questions on recording

LunaAkimine

Teto's Territory
dang it. what happened to my post :C what happened to the language bar.
I have some questions which i can't seem to find an answer for...
Firstly, what sort of mic should i use? I plan to use a USB mic borrowed from my friend. it's meant for skype chatting and i have no idea why is my text like this suddenly cos i'm typing it in chinese apparently.



Next, how do i record a good voicebank? I noticed that my voicebank sounds like i'm trying to strain my chest voice in UTAU.



Then, how do i make my samples clearer? I always record in studio quality and 192,000 hz or somewhere there. But it records a lot of background noise. And if I do noise removal, the voicebank sounds muffled. If i switch to DVD quality, it would sound muffled and I didn't want that. 


Lastly, if the voice sample contains background noise that isn't visible in audacity unless you zoom in a lot, will the static be louder in UTAU?
 

Yue Nagareboshi

Senior Tutor
Senior Tutor
Tutor
Defender of Defoko
1) A cardioid microphone is the most recommended because they records vocals better. You can find them with usb-port making them easier to work with.

2) About text... I have no idea o wo;;

3) Try so sing in a monotone, if you can stablish it before hand it's better. You can use OREMO pitch guide to know you are keeping a good tone.
Also, try to record short consonants with long vowels. like "CVVVVVVVVVV" and not CCCVVVVVVVV" This happens a lot with sounds like "Sx" "SHx" "Zx" and others. Do not overdo your consonants "Cvvvvvvvvvv" to make them too loud or your VB will be a bit bumpy nor too silent. Don't forget to make the samples at least 1 second to 1.5 long (and by this, I mean of effective wavefile, not the silences/noises before and after the sample, those does not count)

4) After recording them in OREMO, you won't have the issue of changing them from STEREO to MONO (MONO is recommended since UTAU only gets one channel of audio and that means STEREO will loose the half of the sound), you could use a program like reaper and use a HighPass Filter and a compressor so the sound become more stable (without the peaks that get from Cvvvvvv sounds) and will reduce the "mud" of the samples.

5) Sounds from the start and end of the waveform can be cleared with blue-zones of oto.ini, to the noise inside the waveform... inside the wave... well... this will need to  be a trial-n-error to find out.
 

MystSaphyr

Procrastinator Extraordinaire
Administrator
Defender of Defoko
If you check your language bar at the bottom of the screen, you can click the language abbreviation and change it back to EN. If not, I can try to help you fix it some other way. Please try to not use full-width characters for an entire post if you can help it, it's kind of an eyestrain and it cuts words in half at the end of lines V_V

To answer your questions though, look for one that has a nice flat frequency response. Mind telling me the model of the USB mic you plan to use? I can see how it'll do for UTAU by checking the specs and stuff ouo You don't want something that's either too tinny or too muffled and you can tell by checking the frequency response.

It depends on what kind of voicebank you want. You want to record in monotone, as Yue said. Hold the note for around 1.5 to 2 seconds. For powerful/strong-voiced banks, you do want to use your chest voice without vibrato, straining or cracking your voice. For a medium breathy bank, try to aim for more of your normal speaking voice (but still sing!). And for a soft bank, of course, record slightly longer, airier samples (I like basing them off Macne Sasayaki-san: her samples are almost 4 to 6 seconds and consistently breathy and soft.)

Always make sure you can use a pop filter if you notice puffing noises in your recordings. You can make a simple one out of pantyhose stretched over a bent coathanger and/or embroidery hoop. This helps a lot for clear samples!

A way to prevent echo and background noise is (this'll sound strange) to cover you and your mic with a thick blanket or anything cushion-y. It muffles outside noises. Another advantage that cardioid mics have over the kind of mic you seem to be using (as Yue recommended) is that it records in a particular heart-shaped pattern that tends to have less background noise as the dip in the heart (the area with the less pickup) is behind where you record, so it's very directional. If there's any way you can get your hands on one, do so, but I don't recommend spending the money unless you plan to use the mic for other things (singing, podcasts). My school actually has some cardioid USB mics we can borrow in the library so maybe you can find one that way c:

And as for the noise, it depends. Certain resamplers and flag settings in UTAU treat different frequencies in different ways. If you have a certain frequency noise in the background that UTAU responds to, it might amplify it. As Yue said, trial-and-error is the best method here.
 

LunaAkimine

Teto's Territory
Thread starter
ah okay, thanks both of you :D
so i don't really think i can afford the cardioid mics orz;;
i guess i'll have to try out different resamplers.. :C

also, i tried the blanket method. It failed and i almost suffocated in the heat 8'D
 

Hentai

Technical Admin
Administrator
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
Cartoid mics are aren't the be all end all. I know I have an early set of samples done with a generic instrument mics that were passable (as long as you sang into it properly) and vocal dynamic mics still work very well with voice and should still have good dynamic range.

Worse comes to worse use what you have on-hand or reach out for local resources be it your local school/university or some musician friend. Never know what your musically inclined friends might have lying around.

As for increasing your clerity beyond measures taken during recording you can also greatly improve your samples in post be it EQ, Melodyne, simple low-pass filters, or some fancy noise reduction suite. A lot of people neglect the power of post-processing. A little work on your samples can go a long way to all your outputs.

Downside is of course if you plan on doing anything in post you can't use OREMO. Which is a problem for some, but personally I never liked OREMO in the first place.
 

LunaAkimine

Teto's Territory
Thread starter
i found the low pass filter in audacity and noise removal as well.
on the side note, if say i record softly, will the voicebank turn out crappy?
 

kirrinx

Teto's Territory
If your record softly you'll just get a soft voice type VB 0: I'm not exactly sure by what you mean that and uhm any voice bank can turn out crappy regardless of the voice type strong/mature/young/soft,etc( bad otos or too much noise or inconsistent samples can  make the vb icky)  try too keep your pitch/tone/volume as consistent as possible as well so when you use the Vb in UTAU you won't get awkard volume/tone shifts  ~