN LITERALLY DEATH METAL SCREAM THE SAMPLES AND IT CAN WORK (cough cough Hakaine Maiko). So I always make a point of listening to Rukos samples (or at least keeping them in mind) when recording because I couldn't imagine NOT just letting loose and belting. Don't be afraid to make the samples emotional and stuff, it can add a LOT to a voicebank!!! And they can often sound much better untuned! Other UTAUs are recorded differently, so I suggest studying the samples of your favourite voicebanks and trying to get a similar sound with your own! Good luck!!
 

ayatonic

emo lord
Defender of Defoko
it doesn't really make them sound much better but whenever i make a japanese voicebank, i make sure it has both romaji and hiragana aliases.
this is less common in vcv's i think...? (maybe the presence of moresampler otos has changed this) but it can be really helpful when you have to fix something in a ust!
dunno, just thought i'd contribute. i see a lot of banks with only one alias type so //shrug//
 

PanTran

Ritsu's Rocket
Defender of Defoko
it doesn't really make them sound much better but whenever i make a japanese voicebank, i make sure it has both romaji and hiragana aliases.
this is less common in vcv's i think...? (maybe the presence of moresampler otos has changed this) but it can be really helpful when you have to fix something in a ust!
dunno, just thought i'd contribute. i see a lot of banks with only one alias type so //shrug//

i agree!! I wish there were more Romaji VCV banks! It makes it easier to type in all the lyrics ahaha. Tho i DID actually create a plugin than converts romaji VCV to regular VCV (well i didn't create it, i edited one of the text files in an existing plugin, but hey) but i never figured to give it to anyone. it was great for ust editing tho
 
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partial

Guest
....... then afterwards I import all the samples into an Audacity project, run noise cancellation on all of them, and use the file>export multiple to save the edited files.
Hoooooly smokes, you can do that??? I've been removing background sound from my VCCV samples one at a time!!
Does exporting as multiple files keep their names?
 

Melomad

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Hoooooly smokes, you can do that??? I've been removing background sound from my VCCV samples one at a time!!
Does exporting as multiple files keep their names?
Yes! When you have all of your samples on separated tracks, Audacity will name the files according to the track name.
 

HiddenVenia

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
A lot of this stuff is super helpful! If anyone has anything to add please share no matter how stupid you might think it sounds
 

slashhearts

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
it seems kind of basic, and not really related to the actual recording or oto-ing, but i feel like testing and finding flags and resamplers helps a lot. i used to use the prepackaged ones when i first started (and then the forced default utau-synth makes you use before i invested in a VM for my macbook); you can really hear the difference imo.

recording breath sounds is never a bad idea either! if you know how, you could even splice them on after vowels without having to record vowel+end breaths separately. (at least, i think. i had a friend do my oto and that's what i've figured so far.)
 
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